New Townhomes in west River Market? (along Wyandotte)

[Czar]

I think Trabon's project will be a great addition to the RM.  City Homes is also a quality development that has bettered our neighborhood.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

Yeah, they really shouldn't attempt to make something happen.  It might fail.

More appropriately, I would counter that if they don't sell, there is going to be a parking lot sitting awkwardly in the middle on of an urban area.   

Wow. I totally said things that deserved those answers.

[loftguy]

You were just holding your prism backwards.

[KC-wildcat]

Wow. I totally said things that deserved those answers.

Sorry, I've just been getting worked up by the anti-TIF/anti-development crowd in other threads.  Just got caught up in the moment. 

[medleyj]

I was in the River Market Wednesday evening and got a good look at the pictures they have posted on site. (I can't find them on ED's web site.) As much as I want more people to live in older parts of town, row houses just seem out of place for this part of town. My hope for that area has always been two to three story buildings with first-floor retail. Also, I noticed from the renderings that garage doors will face the gap that opens onto Delaware. Is that what we're going to get on the most picturesque street in old town? Blank garage doors? It makes me wonder, do architects ever look at the area they're designing for, or do they just work off the dimensions of the lot?

[staubio]

I was in the River Market Wednesday evening and got a good look at the pictures they have posted on site. (I can't find them on ED's web site.) As much as I want more people to live in older parts of town, row houses just seem out of place for this part of town. My hope for that area has always been two to three story buildings with first-floor retail. Also, I noticed from the renderings that garage doors will face the gap that opens onto Delaware. Is that what we're going to get on the most picturesque street in old town? Blank garage doors? It makes me wonder, do architects ever look at the area they're designing for, or do they just work off the dimensions of the lot?

That is why architecture without planning results in a whole that is less than the sum of its parts.

[Midtownkid]

It makes me wonder, do architects ever look at the area they're designing for, or do they just work off the dimensions of the lot?

Depends on the architect...obviously.  Some are better than others.

[trailerkid]

I was in the River Market Wednesday evening and got a good look at the pictures they have posted on site. (I can't find them on ED's web site.) As much as I want more people to live in older parts of town, row houses just seem out of place for this part of town. My hope for that area has always been two to three story buildings with first-floor retail. Also, I noticed from the renderings that garage doors will face the gap that opens onto Delaware. Is that what we're going to get on the most picturesque street in old town? Blank garage doors? It makes me wonder, do architects ever look at the area they're designing for, or do they just work off the dimensions of the lot?

Does anyone have a rendering for a reference to explain this post?

[TheBigChuckbowski]

Does anyone have a rendering for a reference to explain this post?

No, but I will say that if they build them where they put the sign on 4th and Wyandotte (which was my assumption all along, their garage doors will face the big parking lot. Now, you will be able to see these garage doors from Delaware but you'll be looking through 4 rows of parking so I don't really think it's an issue (unless of course they're an entire city block long).

[TheBigChuckbowski]

Looks like they've broken ground on this. Unless they're redoing the parking lot or something, they've had orange fence up for a couple months but today they've dug up a pretty big area out of the parking lot right where the sign used to be.

[loftguy]

I was told that they are going to build two modernist (el dorado) homes.  When these sell, they will develop two more and so on.  Good for them.  Not too much in the way of speculative housing being built in downtown at the moment.

[zonk]

STOOPID IDEA....the condo market sucks right now.  Why would someone pay $450K for a modern townhome in the middle of a parking lot?  Its the same price point and same concept as City homes and those aren't exaclty flying off the shelf.  Granted it'll be 12 months or so before completion, but come on.....bad idea....worse location.  This will be another failure.

[staubio]

I'm fine with however they want to phase it as long as they don't further diminish the density.

[zonk]

agreed.....this site deserves something  better.....community parking with dense development above it.  Multi-family, for-sale, rentals, what ever....just not 10-12 sf homes.

[LenexatoKCMO]

I don't really have a problem with townhouse/rowhouse construction.  Its a mode of housing that KC somehow managed to completely skip over during the heyday (any of our historical development experts know why?).  The absence of this type of housing has probably contributed to our lack of middle and upper-middle-class families in the urban core.  Of course it will take a lot more than a dozen of them to make a difference and it would be nice if there was an option for less than a half mil. 

[loftguy]

STOOPID IDEA....the condo market sucks right now.  Why would someone pay $450K for a modern townhome in the middle of a parking lot?  Its the same price point and same concept as City homes and those aren't exaclty flying off the shelf.   Granted it'll be 12 months or so before completion, but come on.....bad idea....worse location.  This will be another failure.

Be sure to let us all know when it's safe to get back to work, and where to do it.

[dangerboy]

Townhouses seem like a good fit for the scale and density of this location.  As was mentioned, we are very lacking in a large supply of dense family housing.  Union Hill is the only other place with a similar scale.

[Midtownkid]

I don't really have a problem with townhouse/rowhouse construction.  Its a mode of housing that KC somehow managed to completely skip over during the heyday (any of our historical development experts know why?).

I'm not an expert of any sort, but a good number of historic townhouses don't really exist in KC because of all the land we had/have.  Townhouses were put up in older cities that were booming between the 1700s and the early 1900s.  KC has some small booms before then, but we didn't really become a 'big city' till after the 1900s.  We do have a few Victorian row houses (as we all know, near Main and Linwood) and we used to have a lot more, but they have all been torn down.  A lot of the houses on top of the hill on the west side, while not actually row houses, are close enough together to be pretty much the same.

As far as this project goes, I think the developer is smart to develop this in phases.  I just hope the project sells well enough so we don't end up with 4 awkward town houses next to a parking lot.  The fact that they are to be designed by El Dorado is very exciting and will probably help them sell better than the cold 'city homes.'  I don't mind keeping the development smaller scale.  

[Midtownkid]

In case you haven't seen the renderings...





I really like the design.  The roof trellises look nice and the green roofs (if those happen) are really great, too.  I do wish the parking lot in back was shown as brick like the back alleys in DC's townhouse neighborhoods.  Small back yards would be nice too, but I guess the cars are the priority.

[chrizow]

so are there garages AND a parking lot?  that seems unnecessary.  i guess you still couldn't really have backyards though.