Polsinelli Shughart HQ @ 47th/Broadway

[KCPowercat]

I could get down with that. Set back like lockton even.

[AJoD]

They can't be serious.  What!?

[carfreekc]

Anybody know where I can find that plaza master plan that specifies where highrises should be located and the height?

http://www.kcmo.org/idc/groups/cityplan ... zaplan.pdf

That it? Haven't looked through it much yet. Hoping there's something in there to stop that out of context design and demolition.

[KCPowercat]

I don't think there is any way this happens as proposed. None.

[jdubwaldo]

What a disaster.....  There is no chance.....

[DaveKCMO]

perhaps if they were demolishing a blighted building that was not part of the "original" plaza development. but come on... one of the towers? sure it's a 1920s theme park reproduction, but it's what defines the neighborhood.

i vote to demolish "seville square" instead.

[KCDowntown]

That building is an abomination, it barely even makes an effort to integrate with the plaza. I say try and stop it.

KCDowntown

[DaveKCMO]

That building is an abomination, it barely even makes an effort to integrate with the plaza. I say try and stop it.

KCDowntown

doesn't even pass a sniff test for integrating into the plaza's aesthetic. if they can't tear down those apartments east of the plaza, they certainly won't be able to tear down an actual part of the plaza.

[ignatius]

Is time for Highwoods to let let loose of the Plaza and get out of town.

[mean]

I think it's a hideous structure, but if they have the money and can make it happen without TIF, more power to them. If the city doesn't like it, make West Edge more desirable.

[beautyfromashes]

I don't really mind them taking the apartments, the height or even tearing out that block but it looks Terrible! It's not even Spanish style.  It doesn't say "Plaza" at all. Seriously, this has to be a stock plan and not the actual plan. If it's the actual, the architect is an idiot.

[moderne]

360 architecture did better with an industrial brewery. This has got to be a joke----a poor allusion of setbacks applied to an ungraceful box.  The worst cheap box on any perimeter highway office park.  The borg dropped their cube to set up shop on the Plaza.  I wish Aggie Stackhaus had authority over this.

[carfreekc]

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/19/21 ... heart.html

From the above-linked longer article by Collison posted tonight.

...for some, the decision to demolish part of the historic fabric of the Plaza to make way for a new office building appeared to be rushed.

“I think it would be very shortsighted to not study the impact of this project to the fabric and environment of the Plaza,” said Scott Lane, president of the Historic Kansas City Foundation.

The Plaza, built in the 1920s by visionary developer J.C. Nichols, is widely considered one of the most distinct shopping districts in the United States, but it does not have landmark protection. Nichols and Highwoods have resisted having the area listed with the National Register of Historic Places.

“There’s no question, it destroys a sense of what the Plaza was and what it has been,” said William Worley, the author of the 1990 book “J.C. Nichols and the Shaping of Kansas City.”

[aknowledgeableperson]

I just don't get it.  Here is a project that will not require tax incentives and people are up-in-arms over it.  This is something that will add to the tax base of the city instead of something that will be given away.  Will it change the Plaza?  No, but it probably will be the first step in this direction in the long run.

Maybe, instead of being totally against it try working with them so that the building fits into its surroundings better.

And remember:

Welsh said other parts of the historic Plaza have been demolished in the past, noting that a section was razed to accommodate the former Saks Fifth Avenue department store.

“It’s just a part of that corner that’s being affected,” he said.

“I have no regrets about that. I’m pleased we can keep 500 employees in the center of Kansas City. There were a lot of incentives we could have used on the other side of the state line.”

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/19/21 ... z0x7QOQYjD

Maybe the firm just needs to build its College Blvd type building on College Blvd and move its employees there.

[carfreekc]

They set the tone with their design. Did they try to work with the surroundings initially? I would say not so much, judging from the reaction by many to the pictured design.

Tax incentives are not the only valid reason people can have to be worked up about development.

[carfreekc]

Maybe the firm just needs to build its College Blvd type building on College Blvd and move its employees there.

Amen. Even if they build this hideousness on the Plaza, in less than a decade they'll probably be playing the incentives game anyway, so go before they create longer lasting effects on the built environment in a treasured area of the city.

[JBinKC]

Hopefully everyone at this point realizes this is as bad as it looks.  The precedent this sets is terrible, the project is terrible, the demolition of an historically significant structure is terrible, what this does to the fabric of the Plaza is terrible.  360, Highwoods, PS should all be embarrassed that this is the best they could do.  And for $57M.  I thought I misread that at first.  

Read Collison's email.  Past precedents are being used to justify this.  The Saks building for the love of God!  What a disaster.  

Without TIF, on Highwoods private property don't assume this won't happen.  My prediction is w/out a significant outcry it will.  This is worth getting up in arms about.  Post on KCStar, write Funk, Highwoods, 360...  

The irony is PS is destroying exactly what attracts their clients to this location.  

[KCPowercat]

Akp....they aren't adding anything to the city tax base.  Remember how you stated in the past that very fact?

This isn't right. Paying for your own building doesn't allow you to do whatever you want.

Go build ons greenfield if that's what they want.

[aknowledgeableperson]

The precedent this sets is terrible, the project is terrible, the demolition of an historically significant structure is terrible, what this does to the fabric of the Plaza is terrible.  
...
The irony is PS is destroying exactly what attracts their clients to this location.  

Sorry, the precedent was established (and the fabric of the Plaza changed) years ago when the first office building was constructed on the Plaza.  And it has continued through the years and will continue.  What it will look like 10 to 20 years from now no one knows.  Given, though, what has happened to retail lately it just might be the future of the Plaza would be less emphasis on retail and more on office and hopefully more residential.
Is the look of the project terrible I would agree, at least for that spot.  Hopefully the parties involved would reach that conclusion before construction starts.
I would argue that PS's clients go to the law firm because of the service it provides not because the Plaza is the Plaza.

....they aren't adding anything to the city tax base

Yes they are.  A $57M building added to the property tax base in place of buildings that don't come close to that.

[KCPowercat]

Use that on your previous anti development argument to companies simply shifting places in kcmo.

This is a bad plan. Be the devils advocate all you want.