KCRag Forum

Am I imagining things or does the KC/MO side at State Line and 39th look drastically different than the KCK side? From what I remember, the KCK side has a few shabby residential towers on/near Rainbow and nothing else remarkable. The Kansas side looked like nothing has been updated or remodeled in 25 years while the MO side seems to be a blossoming neighborhood. Why couldn't the pocket of the Rainbow/39th/KU Med area in KCK be a vibrant city neighborhood? I would think that KU Med would be more than cooperative in rehabbing the KS side neighborhoods around their campus because it would improve their facility as well.

This area in addition has awesome access to downtown via Southwest Blvd, easy access to I-35, and is exremely close to the Plaza and Westport.

The new gerontology center is on Rainbow, as well as the new post office. A nice apartment complex is also near the genontology center. The just announced new biomedical research center is going in, the new heart hospital. Tanqueria Mexico at Rainbow and SW Blvd. State Line has some great older homes, including the Ronald McDonald House.

There could be more development, but there is quite a bit of activity blossoming in that area.

The difference is in the development policies of the two cities. KCK allowed KU to buy up and tear down most of the old storefronts on the Kansas side, so there is no good streetscape like on the Missouri side. All that remains is one building on the northwest corner of 39th and State Line Road. Also, Rainbow Blvd. was developed as a typical Noland-like fast food strip, instead of an actual boulevard.

There are some good points though... Hanover Heights is a very healthy historic neighborhood with well-kept bungalows (State Line to Rainbow, 41st to 43rd). City Vision Ministries is building Mission Cliffs, a new housing development northwest of the campus. The southeast corner of KCK has a lot of potential, and could be the next "it" neighborhood - the location is essentially midtown or West Plaza, but at lower prices and with a better school district.

What I am basically trying to get at is...

Wouldn't it be worthwhile for Wy Co to redevelop the area around 39th and Rainbow into an eclectic urban neighborhood similar to what is going on on the MO side? Who knows....working on this southeast tip of KCK may be a positive step towards spreading redevelopment into KCK's core and making KCK into a serious urban counterpart to KC MO.

You want to see another contrast. Look at KCK in that area, and compare it to Fairview in Johnson County. Its almost like the development somehow just skipped over us. Oh well, too late to complain now. What is needed are Real Estate developers who can realize the potential of land so close to such high end housing in Missouri and Johnson County. Unfortunately real estate developers gave up on KCK in the early 70's.

You'd think that the area surrounding a major medical center like KUMC would be desirable, with a good hotel or two, good restaurants, and some well designed student housing, and even nice homes for medical personel.

There are a lot of good restaurants next door to KU. 39th St. There are also plenty of urban apartment buildings, they're all right across State Line RD. There are plenty of nice houses, on both sides of the state line, and down the road in the West Plaza neighborhood and Westwood, Fairway, etc.

KCforumer wrote:There are a lot of good restaurants next door to KU... they're all right across State Line RD.

I guess the point was that KCK should build off the success of the other side of State Line and encourage development that secures the Kansas side as a progressive neighborhood too.

KCforumer wrote:There are plenty of nice houses, on both sides of the state line, and down the road in the West Plaza neighborhood and Westwood, Fairway, etc.

I understand the success of N. Jo Co near the Plaza, but I would also like to see KCK/Wy Co really succeed and build a positive image in the metro for their "southeastern pocket."

I'd like to see KCK take advantage of the area too, but what do they have to work with, as far as building stock?

Redevelopment means a lot more to me than what you have to work with. A lot of what is so neat about it... is creating a livable flourishing space out of little to nothing. I am suggesting that a plan, massive in scale, should be commishioned by Wy Co to rebuild the Rainbow/39th Street area as a green, flourishing urban neighborhood overflowing with interesting architecture, people and places.

The reason I am so hyped up about it is because I desparately want KCK to suceed and fire back at all our a$$es with something besides a suburban regional tourist district. This specific pocket of the city seems an easy candidate for renewal and redevelopment. When people say they live in Kansas City, I want them to be able to proudly announce Kansas after it.

trailerkid wrote:When people say they live in Kansas City, I want them to be able to proudly announce Kansas after it.

I already do.

What do they have to work with? What they have to work with is that it's the closest thing KCK has to a really cool urban neighborhood. It's disappointing to cross the state line, and see the exciting urban growth abruptly stop. It'd be a great place for dense urban development, because, for one thing, there is already a major reason for young people with disposable income to want to be there: KU Med.

The neighborhood is primed, and ready to go.

This is a really cool area, too bad it seems to stay east of state line but I guess KUmed is like a wall really. You get on the other side of Rainbow and it all section 8 untill you go further south where it starts to blend into NE JoCo.

It would be hard to extend the energy of 39th Street westward. KU takes up a huge chunk of land in the middle of the area, so the neighborhoods on either side need to stand on their own.

I don't see the city buying into a huge demoliton and rebuilding project when the area isn't vacant and the city has much more pressing needs. Some small things like encouraging more home ownership west of Rainbow and a new zoning plan for Rainbow Blvd itself would be a great start.

A plan is proposed to zone the KS side of the state line near KU med into a redeveloped mixed use neighborhood. 

[quote]The plan notes that many areas of Rosedale have become “suburbanizedâ€

Great to see this moving forward.  The neighborhood association is definitely on the right track, so let's hope the city gets behind it with new zoning and incentives to speed the transformation.  The Mission Cliffs development already has a dozen or houses finished at 39th and Lloyd.

Amen to making Rainbow and Southwest into real boulevards.  I've never understood how they got that designation in the first place, since they have zero boulevard characteristics.

It's interesting that they talk about the sense of place that was created on the KCMO side, but that misses the point.  KCMO largely preserved the original, well-designed  neighborhood.  Meanwhile, KCK allowed Rosedale to be paved over and suburbanized. Recreated a real neighborhood is going to be more difficult than if they'd just maintained it in the first place.

dangerboy wrote: It's interesting that they talk about the sense of place that was created on the KCMO side, but that misses the point.  KCMO largely preserved the original, well-designed  neighborhood.  Meanwhile, KCK allowed Rosedale to be paved over and suburbanized. Recreated a real neighborhood is going to be more difficult than if they'd just maintained it in the first place.

I cannot help thinking this was a reaction to the what was going on in Jo Co at the time. A good part of Jo Co's rise was people leaving Wy Co for Jo Co.

It looks good to me, stop whining.

One thing to keep in mind is that KU Med does not plan on keeping surface lots as part of its campus, according to KU.  So it temporarily sucks...