KCRag Forum

FangKC wrote:Is it the former Ice Cream Parlor and Deli building?

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=37th+and+ ... NjXyA&z=17

Yep. There are some architectish-looking (large format) drawings visible from the outside, so I'm assuming it's different from the typical night/weekend renovations going on over here.

chaglang wrote:I've seen work going on inside the building at the NE corner of 37th and Troost the last couple of nights. The corner building is going to be some sort of coffee shop type place. Not sure about the teal building north of it.

I wonder if this is going to be the coffee shop that St. Mark's was purported to be opening...

A quick google search reveals it appears to be - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lion-and- ... 7325223772

Is there a thread for Emerald City? The purpose of that group is still obscure to me.

There is a website: emeraldcitykc.com

Neighbors oppose KC diocese’s plan for Rockhurst student housing

Neighbors are opposing a plan by the Kansas City diocese to demolish St. Francis Xavier elementary school, at 53rd and Troost, and replace it with a 103-unit dormitory for Rockhurst University.

http://midwestdemocracy.com/articles/ne ... t-housing/

This actually seems like a good project to me, but man the dioscese cannot get out of its own way. They also seem to have a hard time adjusting to the fact that the neighborhoods along Troost are better organized and more vocal than they were 15-20 years ago.

KC Star article on efforts to improve the Manheim Park neighborhood that is east of Troost.

Manheim Park is smack in the center of Kansas City’s renewed effort to finally rebuild the urban core. And if it doesn’t work?

“I think it’s a pivotal area,” Carol Grimaldi, executive director of Brush Creek Community Partners, says of Manheim Park. “It we fail here, I don’t see how we’re going to succeed anywhere else.”

It won’t be easy. Even Hayes says “it’s going to take an army to do it.”

But finally, the army may have arrived. After years of spreading themselves thin, government, business and the civic community have all targeted the Troost Avenue corridor as the key place to begin a coordinated campaign to reverse steep declines in population and income over the past decade alone.

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/06/38 ... attle.html

So forumers, should we form some sort of urban redevelopment support army that volunteers in some way to help this neighborhood and other like it?

Surely there are some things we could do?

Pick up trash.

Clean up lots.

Help paint houses for old people?

Do minor landscaping and tree planting?

What do you think?

KC Star article on friction between long-time Manheim Park residents and newcomers.

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/06/38 ... iving.html

FangKC wrote:KC Star article on friction between long-time Manheim Park residents and newcomers.

[url]http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/06/3851513/a-clash-of-cultures-in-reviving.html[/url]

Is it just me or has Mike Hendricks done a good job reporting urban issues now that they transferred him from his cushy columnist job? Seems like before he'd write about suburban issues, now that he's actually on a beat, he does a pretty decent job reporting on the actual city of Kansas City.

FangKC wrote:KC Star article on friction between long-time Manheim Park residents and newcomers.

[url]http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/06/3851513/a-clash-of-cultures-in-reviving.html[/url]

Manheim. Is that the neighborhood that has the abandoned public works buildings?

If so, it needed any help it can get. and it's good to see downtown renewing away from Main.

It's Troost-Paseo, 39th-Brush Creek. Are you talking about the PW buildings around 20th? I think that is Mt. Hope neighborhood.

Some highlights from a Troost Corridor Planning meeting I attended last week:

-Jim Glover went on a tirade about how MARC was a regional planning organization, and didn't have any business doing planning work inside the city, as it just took money away from the city. In his opinion, MARC is just getting in the city's way, and that KCMO should be doing the study and redeveloping.

-Glover said that no development will ever happen until the surrounding neighborhoods are "ready". He didn't define what "ready" meant, nor did he say what the city was prepared to do to get neighborhoods "ready". He did single out Armour as a street that was "on the edge" and not attractive to businesses.

-Glover also said that "nothing" will happen at Armour and Troost until the Bainbridge is cleaned up. I would love nothing more than for the city to sue the pants off the owner of that building (and HUD), but that doesn't seem to be a priority for him or the city. Glover said that the presence of that building alone will always keep businesses off that stretch of Troost. I don't know how that jibes with the fact that Georgian Court has had zero effect on the Costo/HD development and all the MAC properties over there.

-No representatives from the 3rd District were invited. Apparently the invite list was compiled by city hall staffers, who apparently thought it was fine to invite only one side of the street.

Glover repeatedly denied that any of this is political, and that he's just looking out for the neighborhood. I do not believe that for one second. It seems pretty clear that he's fishing for something, and throwing up b.s. roadblocks in the way of the MARC study. Some of his points are demonstrably wrong. It seemed like he was trying to delay or kill the study, without offering anything in its place. As far as I know, he doesn't have a plan to fix any of the issues he claimed would prevent Troost from redeveloping.

I have no idea what he's angling at, or why.

what MARC study are you (and Jim Glover) referring to?

chrizow wrote:what MARC study are you (and Jim Glover) referring to?

http://www.marc.org/sustainableplaces/c ... Troost.htm

chaglang wrote:...
-Jim Glover went on a tirade about how MARC was a regional planning organization, and didn't have any business doing planning work inside the city, as it just took money away from the city. In his opinion, MARC is just getting in the city's way, and that KCMO should be doing the study and redeveloping.

Planning is exactly the purpose of MARC. I wish they had more authority, not less- see Portland

My fear is that Glover wants to do a ginormous suburban development, similar to the Costco/HD, on Troost. It's probably not something that a study about creating sustainable places would support.

Also, he said that improvements at Armour and Troost would hurt a potential lawsuit over the Bainbridge. In his eyes, the two are mutually exclusive.

chaglang wrote:My fear is that Glover wants to do a ginormous suburban development, similar to the Costco/HD, on Troost. It's probably not something that a study about creating sustainable places would support.

Also, he said that improvements at Armour and Troost would hurt a potential lawsuit over the Bainbridge. In his eyes, the two are mutually exclusive.

I do get tired of Glover touting his success w/ the HD/Costco development. On the whole, I suppose I'm happy to have those stores in the city, but man that development is a vitality suck.

chaglang wrote:My fear is that Glover wants to do a ginormous suburban development, similar to the Costco/HD, on Troost. It's probably not something that a study about creating sustainable places would support.

IKEA!

troost seems like a case where someone needs to get a pile or money lined up, ideally public + private, and get out of the way.

let the community and market decide what will work for Troost

use this money to create a series of low-interest loans for projects the improve the residental density, retail density, quality of services and such along the line with testable standards to determine the payback rate.

ex. if they put in an urban project with multiple stories of residental above retail give a lower interest rate than a big strip mall.

if you told developers "we'll charge you a 1% rate if you do this kind of development" I bet you'd see a lot of takers.

I like the interest rate idea. Has that been used elsewhere?

Our neighborhood feels sufficiently ignored by the city that we have taken upon ourselves to do our own resident survey and neighborhood plan. The goal is to put something together that we can then send around to developers. This week alone, I've had the "I wish we didn't have to drive 20 minutes to go to X store" three times. If you want people in those neighborhoods, proximity to amenities is something that MUST be addressed. And not in a chicken/egg sequential way. These things can be done concurrently. You just have to be more imaginitive than Jim Glover.

We're also going our own marketing and branding plan for the neighborhood. I have no idea if we're doing any of this the right way, but the overwhelming sentiment is that we residents need to do something because the city won't/can't/hasn't.

That's what set me off about Glover's comments: we are knocking ourselves out to improve the city east of Troost, and he is trying to torpedo the first comprehensive study anyone has done of the street in decades. And to top it off, he's placing the blame on the residents for not being "ready" for development. It's beyond insulting. We are ready, and the major reason this is even a question is because the city has never done the things it promised to do in past plans. When we started our neighborhood planning exercise, the first thing we looked at was the 1998 FOCUS plan. Of all the things that we identified as problems that residents could fix, 100% were done. All of the things still not addressed after 14 years were things that required city action.