Columbus Park Redevelopment

[KCPowercat]

Cool to see townhomes, I can't imagine buying at that location hugging up against an interstate.

[taxi]

Funny enough, they are calling it a "Historic Groundbreaking".

[KC_Ari]

They need about a dozen more "Historic Groundbreaking"'s to fill empty space in CP.

[KCPowercat]

Historic groundbreaking would be the skatepark land.

[alejandro46]

The for sale housing inventory in CP has always been very low. People don’t have a lot of options.

[taxi]

My loft condo will be for sale within a month. DM for more info.

[dnweava]

Historic groundbreaking would be the skatepark land.

leave my skatepark alone! The city needs to turn it into an official park already....

[KCPowercat]

It's part of a larger plat already under Housing Authority control. There were proposals to move it under the new Broadway bridge.

edit - fixed who had control

[taxi]

It's part of a larger plat already under LCRA control. There were proposals to move it under the new Broadway bridge.

It's actually controlled by the Housing Authority and they have bungled it for the past 20+ years. The LCRA has nothing to do with it that section, which is about 6 acres. The proposal for a skatepark underneath the B'way Bridge is a pipedream, pardon the pun.

[KCPowercat]

Sorry, Housing Authority not LCRA. Knew I should have looked it up before just thinking I would remember right.

[FangKC]

The Housing Authority put an RFP out on the 6 acres and the deadline was supposedly back in February. There hasn't been any news so they are either still reviewing the RFP, or didn't get any acceptable submissions.

viewtopic.php?t=21339&hilit=6+acres&start=20

[bspecht]

[taxi]

The Housing Authority put an RFP out on the 6 acres and the deadline was supposedly back in February. There hasn't been any news so they are either still reviewing the RFP, or didn't get any acceptable submissions.

viewtopic.php?t=21339&hilit=6+acres&start=20

They narrowed it down to 3 proposals and each group made a presentation to the neighborhood. One was clearly the best. Then an ad hoc "development committee" made up of about 30 people who all own single family homes in the neighborhood chose nearly unanimously to throw their support behind the group that proposed building, you guessed it, single family homes. 50 of them. On 6 acres. From a developer that has little or no experience with urban development of that scale. That was the official position of the CP neighborhood, which was relayed to HAKC. They were supposed to use that input in making their decision for choosing the development team and subsequent sale of the land. In typical fashion, they were to name the chosen developer in July and we have not heard shit from them.

There is an agreement in place, from 1997, between the City, CP, Guinotte Manor Tenants' Association and HAKC to turn the land over to private development. They put the land up for sale in February of 2021 and received multiple offers for fair market value but decided to issue the RFP, instead. That took them another 18 months. To issue the RFP. And I thought I was slow.

[FangKC]

The City needs to overrule the neighborhood in this situation. I'm sorry, but it needs to be done. This type of situation harms the City in the long run. The neighborhood people are never going to do what's good for the long-term health of the City. The people on that ad hoc committee don't want to live in a large city. They want to live in a small village. Better they just move to some small town miles from the edge of the Metro.

This is a neighborhood literally within Downtown. It must be denser. At a minimum, this neighborhood needs to be zero setback townhouses with alley garages with ADUS. Along 3rd Street building apartment buildings and not any like the ones designed by Kite Singleton to the west.

[dukuboy1]

why not a mix of townhomes and then single family rowhomes and such. I'd look to what NKC has done in the Northern edge of their city, across from Macken Park. That whole area has a mix of townhomes, Single family rowhomes and even some apartment/multi family units. That mix has seemed to create a very nice neighborhood feel and popular as they have been building out the remaining parcels since it first opened and all that land is almost filled. Creating something like that I think would be a great no brainer for that area. Plus it could serve as more of the "family side" of the River Market so to speak in that to the West is the retail, dining, and entertainment and over to the East is owner occupied, families and a mix of neighborhood retail, dining, etc. like Brookside or PV.

[Cratedigger]

I had thought the same thing. Seems like a good compromise between neighborhood and city interests. I would be in interested in seeing what BoxDevCo Real Estate, which built Blume in Shawnee, would come up with.

[Highlander]

The City needs to overrule the neighborhood in this situation. I'm sorry, but it needs to be done. This type of situation harms the City in the long run. The neighborhood people are never going to do what's good for the long-term health of the City. The people on that ad hoc committee don't want to live in a large city. They want to live in a small village. Better they just move to some small town miles from the edge of the Metro.

This is a neighborhood literally within Downtown. It must be denser. At a minimum, this neighborhood needs to be zero setback townhouses with alley garages with ADUS. Along 3rd Street building apartment buildings and not any like the ones designed by Kite Singleton to the west.

The city (via the HAKC) operates one of the least dense, suburban style housing projects in the urban core just north of Columbus Park.
https://i0.wp.com/urbanangle.net/wp-con ... -Today.jpg

I wonder if the city would really push back.

[FangKC]

No. They won't push back. No one on the City Council appears to be concerned about the long-term financial health of the City when it comes to perpetuating suburban-style density throughout the City, and the Ponzi scheme it is. If the conservative Republicans in the State Legislature eventually get their way, and the City earnings tax goes away, KCMO will be screwed.

Kansas City is determined not to ever become a big city with the density required to fund things. The parks we already have for example, and that's not counting the parks that will be demanded by future subdivisions on undeveloped farmland within City limits. We can't even properly fund building inspectors and code enforcement.

Our "Grand Boulevard of the Americas" has crumbling sidewalks that are still not repaired even though the City passed a bond issue for that program.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.089589 ... ?entry=ttu

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1049259 ... ?entry=ttu

The City installed landscaped bump-outs around downtown and allowed them to become weed pits.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.099586 ... ?entry=ttu

This one is right in front of City Hall.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0997933 ... ?entry=ttu

The City has millions of dollars in deferred maintenance that should have been addressed decades ago. And still, our residents can't seem to get it in their heads that Kansas City has a density problem and too much infrastructure to maintain for our population.

Elected leaders sometimes have to make hard decisions that will be unpopular at times. But they also need to go into those neighborhoods and explain to residents that what they are advocating is killing the City and antithetical to solving other problems they complain about.

[FangKC]

The city (via the HAKC) operates one of the least dense, suburban style housing projects in the urban core just north of Columbus Park.
https://i0.wp.com/urbanangle.net/wp-con ... -Today.jpg

I agree with you that it was a mistake. Especially now in light of the lack of affordable housing, and long wait lists for HAKC housing, all that green space could have been devoted to more housing.

[KCPowercat]

The City needs to overrule the neighborhood in this situation. I'm sorry, but it needs to be done. This type of situation harms the City in the long run. The neighborhood people are never going to do what's good for the long-term health of the City. The people on that ad hoc committee don't want to live in a large city. They want to live in a small village. Better they just move to some small town miles from the edge of the Metro.

This is a neighborhood literally within Downtown. It must be denser. At a minimum, this neighborhood needs to be zero setback townhouses with alley garages with ADUS. Along 3rd Street building apartment buildings and not any like the ones designed by Kite Singleton to the west.

Agreed. How do we go about asking for this to be done. There is prime land right there that needs developed