KCRag Forum

I made this, masterplan with everything put together, some are my ideas, some are things already being planned.

Streetcar extensions, New broadway bridge, new lewis and clark viaduct curves, reroute I-35 and I-70, westside highway to parkway conversion, MLB sites, North loop cap, south loop cap, etc.

Full size image https://imgur.com/a/jA519mZ

An actual downtown master plan should be starting soon. Can’t recall if it was funded or not though, but it’s been discussed as happening.

DaveKCMO wrote:An actual downtown master plan should be starting soon. Can’t recall if it was funded or not though, but it’s been discussed as happening.

That's good. because as of right now it seems all the plans are disconnected from each other, which become more evident with Wyco recently coming out against the north loop removal.

They can give me a consulting fee to use my plan as a starting point if they want

On the three MLB sites-

#1 contains the former Executive Plaza. They've had permits for work since February
#3 is the site of a planned apartment complex. A full third of this land is gone

Love it. If I was granted only one wish for DT it would be moving 35 off of SW Trafficway.

Not my second wish but I would build a stadium (rolling roof), west of Bartle, over the highway trench, so it could be leveraged for convention space. City views would be great too.

shinatoo wrote:Love it. If I was granted only one wish for DT it would be moving 35 off of SW Trafficway.

Not my second wish but I would build a stadium (rolling roof), west of Bartle, over the highway trench, so it could be leveraged for convention space. City views would be great too.

Tear down brand new apartments, got it.

The trench is way skinnier than a stadium.

flyingember wrote:

shinatoo wrote:Love it. If I was granted only one wish for DT it would be moving 35 off of SW Trafficway.

Not my second wish but I would build a stadium (rolling roof), west of Bartle, over the highway trench, so it could be leveraged for convention space. City views would be great too.

Tear down brand new apartments, got it.

The trench is way skinnier than a stadium.

New apartments? WTF are you talking about?

The trench. Yes, it is skinner. That's why I said OVER the trench. The highway running under.

shinatoo wrote:

flyingember wrote:

shinatoo wrote:Love it. If I was granted only one wish for DT it would be moving 35 off of SW Trafficway.

Not my second wish but I would build a stadium (rolling roof), west of Bartle, over the highway trench, so it could be leveraged for convention space. City views would be great too.

Tear down brand new apartments, got it.

The trench is way skinnier than a stadium.

New apartments? WTF are you talking about?

The trench. Yes, it is skinner. That's why I said OVER the trench. The highway running under.

Don't think that would be smart from a security standpoint. You wouldn't want someone to drive a Oklahoma city type truck bomb under the stadium during a game.

Plus you have FAA height restrictions in that area as its in the downtown airport flight path

dnweava wrote:

shinatoo wrote:

flyingember wrote:
Tear down brand new apartments, got it.

The trench is way skinnier than a stadium.

New apartments? WTF are you talking about?

The trench. Yes, it is skinner. That's why I said OVER the trench. The highway running under.

Don't think that would be smart from a security standpoint. You wouldn't want someone to drive a Oklahoma city type truck bomb under the stadium during a game.

Plus you have FAA height restrictions in that area as its in the downtown airport flight path

Third wish, remove the downtown airport and it's stupid height restrictions.

I would think you could reinforce better against a bomb under a building than beside it, which is an issue for every building. See Oklahoma City.

Think it would be harder to reinforce against a bomb in the contained space under a building(like a giant pipe bomb). Beside it some of the explosive force would dissipate in other directions.

moderne wrote:Think it would be harder to reinforce against a bomb in the contained space under a building(like a giant pipe bomb). Beside it some of the explosive force would dissipate in other directions.

I'm not a bomboligist.

shinatoo wrote:
New apartments? WTF are you talking about?

The trench. Yes, it is skinner. That's why I said OVER the trench. The highway running under.

You have a distinct lack of appreciation of how big a professional stadium is and how small the freeway is in comparison.

The freeway trench is 150 to 175 feet wide.

The stadium by itself is inside a square 1130x980 feet

There's one place it could go
Pennslyvania to the bluffs is 960 feet at the skinniest and if we remove the 14th st bridge, we have about 1120 feet N-S from 12th to 670. So to build this stadium you need to destroy the brand new apartments build at 12th and Penn as well as the FBI building

It gets crazier. You want to elevate about 350,000 square feet of building over the freeway. That's around 3x the size of Bartle Hall over 670 and you want it to be a major stadium that's substantially heavier.

We should look at Oklahoma City. They relocated I-40 and have a masterplan for their southdown area. We could have a similar plan. I really like how they are building a park system to connect downtown to their riverfront park. We really could connect our downtown with the river better than it is now.

OKC is building a brand new suburban style development after destroying what's already there. That's the exact opposite of what we should do

flyingember wrote:OKC is building a brand new suburban style development after destroying what's already there. That's the exact opposite of what we should do

destroying vacant lots, warehouses, and junk yards? nah, it's an upgrade. The area looks like Paseo West industrial area, which I would have no problem demolishing 80% of that area for a nice redevelopment.

dnweava wrote:

flyingember wrote:OKC is building a brand new suburban style development after destroying what's already there. That's the exact opposite of what we should do

destroying vacant lots, warehouses, and junk yards? nah, it's an upgrade. The area looks like Paseo West industrial area, which I would have no problem demolishing 80% of that area for a nice redevelopment.

You would destroy established businesses employing workers to build homes that could improve a larger area if built as infill housing instead?

You would destroy historic structures that could be renovated and serve as lower income housing?

flyingember wrote:

dnweava wrote:

flyingember wrote:OKC is building a brand new suburban style development after destroying what's already there. That's the exact opposite of what we should do

destroying vacant lots, warehouses, and junk yards? nah, it's an upgrade. The area looks like Paseo West industrial area, which I would have no problem demolishing 80% of that area for a nice redevelopment.

You would destroy established businesses employing workers to build homes that could improve a larger area if built as infill housing instead?

You would destroy historic structures that could be renovated and serve as lower income housing?

I NEVER said destroy historic structures or houses. That area of OKC is mostly vacant lots and junk yards. I'm sorry, but a junk yard does not belong downtown.

To be fair, there aren't that many historic buildings left in the Paseo West neighborhood. A few, yes. There are 45 blocks in Paseo West, and probably 28 older buildings worth saving, and a smattering of individual houses.

Paseo West would be the perfect neighborhood to redevelop into a true urban neighborhood though. Not necessarily full of apartment towers, but 3-4 story townhouses mid-block, and some 8-10 story apartment buildings on the end of each block. Any parking would be underground or hidden in interior courtyards. The neighborhood ideally would be seemless wall-to-wall buildings with no gaping spaces in between. This would be an experiment to see if Kansas City can build a truly-urban neighborhood from scratch, and make it the densest neighborhood in the City.

This would be one of the few places you could accomplish it without a lot of NIMBYism.

It would be relatively easy to run a streetcar through the neighborhood (probably on 11th or 12th streets) that would eventually end up running down Independence Avenue. It would be justified to have a spur that extended to Paseo at least because the neighborhood would be created more densely from the get-go that any other in Kansas City. It would be a real transit-oriented neighborhood.

Having such a dense mixed use neighborhood next to the downtown loop would make it more attractive to employers.

FangKC wrote:To be fair, there aren't that many historic buildings left in the Paseo West neighborhood. A few, yes. There are 45 blocks in Paseo West, and probably 28 older buildings worth saving, and a smattering of individual houses.

Exactly this. Paseo West could use a complete overhaul.
Sure, make an effort to save the very, very few truly significant structures that remain.

But Paseo West isn't the 800 LB gorilla in the room.
The East Village is the 800 LB gorilla.
Until the East Village becomes "something," Paseo West doesn't even need to be discussed.

I always thought paseo west would become the next crossroads after crossroads is completely gentrified, for better or worse