KCRag Forum

I'm not sure I even like this plan. The rendering doesn't look all that great and I really do wish KC would keep the historic church and build this some place else. It's buildings like that church that give an area urban character. It seems like places like Boston and Philly don't have to tear down every structure to make room for new buildings. Why does KC when it has so much underused land?

But if it has to go...

https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... rsion.html

For the love of god, the press and residents are all against this for all the wrong reasons. It's time to let the "bowl" concept go and allow the Plaza area to develop. A 12 story building totally fits that area just fine and scales nearly perfectly. I kind of like the idea of taller buildings on the perimeter, but this building actually fits the bowl concept and will fill in the streetscape on 47th. I can't believe they even mention the word "skyscraper" let alone call this proposed 12 story building a skyscraper.

Let the Plaza be a dense urban district. If you want what's left of the retail to survive, they have got to bring in more office, residential and hotel space to the core of the plaza. Things don't stay the same forever. The plaza needs to continue to evolve and if the midtown master plan is keeping that from happening, the city needs to throw it out and start over with a more modern and urban oriented plan.

Agreed. Other surface lots available for this type of project in equitable locations. Ex. former medical building at 46th and Wornall that got shot down previously.

I would be all for "saving" this church if there were some sort of outcry/communication from the church itself. Do they want to stay? And if they do, how "utilized" is the building? These guys have services on Sunday and Wednesday - how many people attend? Is there any utilization of the building other days of the week?

I get wanting to save cool buildings, and I think this is a cool Plaza building. But, it's hard to get behind a "save this church" campaign if the congregation is 20 people and they barely use the building.

Besides - they do plan on including a Church in the new structure. Is this church being offered a similar amount of space at a similar cost in the new structure? I think these are all important questions that should be considered.

I LOVED my place of worship growing up - the building itself. But, it was actually the 3rd location for that synagogue, and it isn't there any more. As populations move, so do the places of worship. It's more about the people/congregation than it is the building.

GRID wrote: ↑Tue Dec 11, 2018 4:05 pm https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... rsion.html

For the love of god, the press and residents are all against this for all the wrong reasons. It's time to let the "bowl" concept go and allow the Plaza area to develop. A 12 story building totally fits that area just fine and scales nearly perfectly. I kind of like the idea of taller buildings on the perimeter, but this building actually fits the bowl concept and will fill in the streetscape on 47th. I can't believe they even mention the word "skyscraper" let alone call this proposed 12 story building a skyscraper.

Buildings taller than 10 stories are commonly termed "high-rise" in the trade, because they are costly/ unfeasible to build as masonry construction above that height. (See Chicago's Monadnock building for an exception and for more explanation). Shorter buildings are "low-rise."

I don't think there's any standard agreement on the height of a "skyscraper," but a building would probably need to be taller than 200 feet, maybe even 300 feet to warrant that term.

BTW, I oppose this plan. That church is historic (I think my grandmother went there in her brief Christian Science phase), and there are other nearby empty parcels to choose.

No more car holes on 47th!

DaveKCMO wrote: ↑Tue Dec 11, 2018 4:56 pm No more car holes on 47th!

I don't think this project includes any parking.

EDIT: Because it uses the garage behind it as part of the larger tower.

Here's the pre-thread content on this

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=196&start=3760#p585897

DaveKCMO wrote: ↑Tue Dec 11, 2018 4:56 pm No more car holes on 47th!

Yeah, I see how that looks like a driveway in the rendering, but those are steps.

Honestly? The Plaza/Westport area is already a serious freaking hell hole of traffic, cars, honking horns, speeders, hostile drivers, screaming motorcycles, trucks, exhaust pollution and the QT super block nearby isn't exactly going to help fix that either. Lost cause in my opinion. Barring some kind miracle which I am not counting on at this point.

Steve52 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 11, 2018 6:06 pm Honestly? The Plaza/Westport area is already a serious freaking hell hole of traffic, cars, honking horns, speeders, hostile drivers, screaming motorcycles, trucks, exhaust pollution and the QT super block nearby isn't exactly going to help fix that either. Lost cause in my opinion. Barring some kind miracle which I am not counting on at this point.

Have you been to other cities? It's fucking cupcakeland by comparison.

I'm laughing too.

Dave yes I've lived in New York, L.A. and agree but it's still a growing mess in the Nelson/Westport/Plaza area. I'd love to come up with a solution and be hailed as a hero and groundbreaking thinker but I'm not coming up with anything. Yet anyway.

Steve52 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 11, 2018 6:06 pm Honestly? The Plaza/Westport area is already a serious freaking hell hole of traffic, cars, honking horns, speeders, hostile drivers, screaming motorcycles, trucks, exhaust pollution and the QT super block nearby isn't exactly going to help fix that either. Lost cause in my opinion. Barring some kind miracle which I am not counting on at this point.

A federal road (US 56) runs down the middle of the Plaza, it's supposed to be a car-centric area.

Summit was designed back in the 1940s to help traffic go between downtown and Johnson County quickly

and so on.

It's not bad design for people, the streets in this area are designed the way they are on purpose

Outside of the intersection at Westport Rd/SW Trafficway - and the speeds on the Trafficway, I really don't see any persistent or growing problems. Sure, there's more traffic, but there are exponentially more things to do. It's kind of why we wanted all of this stuff to happen, right?

Interesting article on the historic designation that Historic KC is fighting for - the church board says they are happy with the redevelopment and have never considered their church to be historic. They question the motives behind the designation of the church as historic and allude to the folks behind the Block building just to the north as behind the attempts to squash the development of the church site.

https://cityscenekc.com/new-plaza-prese ... partments/

kcjak wrote: ↑Wed Dec 12, 2018 10:40 amthe church board says they are happy with the redevelopment and have never considered their church to be historic.

This is the same city that got the flashcube on the register, amongst other modern buildings barely over 50 years old. Of course a traditionalist church building 70+ years old is considered historic

Regardless of ACTUAL historical nature of the church, don't the landowners need to either consent or object to a third party's petition for historic status? At least w/ regard to the National Register, the committee is not allowed to designate over the owner's protests. Does this type of limitation also apply to the KCMO historic registration process?

^A few things about the NR process. It may sound like semantics, but the semantics matter:

The city didn't put the Flashcube on the NR, the building owners did.
50 years has long been the age that buildings become individually eligible for the NR.
Buildings younger than 50 years can be listed if they are important examples of a style or if something important happened there.
Being 50+ years old doesn't mean a building will automatically make it on the NR. It has to have significance.
Historic and significant aren't synonyms or interchangeable.

So: the Flashcube is not over 50 but it's significant for architecture and is on the NR. And there are a lot of 100 year old buildings in KC that wouldn't be eligible because they aren't significant and will never be individually listed on the NR. "Historic" in the context you used sounds like shorthand for the NR. But it's not as simple as "building X is this style and this age and is on the NR; building Y is older and of a different style, therefore building Y must be eligible".

If the church is not a good candidate for adaptive reuse than nothing is. If the garden space cannot be used as courtyard dining/entertainment then the footprint of the building could be extended to the sidewalk on 47th. I would like to see this project more across the street from Winstead's.

If not a restaurant, how would you reuse it?