aknowledgeableperson wrote:And I thought there was plenty of parking downtown.
There's not. Especially in that area. UMB parkers have to be in a wait list for most of the lots in the vicinity of our buildings and the 1006 Grand folks have to rent spaces as far as Wall Street garage. That's quite decent walk from home to car especially if there's inclement weather.
The proposed Y supposedly may include a 600 space garage which would be needed if they expect the membership numbers for the new facility along with parking for surrounding businesses.
JFC, why are people surprised?! No, people don't want to walk 2 blocks to work. It's reality. Deal with it. Call it laziness, or sloth, or whatever. Vast majority of people don't want to walk to work. They want to drive to work, get out of their cars, and be at the front door.
For downtown, this means connected parking garages. Ask CEOs and HR for all major tenants downtown. Onsite parking is absolutely, unequivocally, essential.
We can argue until we're blue in the face, but this is reality in KCMO. It's reality in any midwestern, auto-centric, city.
KC-wildcat wrote:JFC, why are people surprised?! No, people don't want to walk 2 blocks to work. It's reality. Deal with it. Call it laziness, or sloth, or whatever. Vast majority of people don't want to walk to work. They want to drive to work, get out of their cars, and be at the front door.
For downtown, this means connected parking garages. Ask CEOs and HR for all major tenants downtown. Onsite parking is absolutely, unequivocally, essential.
We can argue until we're blue in the face, but this is reality in KCMO. It's reality in any midwestern, auto-centric, city.
For downtown, that means no density and street life, the exact opposite of what everyone who wants a good/interesting/healthy urban core would want.
[quote="KC-wildcat"]JFC, why are people surprised?! No, people don't want to walk 2 blocks to work. It's reality. Deal with it. Call it laziness, or sloth, or whatever. Vast majority of people don't want to walk to work. They want to drive to work, get out of their cars, and be at the front door.
For downtown, this means connected parking garages. Ask CEOs and HR for all major tenants downtown. Onsite parking is absolutely, unequivocally, essential.
We can argue until we're blue in the face, but this is reality in KCMO. It's reality in any midwestern, auto-centric, city.[/quote]
Funny, I understand where you are coming from and this is not directed towards you personally, but I park in a garage in Overland Park, KS at the Sprint Campus and I am walking more than 2 blocks from the car to the building door.
flyingember wrote:
It's especially ironic since 2 blocks is the stated distance people will walk to the streetcar.
For a few years when working at City Hall I would park on a street east of the loop, no matter the weather. Many other workers parked there (guess you suffer some to have free parking). That's what raincoats and rubber boots are for.
[quote="grovester"]Yes, but we're talking hard-nosed, tough as nails CITY blocks, not those namby pamby suburban blocks with water fountains every 100 feet.[/quote]
Pork Chop wrote:
Funny, I understand where you are coming from and this is not directed towards you personally, but I park in a garage in Overland Park, KS at the Sprint Campus and I am walking more than 2 blocks from the car to the building door.
The Sprint Center is a good example for suburban design.
Sure, they have a lot of parking but they didn't surround the buildings with huge lots. They built reasonably dense and then added expensive garages to maximize the use of the land.
Makes it a reasonable when comparing it to Corporate Woods with more parking lots than woods. If they had put in attached garages instead they could have tripled the building density OR increased the green space (or both).
I would take a sprint hq style of development for the east village if the alternative is big lots next to 3-story buildings. taking a couple blocks for parking and building dense on the rest would work
Two blocks is not what I was referring to for work. I walk at lunch when able almost 3 miles. The comment was based on people that live downtown and if they have to go to and from their cars daily, two blocks is a decent walk especially when dealing with daily errands/routines. I personally don't have an issue with walking two whole blocks but when it comes parking and going to a facility like the YMCA, thoughts are to have on-site parking. If no parking is built where are 10,000 plus Y members supposed to park on a day to day basis and the people that work there since most "nearby" lots are full or appropriated for specific downtown businesses?
[quote="flyingember"][quote="Pork Chop"]
Funny, I understand where you are coming from and this is not directed towards you personally, but I park in a garage in Overland Park, KS at the Sprint Campus and I am walking more than 2 blocks from the car to the building door.[/quote]
The Sprint Center is a good example for suburban design.
Sure, they have a lot of parking but they didn't surround the buildings with huge lots. They built reasonably dense and then added expensive garages to maximize the use of the land.
Makes it a reasonable when comparing it to Corporate Woods with more parking lots than woods. If they had put in attached garages instead they could have tripled the building density OR increased the green space (or both).
I would take a sprint hq style of development for the east village if the alternative is big lots next to 3-story buildings. taking a couple blocks for parking and building dense on the rest would work[/quote]
When you have an entire block that is available, like this situation, there is an opportunity to create solutions to improve density for all the surrounding area. It requires overall City planning though. The parcel is already completely cleared, so no more buildings have to be demolished to create parking. You can place some parking underground, and more in the center of the block, and wrap the building around it. This is opposed to a situation where another building next door is demolished to create parking for a business.
Let's look at the City garage at 12th and Oak. I believe that is a 10-story garage, and its' footprint is only half the block. Imagine placing that garage in the center of the entire block and building the YMCA administrative office space around it on all four sides--hiding the garage structure. Additional space could be built on top of the garage for gymnasiums, racquet ball and basketball courts, swimming pool, steam room, locker rooms, auditorium, and meeting space. Put some tennis courts on the roof, and an outdoor running/walking oval track.
Like I indicated, if a garage is part of the project, then with planning you could potentially free up some other surface lots nearby for infill buildings. Namely, the surface lot east of the Professional Building, and the surface lot south of the Ambassador Hotel. You also solve some of he parking problems for 1006 Grand. I recall awhile back that Sherman Associates toyed with the idea of demolishing the building on the SE corner of 10th and Walnut to create parking for 1006 Grand. Of course we don't want that.
When several adjacent buildings have gone completely residential, one has to consider parking for residents. They don't come downtown for a few hours to work and go home. They live there. Many will already have cars, or need them to go other places that can't be reached by public transit. That is the reality. It would be great if they live and work downtown, so that some surface lot spacess for downtown workers might be freed up for development, since less spaces are needed due to workers parking their cars in residential garages and walking to work. There are times you need to go places when the buses aren't running as well. Keep in mind that bus service ends by midnight to 12:30 am citywide, and for many of the younger people living downtown, that is a constraint on evening and weekend social life.
Not all parking garages have to be block busters creating dead zones. The Plaza incorporates parking garages quite well without doing that. You can bury the parking, and center it in the block, and put retail on the ground floor. You can also put parking above retail and disguise it somewhat like is done on the Plaza. Many of the recent surface lots in the South Loop were replaced with one- and two-story buildings. It's likely that the surface lots next to the Ambassador Hotel and Professional Building could also get that type of infill building. When creating density, sometimes one is really only attempting to fill in surface lots and recreate a continuous street wall that is more pleasant for pedestrian activity. It is removing unsightly mental barriers to walking downtown.
One of the advantages of having completely cleared city blocks, like in the East Village, is that there is better opportunity to hide parking because garages don't have to be constrained by adjacent buildings--like is the case with the City Center garage on Baltimore, and the garage above the CVS drug store. Smaller garages devote more space to driving alleys. Sometimes 50 percent of the garage structure is just for moving cars in and out.
chaglang wrote:Slow down. We are still waiting on flying cars and Smell-O-Vision.
Be careful what you wish for.
From the March 18th issue of Time
ADS for the 1960 chase film Scent of Mystery promised a revolutionary experience. As moviegoers watched Peter Lorre drive around Spain, wafts of roses and perfume would be pumped out of plastic tubes hidden under each seat. First talkies, now smellies! But the scent system proved glitchy, and the concept flopped. Now, a half-century later, analysts predict that the time for fragrant films may finally be ripe. The concept is part of a new wave of ideas and products that are bringing scent into the digital age.
Our electronic devices can listen, talk and respond to our touch, but getting them to smell is trickier. That's because it's hard to fool the nose and even harder to replicate what it can do. But entrepreneurs and researchers are trying to crack smell's code, developing aromatic ways to enhance what we watch, what we buy, how we communicate and potentially even how we monitor our health. "The best is yet to come," says organic chemist George Preti, a specialist in human body odor. "We're just getting into it." Here's a look at some of the odoriferous enterprises on the horizon.
GET A WHIFF OF THESE
MOVIES FOR YOUR NOSE
At CJ Group's "4-D" theaters, chairs have ticklers, machines ooze fog, and technicians can deploy any of about 1,000 scents that correspond to the action on the screen--like the odor of burning rubber for car-chase scenes. The technology gives consumers a can't-get-it-at-home experience and gives theaters a way to upcharge. The South Korean company plans to have four U.S. locations by the end of 2013.
SMELL-O-VISION
At the University of California at San Diego, engineering professor Sungho Jin is building "smell-o-vision" prototypes. His goal: a compact electronic TV accessory, like a set-top box, that would emit thousands of scents in tandem with onscreen action--like perfume samples during Chanel commercials. One drawback: scent cartridges would have to be manually replaced.
TEXT SMESSAGING
The Japanese company ChatPerf is trying to add scents to texts. Its $10 device plugs into a phone's audio jack and holds $3 disposable scent-emitting cartridges. A message sent through the company's app can trigger the device to release a selected odor like cinnamon or peppermint. CEO Koki Tsubouchi says the product will hit Japanese stores in July with 20 aroma options.
chaglang wrote:Slow down. We are still waiting on flying cars and Smell-O-Vision.
And to add, flying cars are already here. And have been here for years. One was in the 70's James Bond movie The Man With the Golden Gun. For other examples just Bing flying cars for many examples, or You Tube flying cars.
