North Plaza Hotel- 46th and Broadway

[brewcrew1000]

I thought there were close to 250,000 people in just an area from River to 39th, Benton BLVD to West Bottoms back in the 1900's, if we can match that same kind of density in that area and push it beyond to the plaza we will have a great city once again

[flyingember]

I thought there were close to 250,000 people in just an area from River to 39th, Benton BLVD to West Bottoms, thats dense enough for me

KCMO is roughly 470,000 people
A council district is thus around 78,000 people.

Roughly 37% of the city live north of the river. (2 full districts = 33%, a small portion of 4th is too, so I added 4% for that)
So that's roughly 170,000

That leaves 300,000 for the entire rest of the city

There's two entire council district south and east of your area. That's 150,000 people.
So that leaves 150,000 people for the 3rd and the part of 4th south of the river.

Your number is way high.

[brewcrew1000]

Sorry, i worded that wrong, I meant back in the 1900's that the city had that population at roughly those boundaries answering his statement about density and streetcar

[pash]

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[aknowledgeableperson]

Out of that 1890 number how many were kids? The ratio of kids to adults was quite different back then. Plus living spaces were quite smaller back then. The one advantage now to offset some of that is the ability to go higher.

[flyingember]

1940 census was 3.75 people per family
today it's 2.5
So it was 1.5x higher then.
http://www.census.gov/population/socdem ... abHH-6.pdf

194,000 times 1.5 and you get 291,000

even adjusting for family size the urban core is notably less dense

in 1900 only 33% of the population was under age 15. So there weren't a huge number of kids per family. For every couple with six kids that means you had 10 adults without kids. The 19th century was when the great decline in family size happened.

[pash]

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[FangKC]

We also have a lot more single people living in single family houses (one person households)--instead of multiple people situations--than we have in the past. I think in the last census almost 40 percent of households in KCMO were occupied by an adult living alone. White people were more likely to live alone than other ethnic groups. I believe among white residents of KCMO, over 50 percent of that population lives alone.

[mgh7676]

From today's PZED Meeting:

Amending Chapter 88, Zoning and Development Code, to add use and height restrictions for uses located within an area known as the Country Club Plaza generally bounded by Summit Street, Jefferson Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue on the west, W. 47th Street, W. 46th Street, and W. 46th Terrace on the north, Broadway, Wyandotte Street, and JC Nichols Parkway on the east, and Ward Parkway on the south. (254-S-315)

[kboish]

I believe they added an amendment in committee that any project that had already started the application process would be grandfathered under the previous (which is actually the current) plans guidelines. This project is the only one that would qualify at this time. It did give them a time limit of one year to get the project off the ground before that grandfathering would expire.

[GRID]

What is going on with this project? I didn't love the original rendering for this, but I liked the original plan much better than this new rendering. And what is with the plaza NYMBYs? Jesus, they don't want the plaza area to develop. That is a prefect location for a ten story building around the plaza if there was one.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/business ... 27217.html





Newest rendering

[FangKC]

If this project gets blocked, I hope that the developers will take their energy and capital and build something downtown. One of the development team is a partner in Sporting KC, and also involved in FanThreeSixy (formerly Sporting Innovations) in the former Hanna Rubber Co. building. They own that vacant lot on the SW corner of Truman and Main Street. They could build on that lot, and also across the street.

There is also the East Village. No one would complain about building height there.

I also get frustrated hearing people complain about losing their view when they live in an even taller building across the street (Parkway Tower at 4545 Wornall--13 stories). If you want to maintain your view, then the building occupants should buy the air rights for that property. That is what is done in other places.

[kboish]

Maintaining a "view" is not a legitimate reason to block a development unless that view is owned by someone or protected by the city (see liberty memorial- PAC). Too dense and it might cause traffic conflict with the city's stated goals of increasing population in the core. If they can get it to comply with the midtown plan's height guidelines (or close) then there is no reason to stop a project that is not going to ask for any type of incentive. This is what everyone has literally been asking for- and yet it still has push back. Unbelievable!

[flyingember]

It makes me think of the apartment tower on Admiral east of Oak.

[Midtownkid]

Is it odd that I actually really like the Commerce Bank that this would replace?

It's has a nice shape, a post-modern nod to the Plaza. Love the green tile roof and fountain area.

[atticus23]

The buildings of this new rendering are hideous. The people complaining about the height restrictions and their views being blocked can go fuck themselves; as someone pointed out earlier buy the air rights if you want to "save" your view. This type of push back infuriates me and only serves to promote the culture of entitlement that is currently sucking the world dry. Thanks for reading; my rant is finished.

[pash]

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[missingkc]

Seems to me the Kansas City Planning and Development Department has blessed and actually encouraged this sort of neighborhood activism. (I'm not a planner, but I suspect that placing the wishes of adjacent property owners above those of a developer - especially when the adjacent owners are residents - is a particular school of planning thought and has a name. Apparently Vicki Noteis subscribed.) It has gotten to the point in KC that refusal and obstructionism have come to be seen as not only the right but the obligation of every neighborhood organization. I know not everyone on here agrees, but I consider objections to an 80 room dorm sandwiched between two colleges on a street dying for development to be a glaring example.

From the outside, KC planning culture and objectives seem to be completely dissociated from broader, long term city goals such as increasing core density and encouraging public transit. The Planning Department seems to be in a world of its own. As far as I know there's no law requiring that the concerns of those touched by development plans to be weighted in the way KC does. I know that in Charlotte, neighborhood objections to increased traffic and density are sometimes raised, but this is a city that has decided on what it wants to be - an urban, dense place - and petitioners do not have the near guarantee of success that those in KC do.

[FangKC]

It has gotten out of hand to the point that one is cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. We need more density in many areas of the City if the City is to survive long-term. It's not just a revenue issue, but one that affects getting retail to return to neighborhoods. Many current residents complain about the lack of retail in their neighborhood, but they fight tooth and nail to prevent any sort of increased density to replace the population loss in past decades. Here in the Historic Northeast, many neighborhood associations and individuals have pushed for single-family-home zoning for a neighborhood that historically had apartments and duplexes mixed in with houses. They also actively promote the idea of getting rid of existing apartment buildings--to the point of demolishing them entirely. They are so anti-density that they are in effect chasing off any hopes of new retail they want coming into their neighborhood.

They don't want renters in their neighborhood, but mostly attack apartment buildings in their wrath. However, the vast majority of renters in Historic Northeast are not in apartment buildings, but in rented single-family houses. And a bad renter in a single family house is just as bad as bad renters in an apartment building.

It's gets to such an extreme that when there is a problem tenant in a rented house that is disturbing the neighbors, the solution put forth is to demolish the house--not get the landlord to evict, or get a new landlord to own the property.

These activists do not take into account that there are about 50 percent fewer residents in this part of town compared to historic population density. It's not just loss of former apartment buildings and vacant lots, it's because many single-family houses only have one person living in them now--even the large houses.

Dumping on vacant lots here is also another quality-of-life issue. However, it's almost impossible to get infill development done here to make that problem go away because adjacent property owners want to mandate what kind of development is done, or even the type of house that is built there.

They don't want increased density, but they don't understand that the increased density is what would allow the City to have more revenue to deal with the dumping problem, or that putting a new structure on that vacant lot would mean there are fewer places to dump.

But this is why we pick a mayor and city council to make decisions because someone needs to weigh the opposition of a few people versus the greater interest of the City. Does the City give up potential future increased revenue from a block to maintain the views of a few building residents? And the traffic issue? Please, Kansas City's problem is more a lack of traffic than too much traffic. If a city has traffic problems, it's because the city, or district, is successful. I would wager to say that there are only a few blocks in Kansas City right now that might have too much traffic. Broadway through Penn Valley Park being the first that comes to mind.

When you look at downtown KC in the 1920s and 40s, it had probably 10 times the amount of traffic that it does today.

And the idea that St. Luke's creates too much traffic already? Maybe for 30 minutes twice a day at most. These residents are looking for reasons to whine. They are probably the type of people that are determined to not be pleased about anything.

I'll give you an example. In one neighborhood, residents have been complaining that there is lack of retail near the houses. You propose a large retail store nearby. There will be a resident that is concerned that the store will not have enough surface parking spaces. You comply and add more. Now that resident is upset that all that surface parking will create a lot of run-off during rainstorms that will cause street flooding. So you comply and build a retention pond on one part of the parcel. Now that resident is concerned that the retention pond of sitting water will provide a haven for mosquitoes, which carry disease. You promise to add chemicals to the water to kill the mosquito larvae. Now that resident comes back with concerns that the pond water is now contaminated with dangerous chemicals used to kill mosquito larvae, and petroleum-based pollutants from dripping car oil and antifreeze that will get into the water table. Now that resident is concerned about too much traffic. You put in extra lanes on the street. Now they are upset that cars drive too fast down that street, the neighborhood is no longer walkable.

Now, after that store opens--say a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's, the neighborhood becomes more desirable. New apartment buildings and housing subdivisions are proposed. That resident is back now complaining about those projects being, too dense, and adding more traffic.

Then, once you have satisfied that person and build the new store, that person sells their house and moves anyway. That's the thing. The City could kill this project just to please a few neighborhood residents, and risk losing all that new potential revenue. But those residents who did the complaining will probably move at some point anyway -- whether the project gets built as is, or doesn't get built at all.

This goes back to a premise that I made awhile back that everyone wants to live in the City to be close to everything (shopping, jobs, restaurants, cultural things, transit), but they all want to live in a sprawling house on a 10-acre property within that city, and they don't ever want to pay the taxes to support that lifestyle.

[herrfrank]

When you look at downtown KC in the 1920s and 40s, it had probably 10 times the amount of traffic that it does today.

Pedestrian traffic perhaps, automobile traffic no. The advent of "too much traffic," meaning automobile traffic, was not until the 1950s in KC. Look at local architects Kivett and Myers who usually overbuilt for parking, viz. KCI airport and Arrowhead Stadium. Clarence Kivett designed the Katz Drug store at Westport Road and Main Street in the 1930s with significant parking and found it completely underutilized (he talks about this in the biography of his uncles, Ike and Mike Katz). The glut of parking came into play later, when the streetcars were torn up and people began to drive everywhere in KC.

And the idea that St. Luke's creates too much traffic already? Maybe for 30 minutes twice a day at most. These residents are looking for reasons to whine.

Agreed. The roads around St. Luke's is what city traffic is supposed to look like. These are urban streets, not country roads. They should be heavily utilized. If traffic is "too much," a driver can easily bypass this area on JC Nichols Parkway to the east or the Southwest Trafficway extensions (Belleview and Madison) to the west.