KCRag Forum

View from Performing Arts Center

The street level along Baltimore still sucks. Can't they put the hotel restaurant and bar facing the street on the Baltimore-side so that there are windows and entrances instead of blank walls?

Relax, no city has a good looking convention hotel. Dallas - box, Denver - box. It's just not a thing. It's a shame given KC's recent run of great buildings (PAC and Bloch buildings)

The only hope is that the 1% for art (if that applies) gives it some life.

This is a loss leader project.

We want it to drive people to downtown so there's demand for lots more street retail.

One block being less than ideal to drive the demand so more can be better isn't a horrible tradeoff.

earthling wrote:The streetlevel integration (lack thereof) and pedestrian friendliness (lack thereof) is more disturbing than the hospital look...

Embarrassing.

To me, this conversation just shows how easy it is to design a building when your ideas aren't subject to financial or functional requirements.

missingkc wrote:To me, this conversation just shows how easy it is to design a building when your ideas aren't subject to financial or functional requirements.

This is a great point and it shows how price per square foot matters so much. People complain about the final look of a project that can not charge enough to pay for what some people expect it to be.

Remember, the city managed to get a not horrible deal and 800 rooms. It was never going to be spectacular in looks because meeting a cost target and having enough rooms was always the goal, not to be the fanciest new hotel in the country.

Understandable that most convention hotels tend to be practical 3 Star that focus on meeting spaces, etc. but they really could do a better job with the street facing interaction. There is clearly zero effort factoring they are in a pedestrian setting. It will look like an isolated fortress from the street.

It looks to be as inviting as the Mariott's back side on 11th street.

And that's the front pretty side

i wonder if the cleveland hilton convvention center was publically funded.

if you look at their design it's not bad.

ironically the group that designed this hotel is the same one that just submitted our hyatt renderings.

So I am guessing they are tweaking the design because people are complaining

.... so they made it worse?

KCLover wrote:So I am guessing they are tweaking the design because people are complaining

.... so they made it worse?

They're adjusting as costs come in. It's pretty basic to do that.

Probably found someone that would provide glass for cheap.

FangKC wrote:The street level along Baltimore still sucks. Can't they put the hotel restaurant and bar facing the street on the Baltimore-side so that there are windows and entrances instead of blank walls?

there will be a restaurant that faces baltimore.

Three stories up?

It looks to be a pretty cruddy pedestrian experience on all sides except for the corner restaurant space on Truman & Baltimore. In the image below which was taken from the city's planning & development site, the red is the restaurant space, blue is the "jump lobby", green is actual sidewalk, and the gold is curb cuts. There is literally a 100' curb cut for truck docks and a trash compactor, followed by a triple lane parking garage entrance. Perhaps the neighborhood can talk the developers out of the car drop-off at the "jump lobby" since the main entrance on Central seems to cover that need. That would improve the situation slightly.

I can't even.

So Cleveland got that Hilton for $272m and it's a much better design and is 32 floors? What am I missing here? And it just opened.

KC_JAYHAWK wrote:So Cleveland got that Hilton for $272m and it's a much better design and is 32 floors? What am I missing here? And it just opened.

Cuyahoga County issued bonds to pay for it, the port authority owns it and they hired Hilton to operate it. It's a public project.
This first article claimed they couldn't find a developer interested in more than a parking lot.

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index ... g_tog.html
https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/ohio-cou ... lton-hotel


Whereas (off the top of my head) the KC hotel is privately funded, privately owned with some city allowances to help make the numbers work, like free land, the catering deal and a TIF.
KC found a developer interested in taking on the risk and building something as a private project.

That's your difference.

KC_JAYHAWK wrote:So Cleveland got that Hilton for $272m and it's a much better design and is 32 floors? What am I missing here? And it just opened.

Pretty sure it's because of comments from posters on urbanohio.