KCRag Forum

West 39th Street Apartments

Plans for another residential project showed up on the city's development tracker site in a rezoning application.
5 floors, 46 apartments over 38 parking stalls & lobby to replace the Valentine Car Wash eyesore near the SE corner of 39th & Summit/SW Trfy

The sketchUp model looks to be preliminary. The elevations show a little more refinement. The ped experience isn't great with two car holes (entrance & exit) and a minimal lobby, but it is still an improvement on existing conditions and there probably weren't many options on a 100' x 141' lot. I find it interesting that the entire building appears to be clad in porcelain tiles.

^Nice enough infill even if basic, especially replacing a carwash. And easy walk to Westport.

Design qualms aside, it's great to see a development proposal here (especially one of good density). This really isn't the greatest lot/location and it makes all the more head-scratching why some of the more prime lots around Westport remain surface lots or underdeveloped.

Has someone alerted HKC to this clear violation of Westport Architectural CharacterTM ?

earthling wrote:^Nice enough infill even if basic, especially replacing a carwash. And easy walk to Westport.

I'm amazed there's two car washes across the street from each other on this block.

chaglang wrote:Has someone alerted HKC to this clear violation of Westport Architectural CharacterTM ?

Wait til Mary Jo Draper finds out about this!

Split this into it's own topic.

Critical_Mass wrote:West 39th Street Apartments

Better than that car wash, but still very hateful to the pedestrian. Minimize the car hole and I am in favor. As shown, I think this hurts making this part of 39th Street worth caring about.

They need to push all the new buildings back from the street to create a wider sidewalk with green spaces. That stretch of 39th feels really hostile to pedestrians. I always walk on 38th instead.

Midtownkid wrote:They need to push all the new buildings back from the street to create a wider sidewalk with green spaces. That stretch of 39th feels really hostile to pedestrians. I always walk on 38th instead.

Or put 39th on a road diet...

DaveKCMO wrote:

Midtownkid wrote:They need to push all the new buildings back from the street to create a wider sidewalk with green spaces. That stretch of 39th feels really hostile to pedestrians. I always walk on 38th instead.

Or put 39th on a road diet...

Yes! 39th street is begging for a road diet. There is a two block stretch east of Troost is two lane anyway, and on the entire road people sometimes park in the outer lane forcing people driving in the outer lane to merge. Even drivers would get behind a road diet on 39th.

DaveKCMO wrote:Or put 39th on a road diet...

ditto

As someone who lives off of 39th, I couldn't disagree more. I avoid the intersections of 39th/SW Trfy at all costs, especially during rush hour because traffic builds up for blocks. Maybe if 39th had designated left turn lanes and a single thru lane it could be accomplished, but right now its a cluster most of the day.

Look at the Grand painting plan, it's very similar to this problem

This is the same problem with Grand downtown and Armour in NKC. All three are notable through streets.

Every block doesn't have a protected turn lane
Every block doesn't have a protected left turn cycle
And having some blocks with parking and some not just adds to the mess.

All three parts need to change when a road gets heavy enough. You have to segregate modes and turns from each other. Armour at least has dedicated turn lanes and it functions much better than Grand or 39th as a result

kcjak wrote:As someone who lives off of 39th, I couldn't disagree more. I avoid the intersections of 39th/SW Trfy at all costs, especially during rush hour because traffic builds up for blocks. Maybe if 39th had designated left turn lanes and a single thru lane it could be accomplished, but right now its a cluster most of the day.

You just described the road diet idea. Looks like we're all in agreement.

A road diet! As someone who lives in Manheim and works in Westport, I think about this all of the time. In fact, I sketched this last week. You could get away with dedicated parking lanes AND a dedicated left turn lane if you shortened the sidewalks, which is possible, because the parking areas would protect the pedestrian and the bump outs would slow traffic on the through lanes while providing area for shade trees. Or something.




*edit I didn't realize photobucket sucked now

Imaged added in previous post, sorry!

We should NEVER again make ANY sidewalk more narrow.

If that's what you meant by 'shortened'.

loftguy wrote:We should NEVER again make ANY sidewalk more narrow.

If that's what you meant by 'shortened'.

Generally agree--but if it's through a residential section like the sketch shows there might be some opportunity to make an exception. Although the sidewalks through that portion are already pretty narrow...

Might be able to use the city ROW and push the sidewalks closer to the homes.