KC Star Downtown Progress Report

[ignatius]

http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/625615.html

Has many sub-articles, comparisons to other cities and more.  Is a little more critical than actuals methinks in some areas.  Is really off the mark on office vacancy.

http://www.kansascity.com/downtown/

[loftguy]

Ignatius.  I thought that, too.  Didn't you recently share with us some data that reflected a significant absorption of downtown office space? 

[ignatius]

Yes...
http://forum.kcrag.com/http://www.kcrag ... 20#p335820

[KCPowercat]

I think the star did this story too early.  a lot of their stats they used to compare downtowns is kind of old and doesn't truly reflect the current state of any of the downtowns the star thinks are our peers...which could be questioned as well.

funny to see them point to job loss downtown as a problem....hey star, how many jobs have YOU cut in that timeframe?

glad to see the downtown exposure but I am not going to let statistics decide my quality of life or feel for downtown.  I hope downtown visitors don't either.

[GRID]

I will be the first to say that we are not finished by any stretch of the imagination, but this article is extremely unfair and even a bit ironic considering the Star, who was against a downtown ballpark and likes to put down the use of incentives in downtown KC, especially by saying “others don’t do it as much” which isn’t even true and extremely difficult to compare different towns.  The Star has no idea how to compare cities.  It tries to compare KCMO to JoCo, and now this article which is using census stats from five years ago, before even the first phases of downtown’s rebuild have been completed.

The article does not make sense.  Oklahoma City is not ahead of KC.  KC is in a different league then they are.  It really is.  Denver is far ahead of KC, that is true.  St Louis, and Cincy?  I don’t think so.  I would say that St Louis is pretty even, but Cincy is probably lagging behind KC even with the new stadiums.  Minneapolis is also ahead of KC, but KC could easily catch up to Minneapolis although their new ballpark combined with light rail might make it more difficult and they have a lot more corporate pride.  Indy and Columbus and Louisville?  Again, I think KC is pretty even with those towns, probably a bit ahead.  KC’s urban core definitely offers more than those towns and is much larger.

That brings up another point.  In KC, you have to look at the plaza as well as downtown when comparing to other cities.

What I’m saying is that we have done in five years what most of these towns have done in 10-15 years and we don’t need odd press coverage like this for the general public to read and get a negative vibe from it.

Will Joe Blow KC resident look at this and think, man, we need a convention hotel?  No, they will look at this and think, what a waste, we still suck.

KCMO is…..was…..on one hell of a roll.  We still have a 400 million dollar arts center under construction which will blow away anything that has gone up in these other towns.

I just wish the Star would be a bit more civic minded and do a more thorough job of finding out what our downtown needs.  What it needs most is to continue investing as much as we can for several more years.  The Star should look at what kind of housing is needed, why new construction isn’t occurring in KC, while it’s occurring in every other city in the nation, and do some serious research on convention hotels that have opened across the country such as Denver where the new Hotels have in fact grown the market substantially (probably at the expense of the DTC and other areas, but an overall good investment to help downtown Denver thrive).  I personally think KCMO needs to push the first condo tower or two through with incentives, but after that new construction should take off as we have had to fill far more exiting buildings than any of these other towns, even more than Denver and Denver didn’t start building new till about six years ago.

Downtown KC still needs more residents and KCMO needs companies that have enough civic pride to stick around and be a part of the renaissance.  We also need to complete our convention package and get some more hotels in the loop.  That’s the bottom line.  But to say we still don’t stack up to these other towns is a bit misleading.

We have just gotten started and we should have kept the momentum going by not electing funkhouser (who I don't think ever goes to other towns to even know what they are like).  But he is our mayor now and we have our work cut out to convince him that downtown is far from done.

[loftguy]

Very well spoken.  Thanks Grid.

[DaveKCMO]

it's certainly not as academic as they make it sound. a big problem is the variations in how the data is collected and that some of it is old. the biggest strides have been in the last two years or so. as grid points out, they were incredibly lazy in comparing the approaches other cities take in attracting new construction, etc. i personally think the star is civic-minded enough without being too much of a cheerleader (not their job); it's the fourth estate, not the mother of the first, second, and third estates.

also, a very valid point that for almost two decades, the plaza was kansas city's downtown. up until very recently i was still correcting people on this fact. the only thing missing was city hall (and i'm sure it crossed someone's mind to move it at some point).

that being said, we have nothing to fear from OKC. we do, however, have a lot to fear from omaha and des moines, as those are two places where we steal a lot of transplants already. i rarely go a day without meeting someone who moved to KC from somewhere in iowa. denver, as the article points out, was much earlier to the table, but is a valid comparison for "where we should be".

regardless, the big takeaways for me are that we need more employers and retail downtown (duh!). the rest is just noise and false comparisons.

[ignatius]

that being said, we have nothing to fear from OKC. we do, however, have a lot to fear from omaha and des moines, as those are two places where we steal a lot of transplants already. i rarely go a day without meeting someone who moved to KC from somewhere in iowa. denver, as the article points out, was much earlier to the table, but is a valid comparison for "where we should be".

Not the case.  KC has much better in-migration than other midwest cities...

http://forum.kcrag.com/index.php?topic=12600.0

People who migrated into KC from other cites (+net means more people moved in from this city to KC than out)...
Total net migration +107,683
Wichita +6,675
Omaha +3,637
St. Louis +1,597
Des Moines +1,522
Oklahoma City +1,308

KC even had a small net gain from Minneapolis and Chicago.

[GRID]

But he makes a good point.  Omaha and to a lesser degree Des Moines will begin to hold there own soon.  Right now I don't think people think of Omaha as a comparable city to KC or Denver or St Louis.  I think that is starting to change.  Even though it's much smaller, it's starting to offer an urban lifestyle and it will be closer to home.

The big thing about Omaha is per capita, their home town corporations are just nuts about putting Omaha on the map.

In KC, we are not so lucky.

I know we have Hallmark and American Century, but again, per capita, KC is nothing more than a call center town compared to most large towns when it comes to our local corporations stepping up to the plate.  They would just assume be in a national vacuum in some suburban office park.

[cknab1]

I just laugh at any thing the Star writes about cities since they had their “best city” contest in the area and South Overland park won.  They made up a city to win!  I did like the guy that wrote a letter to the editor asking who the Mayor of South Overland Park is.  Plus when they wrote the story in the Star magazine about Bhutto 10 days after she was assassinated and didn’t even mention that she had died, their weak excuse was that someone had spent a lot of time on the story and they just wanted it to run.  Even in this story, they have a load of disclaimers at the start of the article and then continue to act like they are comparing apples to apples.

[Beermo]

i wrote spivak and here's what he wrote back.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: jspivak@kcstar.com [mailto:jspivak@kcstar.com]
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 1:43 PM
To:Beermo
Subject: RE: Slight rebuttal


Interesting reading. What sometimes gets lost in discussions of Star articles like these is that, while they're not perfect (or intended to be), they still provide readers/residents more information on a subject than they had before. There is never really a perfectly opportune time to compare cities or parts of cities, because official data is always a little dated. But we think this series does provide more information than the community has had before. You can't find a downtown report card or a comparison with other downtowns on a local blog, or in a report from UMKC, or in a study by the chamber. Only The Star is doing that, or attempting to do that to the best of its abilities. If the lack of perfect data causes some people to dismiss the work, that's unfortunate.

Thanks.

Jeffrey Spivak
Civic Affairs Reporter
The Kansas City Star
1729 Grand Blvd.
Kansas City, MO  64108
jspivak@kcstar.com
816-234-4416
or 800-829-0151, ext. 4416

[kcjak]

What sometimes gets lost in discussions of Star articles like these is that, while they're not perfect (or intended to be), they still provide readers/residents more information on a subject than they had before.

I can't believe someone actually wrote that and can't imagine ANY newspaper ANYWHERE would say that they don't aim for perfection (which is constantly reflected in their spelling/editing mistakes found throughout the Star).  To say something like - oh well, we did an OK job and most people don't have ANY numbers so we must be doing them a service is crap!  Beermo you should ask him why you should believe any of the numbers or facts that they print if you can't believe them in this story.

[Highlander]

i wrote spivak and here's what he wrote back.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: jspivak@kcstar.com [mailto:jspivak@kcstar.com]
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 1:43 PM
To:Beermo
Subject: RE: Slight rebuttal


Interesting reading. What sometimes gets lost in discussions of Star articles like these is that, while they're not perfect (or intended to be), they still provide readers/residents more information on a subject than they had before. There is never really a perfectly opportune time to compare cities or parts of cities, because official data is always a little dated. But we think this series does provide more information than the community has had before. You can't find a downtown report card or a comparison with other downtowns on a local blog, or in a report from UMKC, or in a study by the chamber. Only The Star is doing that, or attempting to do that to the best of its abilities. If the lack of perfect data causes some people to dismiss the work, that's unfortunate.

Thanks.

Jeffrey Spivak
Civic Affairs Reporter
The Kansas City Star
1729 Grand Blvd.
Kansas City, MO  64108
jspivak@kcstar.com
816-234-4416
or 800-829-0151, ext. 4416

What did you write?  Care to share your rebuttal?

[KCPowercat]

Based on his response, I bet he sent him a link to this thread.

Spivak is a solid reporter...I think he did the best he could with the assignment, I just don't trust the stats due to their varied collection methods which depend on a city agency or organization like the downtown council.

i just think it's too hard to compare city downtown's with statistically data...but can't write a story based on "feel" either.  I think we are all pretty comfortable that the feeling and perception of downtown KC has improved immensely.

[trailerkid]

Based on his response, I bet he sent him a link to this thread.

Spivak is a solid reporter...I think he did the best he could with the assignment, I just don't trust the stats due to their varied collection methods which depend on a city agency or organization like the downtown council.

i just think it's too hard to compare city downtown's with statistically data...but can't write a story based on "feel" either.  I think we are all pretty comfortable that the feeling and perception of downtown KC has improved immensely.

What is the point of comparing "our downtown" to "other downtowns" when there is no definite way to classify a downtown? We need to stop looking on such a small scale and comparing our city to others. It is a political technique that isn't very helpful. Either KC needs to decide it wants to be world class or it wants to be Omaha+. There are a lot of people freaked out at the idea of downtown absorbing so many resources and this is the Star's way of trying to propagandize downtown redevelopment now that Flunkhouser is in office. It's sad that the "KC vs." conversation must always be used as opposed to people naturally getting excited about urban development on its own merits. This forum has done wonders for KCMo...there should be some sort program that takes Raytowners and ships them to Portland for a week.

Downtown is the flagship to greater KC, but large-scale investment downtown in the surrounding urban core are not mutually exclusive. We can have both! We cannot continue to understand this as a downtown vs neighborhoods battle as Flunkhouser opines. We need Atlanta/Denver/Austin style leadership that dreams big and understands how an urban environment works. I've mentioned it before, but KC needs to put together a large scale cultural, transportation initiative that moves this region into the 21st century. Modern and futuristic public transportation connecting the CBD, Troost, NKC, Brookside, Plaza, W 39th and on and on will unite KCMo as the urban giant it was meant to be. Of course downtown needs more large scale development! The entire city needs Billions more development dollars from Brush Creek to the River. Maybe people in KC are satisfied with living in a shell of greatness and that's what is truly heartbreaking for anyone that cares about this region.

[aknowledgeableperson]

I can't believe someone actually wrote that and can't imagine ANY newspaper ANYWHERE would say that they don't aim for perfection (which is constantly reflected in their spelling/editing mistakes found throughout the Star).  To say something like - oh well, we did an OK job and most people don't have ANY numbers so we must be doing them a service is crap!  Beermo you should ask him why you should believe any of the numbers or facts that they print if you can't believe them in this story.

There is a difference between what is news and what is considered information.  This article is definitely not news, which would have a different set of rules and guidelines, and more along information or entertainment.  They writers were very upfront about the limitations of information used and interpeted.

[trailerkid]

There is a difference between what is news and what is considered information.  This article is definitely not news, which would have a different set of rules and guidelines, and more along information or entertainment.  They writers were very upfront about the limitations of information used and interpeted.

The Star's new editor is a features guy according to Barnhart. I'm sure the bar will be lowered even more in the coming years. Let the infotainment age continue... 

"People aren't buying newspapers like they used to..."

"Lets dumb down the writing and have lots of colors..."

[Beermo]

The Star's new editor is a features guy according to Barnhart. I'm sure the bar will be lowered even more in the coming years. Let the infotainment age continue... 

"People aren't buying newspapers like they used to..."

"Lets dumb down the writing and have lots of colors..."

i would change that last sentence to reflect the real world.

"Lets dumb down the writing and have lots of ads in color..."

[immortal3]

Indy and Columbus and Louisville?  Again, I think KC is pretty even with those towns, probably a bit ahead.  KC’s urban core definitely offers more than those towns and is much larger.

Respectfully disagree; KC is behind Indy and Columbus, and probably closer to Louisville.

Louisville and Columbus have updated their downtown offerings nicely over the past 5-10 years, plus have developed very nicely along their riverfronts (something as an outsider that I can't understand why KCMO hasn't done).

Indianapolis might be slightly behind in the outside of downtown, urban core offerings, but downtown wise, Indy blows KC out the water, even with the P&L.

[mean]

A big fat to anyone who thinks KC is ever going to be more than Omaha+. That is Kansas City's destiny. What do you want, Chicago? Then move to Chicago.