Poll: Does the Plaza need a drastic change, some change or on the right path?

[taxi]

Darlene, just wear sneakers and carry a whistle, gun and your heels in your purse. Or take an uber from Olathe.

[flyingember]

I like the Plaza pretty good but I do want to see more parking lots. A lot of ladies are not okay with parking in the garages at night.

Which stores do you want to be shut down?

[Darlene]

Shut down? I hope none of them.

[empires228]

Shut down? I hope none of them.

I think he's referring to the fact that you're asking for more parking lots, but the only way parking lots can be added is if we destroy existing buildings.

[MidtownCat]

Alright, confession time. Who’s sock is Darlene?

[Darlene]

I guess some of them houses up the hill can be torn down. A lot of them are old looking and frankly I think dangerous looking. It would be a little walk but I think people need to walk more anyways.

[TheLastGentleman]

It would be a little walk but I think people need to walk more anyways.

[Darlene]

It would be a little walk but I think people need to walk more anyways.

Thank you.

[earthling]

Moving Plaza improvement conversation from other Plaza thread here...

Plaza needs greater density to save it, both residential and commercial. Up-zoning of the entire Main corridor to encourage TOD must happen for streetcar Phase II to really be successful.

The NIMBY mentality of "Saving the Plaza bowl" non-sense needs to end.

:-

Agree it's time to end maintaining 'the bowl'. Highwoods tried to turn Plaza towards an office park by proposing to tear down some of the retail/residential buildings, which didn't go over very well. One tactic that might work is to propose adding just a few residential floors to existing Plaza buildings that can handle it. If I were the developer/owner, would release to media a preliminary plan to add a couple floors at first to get public reaction and then if no major backlash, release full plan for a few more floors. If too much backlash, maybe revise plan back to a couple floors. Though if public perception grows that the Plaza is 'going downhill', maybe ideas for re-inventing Plaza will gain momentum - which is why I'm planting such ideas in other thread. And well more than half of raggers think it needs to be more than just a shopping center.

But new Plaza owners are mostly mall operators so most they may do is recognize the surrounding neighborhood at best (as Nichols did), which does have more density than most of KC with all the mid/hirises - streetcar foot traffic will help. If they are not successful with Plaza (and it may struggle just as a mall in the online era), maybe they'll sell to a true mixed use owner/operator.

[flyingember]

Highwoods still owns an office tower and the residential building they proposed tearing down.

The new owners only own the shopping + small office space. They just got Nordstrom to move to the shopping district, I don't think they'll have problems sticking around even without serving the neighborhood.

[earthling]

Nordstrom will be new for Plaza but not new to metro and isn't really a top tier desirable store anymore, hence they are closing stores and transitioning to services. Some other shopping districts with Nordtrom still in downward trend.

The successful trend has been mixed use, not isolated districts dedicated to primarily one core function. The results of the poll above appear to agree.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/05/investi ... index.html