OFFICIAL - City Club Apartments (former Midwest Hotel)

Issues concerning Downtown as described by the Downtown Council. River to 31st Street, I-35 to Bruce R. Watkins.
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normalthings
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by normalthings »

flyingember wrote:I knew it was a big project but that is impressive.
There is a decently sized center courtyard with amentities such as a theater, "beach", fire pits, etc. look at the city planning info I linked above.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by normalthings »

How would this sign affect streetcar power lines? Would it be better to put the sign on the green south facing wall of this development.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by KCPowercat »

I like this. Was hoping the corner retail was two stories and like the idea of a crossroads entrance sign.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by kboish »

This looks awesome.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by KCDowntown »

One of the most impressive things about it to me is how they were able to hide the parking. There is a one-floor underground parking level, then 127 spaces on the ground floor - but none of it along the street because they use a short row of stairs on Walnut & 19th up to rental units on the floor above. Usually with developments in KC you always have to take the good with a little bit of bad (i.e. Corrigan Station building a garage across the street) This development does a good job of maintaining the pedestrian experience - looks a little crazy overall, but I'm impressed with the care they took on the pedestrian experience around the development. Unfortunate to lose a couple old buildings on Main even if they were pretty average, but overall this would be a big win for the city in my opinion.

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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by flyingember »

ldai_phs wrote:How would this sign affect streetcar power lines? Would it be better to put the sign on the green south facing wall of this development.
off the top of my head the streetcar wires are 16 feet up. so there could be a sign at something like 25 feet in the air to maintain maintenance clearance. That's extremely high up and would look quite silly.

More of a pole sign style like the SE corner of Main/Truman for P&L could work well as a gateway. LEDs are much cheaper than 10 years ago when those signs went in so we could get something that could be covered with them and can display a seasonal entry to the core of downtown. I picture one on each side of the street. By doing low footprint poles they could be put at other gateways into downtown too.

As for the rendering colors, remember that rendering rarely look exactly like the real thing. You have shadow, dirt, texture adding detail that they don't show. People always complain about everything looking the same. A brightly colored building will make our classic brick buildings look even more historic. I like that they're making an effort to not make a faux historic structure for the entire block.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by JBmidtown »

This is exciting.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by earthling »

Now if every surface lot along streetcar line could get a project that follows these principles.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by smh »

I like it because it has an active ground floor all the way around. Retail on Main blending to walk-up townhomes on 20th and Walnut.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by JBmidtown »

earthling wrote:Now if every surface lot along streetcar line could get a project that follows these principles.
It could definitely set a precedent. It's nice to see an architectural firm from Chicago designing a template local firms can learn from. I would love to see local firms get the hint and design less suburban infill along the streetcar route and in neighborhoods like the east village.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by moderne »

For the most part the new apartments built DT have been unimaginative and boringly similar. Not only is this different but it nicely incorporates the scale of the midwest hotel. I love how it even repeats the height and size of the late beloved torched Hereford House on the corner.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by KCPowercat »

Instead of a sign over the street, a welcome to crossroads wall sign on the side of Midwest hotel may work just as well
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by missingkc »

Or, instead of a sign over the street, they could put a billboard on the south end of the Hilton site across 20th.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by grovester »

Some kind of tribute to signboard hill might be kinda cool.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by flyingember »

grovester wrote:Some kind of tribute to signboard hill might be kinda cool.
So a billboard?
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by missingkc »

Just kind of funny that everyone's talking about putting up a big sign and it was not much more than a year ago that the billboard on the Hilton Homes2 lot was bought by the city and taken down.
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by KCPowercat »

missingkc wrote:Just kind of funny that everyone's talking about putting up a big sign and it was not much more than a year ago that the billboard on the Hilton Homes2 lot was bought by the city and taken down.
Monument signs are a bit different than Cricket wireless ads IMO
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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by KCDowntown »

Looked through the design drawings and would say that the avg unit size is easily as small as I've ever seen in a KC apt project. There were many units in the 360 sqft range - and I think the max I saw was just over 1000 sqft. I would say the vast majority of the units are in the 600-700 sqft range.

There are 293 apts in this project - roughly as many as the One Light Tower (315 units / 25 stories).

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Re: And here we go again... Midwest Hotel to be demolished

Post by FangKC »

I agree they did a good job at street level. They could do some roof signage. There is a roof sign for the Power & Light District at 12th and Main. Such a sign could go on top of the one-story retail space where Hereford House used to be.

I think Kansas City could use more color in its' buildings. Some European, Central and South American cities use color in their buildings and it provides contrast, and livens up the built environment well. It doesn't have to be gaudy.

We have small dabs of it here already.

http://tinyurl.com/zkaznxe
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Re: OFFICIAL - City Club Apartments (former Midwest Hotel)

Post by missingkc »

I understand that a billboard may not be the aesthetic equivalent of one of those neighborhood entry signs from Portland. But there is a certain amount of humor/irony in the fact that everyone was happy to be rid of the billboard but now interested in getting a big, new sign. Guess I'm the only one that sees it. However, I also think that given the less-than-genteel, less-than-cool very recent industrial/warehouse nature of the Crossroads, a billboard might in fact be a very suitable entry sign.
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