Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Issues concerning Downtown as described by the Downtown Council. River to 31st Street, I-35 to Bruce R. Watkins.
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Big Red Storm
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by Big Red Storm »

Truly, I am very happy to have the Star downtown.  However, I would much rather have a built up environment without any big companies than what they are doing.  One of the truly most important things in an urban environment is to have continuous urban fabric.  Holes in it for parking everywhere make it very unsuccessful.  You can say all this good stuff about the Star building there, but the surface lots are killing the neighborhood.  Having a corporate headquarter surrounded by parking is not a success, it is a dissapointment.  It is time for the Star to build a garage and stop killing the neighborhood, or else just get out.  Downtown will survive whether they are there or not.

By the way Long, the block that you mention at one point did have great urban fabric until companies like this and the city raped it in the ass.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

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LenexatoKCMO wrote: 1) I was refering to their existing stock of parking - not just the new lots.  Have you seen their lot west of Soho South - it is one of the largest downtown - nearly a city block
To my understanding, it is all to be refurbished. The people who work there need to have a place to park. Maybe after the huge investment in the place, they didn't want to budget more for a parking garage. Last I heard owners are allowed to do what they wish with their own property.
2) not self promoting - are you kidding me?  Did you see the insert?  Have you missed the fact that their weekly "news" articles about their facility almost always contain a reference to the fact that they could have put it out in timbukto but were magnanimous enough to locate it downtown?  The hyperbole about bringing the city into the 21st century?  You don't think any of that is self-promoting?  I call it questionable journalisim at best.

So you are saying that what they say is not true? What part of it is not true? Call it what you want-I dont' see anything that isn't true in what they are saying.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

nota wrote: So you are saying that what they say is not true? What part of it is not true? Call it what you want-I dont' see anything that isn't true in what they are saying.
Nota - I never called it untrue - I called it self-promoting and bad journalism - big difference.  When a media outlet constantly presents its own promotion as "news" - that is bad journalism.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

nota wrote: Last I heard owners are allowed to do what they wish with their own property.
and last I heard I am allowed to criticize it as being hypocrytical with said company's self label as a paragon of urban renewal. 
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

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Of all the big projects downtown, the Star's new building is probably the least significant contributor to a vibrant urban environment, especially considering we're losing other buildings for surface lots.  Sure, it fills in the space, but it is a huge building.  It doesn't exactly make it a more cozy environment to walk through.  Of course, beyond the asthetic aspect, it will keep a lot of jobs in the area, but I'm not buying the "saviour" line nor am I giving them too much credit.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by KC0KEK »

LenexatoKCMO wrote: Nota - I never called it untrue - I called it self-promoting and bad journalism - big difference.  When a media outlet constantly presents its own promotion as "news" - that is bad journalism.
You original post cited "their weekly 'news' articles." Do you mean the internal company newsletter? If so, what do you expect? Every company toots its own horn in its company newsletter. Those publications are intended to be internal PR rather than journalism.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

KC0KEK wrote: You original post cited "their weekly 'news' articles." Do you mean the internal company newsletter? If so, what do you expect? Every company toots its own horn in its company newsletter. Those publications are intended to be internal PR rather than journalism.
No I am refering to articles on the press pavilion that seem to make it in to the paper with weekly regularity regardless of whether anything newsworthy actually hapened.  I dont have the first idea whether the Star has an internal newsletter and certainly haven't ever seen it. 
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by nota »

LenexatoKCMO wrote: Nota - I never called it untrue - I called it self-promoting and bad journalism - big difference.  When a media outlet constantly presents its own promotion as "news" - that is bad journalism.
I guess I missed most of what you are speaking of. I've only seen one or two news articles-I haven't seen any "constantly". The rest have been in advertising sections which are not strictly "journalism." that is what the big splashy insert last week was.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by nota »

staubio wrote: Of all the big projects downtown, the Star's new building is probably the least significant contributor to a vibrant urban environment, especially considering we're losing other buildings for surface lots.  Sure, it fills in the space, but it is a huge building.  It doesn't exactly make it a more cozy environment to walk through.  Of course, beyond the asthetic aspect, it will keep a lot of jobs in the area, but I'm not buying the "saviour" line nor am I giving them too much credit.
Yeah, you are probably right. They have done nothing for DT.

I guess I've missed all the stuff about them being saviors.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by KC0KEK »

"Weekly" seems like a stretch. Other than the article in today's paper and one or two in the downtown special section a few Sundays ago, I don't remember seeing more than a few articles about in the past year. I used to work in printing, so I would have noticed the articles because I've been following the plant's progress.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

KCOEK - were you a Star employee?  Do you have any insight into their parking needs and/or why they didn't just go ahead and build a nice prefab garage while they had the construction crew on sight?  I am rarely down their durring business hours as I work out in the burbs so I have no idea if all of the Star lots are packed full during business hours.  I would think that the Star's workforce would be spread out in shifts throughout the day/night therefor reducing the overall parking need. 
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by KC0KEK »

No, I worked for the Columbia Daily Tribune. The Tribune's commerical printing division, where I worked, had three shifts. The only time that the parking lots were completely full was during the day, when most of the newspaper folks were in.

Beermo would have more insight into the Star's parking needs. My guess is that their parking needs are greatest during the day.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by scooterj »

I just looked out the window to see what buildings these might be and one of them is already down... just a pile of bricks.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

So much for the letter writing campaign :o
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

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Wow..... Sure didn't take any time getting started.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by WoodDraw »

Are the buildings they are tearing down anything special?  But regardless, more surface lots suck.   
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by staubio »

LenexatoKCMO wrote: So much for the letter writing campaign :o
I'm pretty sure they did that on purpose.  They took the wind out of any potential outrage before it could get started.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

staubio wrote: I'm pretty sure they did that on purpose.  They took the wind out of any potential outrage before it could get started.
I guess it is easy to do that when you control the city's primary news outlet - It couldn't possibly be a coincidence that they waited to print this otherwise newsless article on the day that the wrecking crew shows up - sure.

To the Pitch personnel who read this forum - I hope you guys are on this story like flies on shit.  Heres a chance for the best scoop on the Star since you guys blew the real (and hilarious) story behind the leaking of the Arrowhead drawings. 
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by Long »

Big Red Storm wrote:

By the way Long, the block that you mention at one point did have great urban fabric until companies like this and the city raped it in the ass.
My point is, there is a huge difference between what happened during urban renewal and the Star, Cordish, or anyone else clearing a few random buildings off a block that is already an urban wasteland.  I'm saying, in order to have any credibility, we really need to stop throwing around generic terms like "urban fabric" when we're talking about blocks like this.  There might be a few urban threads left, but a few nondescript old buildings in and of themselves are not going to make or break the urban condition. 

Right now the Star owns this land, and unless someone comes along and makes them a good offer to sell, they can do whatever they want with it.  And when someone does come along, they will likely keep a chunk for themselves, build a garage, and sell the rest.  But the Star is no more obligated to "develop" this property than you and I are to go and buy it and develop it ourselves.  Should they just give the land away in the spirit of "saving the city?" 

I would love to see this block built up, but I'm not going to sit here and say the Star has some responsibility to the greater good to take it on themselves.
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Re: Star tearing down buildings for parking lots

Post by Long »

staubio wrote: Of all the big projects downtown, the Star's new building is probably the least significant contributor to a vibrant urban environment, especially considering we're losing other buildings for surface lots.  Sure, it fills in the space, but it is a huge building.  It doesn't exactly make it a more cozy environment to walk through.  Of course, beyond the asthetic aspect, it will keep a lot of jobs in the area, but I'm not buying the "saviour" line nor am I giving them too much credit.

Ugh. . . comments like this drive me up the wall.  What is a vibrant urban environment?  One where block after block after block is the same street-level retail with residential and office above?  Blah blah blah.  The most vibrant urban environment is one where you throw all the crap that makes a city function into a tight space and let it go.  I think its great that we have what is essentially a factory right in the mix of the action-- at night you'll see the presses running, workers scurrying around, the Star's trucks coming and going. . . This part of town is a whole different animal from, say, the Garment district or P&L.  Let it be what it is. . . don't homogenize everything into this perfect rendering of storefronts  and canvas canopies and trees and happy people holding hands.
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