Suburban buidlings in the urban core

[KCforumer]

What's up with Sunfresh, Chili's, the strip malls, etc. in Westport? I mean, they are suburban in nature in the middle of an urban area. I do believe there should be NO surface parking lots in an urban area, such as downtown (CBD, River Market, Crossroads, Crown Center). But Westport isn't urban in the sense or at the level that downtown is. I believe that surface parking lots in districts like Westport are okay in moderation. However, they should be hidden from the frontage street and in the back. They should be very well landscaped and really should have an aesthetically-pleasing short wall around them, just for the eyes. Now, why isn't Sunfresh's parking lot in the rear? Why aren't the stores in the strip malls in buildings that are on the street front? Same goes for the various Eckerd, Osco, Walgreens and other stores in Midtown, Waldo, Northeast, and downtown/urban KCK. I mean, how hard is it to built against the street and put the parking in the rear or side, hidden from the street front? Does KCMO not have urban guidlines for projects in the core?

[trailerkid]

What's up with Sunfresh, Chili's, the strip malls, etc. in Westport? I mean, they are suburban in nature in the middle of an urban area.

You can thank Steve Block or whatever the F@#% his name is for that piece of development. He also is responsible for the lovely Midtown Marketplace/Big Box in the City. The sad thing is they TIFed that S@$%. He is a literal suburban dolt who leases big box centers and the like and I guess wanted to do the same thing in the city and practically thinks he is doing a public service. While other cities were readying to ride the new wave of new urbanism in the late 90s, we got Mill Street Station and Midtown Marketplace-- they even sound like suburban crap.

[KCforumer]

Let's kill him.

[dangerboy]

Basically, Mill Street Station is a snapshot in time of urban redevelopment in the early 1990s. Those places were mostly built when people in the urban core were happy to get ANY services, regardless of what they looked like. Ten years later a lot has changed, and newer developments have become more sensitive about fitting into the existing neighborhood.

[trailerkid]

Those places were mostly built when people in the urban core were happy to get ANY services, regardless of what they looked like.

Many still are in KC.

[bahua]

The problem is that something like the 40-acre(or whatever it is) store and surface lot at Sunfresh will not be replaced with something better, unless at extreme need. It's too difficult, under our system, to improve anything, and the land that Sunfresh occupies could easliy support 20 businesses, and a continuation of city streets instead of limited access, mostly through a frontage road(Mill St.) That area is vital now, but because of our property tax system, we are now stuck with a suburban development, when it could be put to much more effective use.

[tat2kc]

Look at it this way: now we have a couple really bad developments that we can point to and say: "don't do this!"

[LyRiCaL GanGsTa]

I was driving around the City Market today and was amazed at how many crappy surface parking lots there were. KC's mentality of putting 8 feet of grass in front of every building is amazing. The city let's people get away with it and even encourages it I believe. When somebody builds, the city should force them to keep the continuity of the street intact. Instead you have idiots building ridiculous 1 story crappy suburbany-looking buildings with 10 ft of grass in front right next to historically unique, urban structures. This city needs a French Revolution, it is rotten to the core. Throw them out into the streets and hang them.

I was thinking about how this city has been mismanaged for years...decades. Money that should have went for infrastructure for decades has been going to pork projects. Everytime we hear a politician, they are wringing thier hands about how there is no money for anything.

Today I drove by my old High School, Northeast High at 4th & Van Brunt. There were no less than 10 security and police officers waving batons, stopping traffic, and yapping into radios at each other in front of the school while trying to move traffic and get school-age thugs to go home. In 1980, my last year there, we didn't need a single traffic cop after school. We had security, but it was undercover. Kids got on thier buses and if anyone was out of line, teachers and counselors handled it and if that didn't work, cops were just 3 minutes away. The neighborhood was far more dense then, in fact many street lights in NE KC have been turned off to save time and energy because the traffic is so sparse. So many apartment buldings have been razed. Now they have an overpaid militia to handle the rabble at NE High... what a joke. I guess we should keep on force-feeding brainwashing rap to the youngins...