Knickerbocker Place Apartments

[dangerboy]

Anyone know what happened to this big apartment building on just west of Broadway?  It closed last year and looked like a renovation started, then all worked stopped months ago.  Right now it's boarded up and several of the historic balconies have been torn off.

[DaveKCMO]

owned by lioness. some friends of mine were booted from there at least 5 years ago due to a planned condo conversion and renovation that never materialized. would love to see those come back... huge three-bedroom floor plans with great details throughout.

[PumpkinStalker]

Picture available?

[ComandanteCero]

heh:

http://forum.kcrag.com/index.php/topic,8733.0.html

[scooterj]

heh:

http://forum.kcrag.com/index.php/topic,8733.0.html

Hah!  You linked to a thread that in turn links to yet another thread.

[PumpkinStalker]

I starting to get confused as to where I'm supposed to look at threads for this...

[ComandanteCero]

yeh, and the sad thing is it links to the old forum.... which just shows how long these apartments have just been sitting around empty when they could be great apartments in an interesting part of town.

[DaveKCMO]

i called MC realty, which had once merged with lioness. turns out they don't manage those properties anymore. kiva says they're owned by kansas city life insurance (right across the street), which used to be a stakeholder in lioness. when i called their office, i got a recording stating that business hours were from 8 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.

[Tosspot]

[PumpkinStalker]

Nice, thanks Toss.  I see lots of potential.  Someone get busy!  Are most of the lofts/appartments on Main income capped?

[Maitre D]

Nice, thanks Toss.  I see lots of potential.  Someone get busy!  Are most of the lofts/appartments on Main income capped?

that's not on Main.

[PumpkinStalker]

Anyone know what happened to this big apartment building on just west of Broadway?

Ahem, whoops.

[FangKC]

I also wish someone would get on the ball and do something with those apartments.  They have the particular cache of once being lived in by actress Jean Harlow before fame found her.



From the KC Library Local History database:

Author: Katherine Baxter ,
Source: Independent-Kansas City,
Date: August/21/1915

Photo and article about the Knickerbocker Apartments "located in Knickerbocker Place (Thirty-sixth street [or 36th Street]), between Broadway and Pennsylvania avenue, in the heart of the most exclusive in-town residence district, yet sufficiently removed from the business district to escape all noise and traffic." Built by James Rose and managed by "C. A. Jimerson of the Commerce Trust Company."

http://www.kclibrary.org/localhistory/m ... aID=116129

Kansas City Life has held the surrounding neighborhood hostage with their drawn-out redevelopment plans.  This is certainly a case where a company like that should have gotten out of a residential neighborhood and built adequate space downtown, where they belonged in the first place.

Now there is a company that City leaders should try and get to move downtown now.

[moderne]

And abandon the temple on Broadway?  Have you been in that place?  It rivals some aspects of Kirkwood Hall at the Nelson.  The apartments that exist on the south side of the street are only half the story.  25 years ago there was a matching row on the north side.  KC Life raised them to make way for the addition, if I remember, for its data systems.

[WinchesterMysteryHouse]

I try to avoid posting personal details here and speak objectively, or at least ask half-informed questions of you experts in urban fields.  But I'll venture that I'm the only poster with experience living in the Ambassador on Knickerbocker Place.  That sidestreet is a nexus of drugs and associated trouble.  Its possibly the best block area for delinquency on Broadway 'til Penn Valley Park, and no amount of condos will clean it up 'til the Ambassador brownstones are long gone. 

[KCgrammarhawk]

And abandon the temple on Broadway?  Have you been in that place?  It rivals some aspects of Kirkwood Hall at the Nelson.   The apartments that exist on the south side of the street are only half the story.  25 years ago there was a matching row on the north side.  KC Life raised them to make way for the addition, if I remember, for its data systems.

I believe you were looking for the word raze here rather than raise, which carries an opposite meaning in this case.

[Thaine]

I try to avoid posting personal details here and speak objectively, or at least ask half-informed questions of you experts in urban fields.  But I'll venture that I'm the only poster with experience living in the Ambassador on Knickerbocker Place.  That sidestreet is a nexus of drugs and associated trouble.  Its possibly the best block area for delinquency on Broadway 'til Penn Valley Park, and no amount of condos will clean it up 'til the Ambassador brownstones are long gone. 

I lived in the Ambassador in the early 80's.  Yeah that area has sucked for a long time.

[mean]

Its possibly the best block area for delinquency on Broadway 'til Penn Valley Park, and no amount of condos will clean it up 'til the Ambassador brownstones are long gone. 

So it's the building's fault?

[Maitre D]

So it's the building's fault?

[WinchesterMysteryHouse]

Yeah, 'cause they're haunted.

When we talk about the state of buildings the ownership is implied in their condition. 

And those brownstones are haunted.