2012 Downtown Housing Report

[aknowledgeableperson]

I assumed that at some point in the future, the steam plant would be shut down and the coal yard wouldn't be needed. Perhaps the boilers could run on natural gas?

Not sure of the price difference between coal and natural gas but there are many buildings downtown that use the steam generated in their HVAC systems. Not saying the building couldn't be relocated but a source for steam has to be somewhere.

[loftguy]

How is the coal brought into that yard?

Truck with 40'+/- "U" shaped trailer, with mesh tarp top over, backed to pile, hydraulic tilted load dump.

[flyingember]

I assumed that at some point in the future, the steam plant would be shut down and the coal yard wouldn't be needed. Perhaps the boilers could run on natural gas?

Not sure of the price difference between coal and natural gas but there are many buildings downtown that use the steam generated in their HVAC systems. Not saying the building couldn't be relocated but a source for steam has to be somewhere.

I used to work in one that used the steam. I learned the steam system was super tempermental and heated horribly. It was a fully manual system and there were always cold spots in the building.

there's also that huge pipe going to the starch factory across the river. they must use steam for their product preperation, cheaper than generating their own I bet.

[aknowledgeableperson]

I used to work in one that used the steam. I learned the steam system was super tempermental and heated horribly. It was a fully manual system and there were always cold spots in the building.

What building is that? Sounds like trouble within the building system instead of the supply. The government buildings arehooked up along with some other private buildings. Not sure if true but told if a building does not have a cooling tower then it is tied into the steam.

[shinatoo]

Segregated parking for the residential and office workers/others... it makes me sad to see how many basic mistakes get made on urban projects in Kansas City. The Whole Foods project has the same thing: garage for the residents and surface parking for the customers. In both cases, the surface parking will sit empty overnight while the garage is full, and the surface lot will be full during the day while the garage is half empty. One of the biggest benefits of mixed-use development is that parking infrastructure gets used more efficiently. But its efficiency will remain at 0 if all of the spaces are reserved for just a single user. It looks like there is a walkway connecting the two apartment buildings so that people can get to and from their apartments to their car in the secured parking garage. Because God forbid someone living downtown has to step outside sometimes... I lived briefly in a city that built everything so that people could live their lives just driving from one underground parking garage to another, never stepping foot into any unsecured area, and it was just about the most depressing environment imaginable. In their defense, they did it because their city was essentially a war zone. To take that approach in Kansas City is inexcusable. You don't need private garages and skywalks to make a place reasonably safe. And if people get rained on while making the dash from the building to the garage, they'll be okay. Suburbanites already deal with that anyway since everything outside of their house is located in a parking lagoon. Downtown residential buildings should be built with the idea that the residents want to go outside, and the priority should be to design buildings that allow them easy access to sidewalks rather than easy access to their cars.

This site plan only shows 120 apartments, so hopefully their current plan with 225 units already fixes the problems with the design shown. If not, then hopefully the city will set them straight when they come looking for a handout. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of confidence in the city, or anyone in KC really, to do the right thing when it comes to urban design issues. That's a lot of prime real estate they are sitting on and it would be a shame to waste it on a plan like the one pictured. When the economy picks up again, that site would be ideal for a high-density, high-quality project with buildings a bit taller than those in the rest of the River Market. It's fine if they want to build something now, but please not a standalone restaurant and a small building that sprawls diagonally across an entire city block. 10 years later when there's no more vacant land in the area, everyone will be kicking themselves for allowing a project that uses up so much land to accomplish so little.

Why is there this continual bitching on this forum about any kind of convenience built into a building that people don't have in downtown Manhattan?

"God forbid people have to walk outside to get to their car in the rain, have a parking garage or be made to feel safe?"

Well God forbid that we build buildings better that they built them 100 years ago in New York. We have a shit ton of land and a poorly populated downtown area. As we move forward we need to strike some kind of balance between building Olathe and Tokyo. At best KC will be a medium density city, and that's fine. We don't have the natural barriers that coastal or mountain cities have to drive up pricing and demand to the point where we are going to have even 8k or 10k per sq mile.

We need a good public transportation system just as much as we will need to continue to cater to personal transportation. We have a chance to make a modern city in a different mold than New York.

As for the parking for Whole Foods. Saturday and Sunday are their busiest days. The residential garage will be full of residents cars. The customer parking and the residential parking will both be at their fullest on the weekends and the evenings. People don't pack the grocery store when everyone is away at work.

[pash]

.

[FangKC]

For me, the high population density, and putting more apartment units on Second and Delaware site, is about adding enough people in the River Market to sustain more retail. It's not about creating Manhattan, NY, but putting enough people there so create a lively, desirable neighborhood.

Utilizing the site grade better would put the parking garage underground with more apartments on top. Because it's an edge property, it can handle a taller structure. We are not excavating a lot of rock here, since historic photos show most of that area is mounds of soil that were leveled when the bluff was carved out. There is a great opportunity to hide parking here.

I think Second and Delaware could handle a building like this.



Market Station did a much better job adding a lot of units and hiding parking.

Delaware and Walnut should not be a dead zone most of the time. They should be full of restaurants, bars, and retail shops. In addition, you are not going to see new retail infill buildings constructed without much higher population density than exists now. Developers will not be able to justify new structures without charging higher rents that are only sustained by more residents spending money in the neighborhood.

Traditional small grocery markets have had difficulty remaining open in the River Market. The Asian markets may do better, but they are not full-line groceries.

If a streetcar line is going to be built, then we also need more people living along the line to use it.

Building two-story townhouses at 4th and Wyandotte, or the City Homes block, are not going to do it. In my opinion, those projects are wasted opportunities to create high densities on those sites. Townhomes are fine, but they should be built in Columbus Park, Beacon Hill, or east of the downtown loop. The 4th and Wyandotte site should have six-story buildings along those blocks.

4th and Wyandotte plan



This is what is at 4th and Wyandotte now.



This is the building that used to be on that site.



I'm not advocating this style of apartments, but the mass and heights of the structure in the foreground that should be along Wyandotte from 3rd to 5th streets.

[FangKC]

The other problem with parking is that property owners won't sell their existing surface parking lots, so it's hard to create new housing in the River Market, and in greater downtown. This problem makes it hard to do infill buildings that create a cohesive neighborhood that is pleasant.

Every parking space on a surface lot is taking away from residents that could be living on that parcel.

In a neighborhood like the River Market, and even inside the Loop, it is important to have shared parking facilities to free other other lots for development. In this case, when you have a parcel like those at Second and Delaware, you can create not only hidden parking for the residents in a new building there, but additional parking spaces for workers and residents in other buildings--freeing up their parking lots for new buildings.

If you look at the aerial site photos, you could build two fairly large parking garages under street grade on both sides of Delaware, and even behind the First and Main Lofts buildings where the surface parking and vacant lot are now.

This is a good opportunity to create parking without having to demolish any buildings. You also don't have to worry so much about creating big garage dead zones along blocks because there are no other buildings across from the back of them on First Street. Since that area behind any potential garages is going to be the River Market archaelogy interpretation site, there aren't going to be new buildings constructed there anyway that are going to have problems with the sight-lines of windows looking at the back of a garage.

[aknowledgeableperson]

I don't have a problem with people's parking being attached to their building, but it does bother me when parking is the top design priority in neighborhoods that are supposed to be walkable. Every article about the housing market downtown talks about how parking is holding back new developments, whether it's a renovation or new construction. Yet few developers seem interested in pursuing any solutions other than just continuing to overbuild more underutilized parking spaces and asking for subsidies from every government agency they can find. And people who don't want to have a car will also continue to indirectly subsidize all of the "free" parking spaces downtown for residents and workers, and then get hit with a double-whammy when they have to walk past all of those parking garages to get to someplace they want to be.

I would imagine that those who do not want to own a car are in a small minority. Therefore most owners/renters want at least one parking space and sometimes two per unit. Now, whether they use a car a lot or a little doesn't matter they still want that space. The question for the developer who would side with your thoughts is do I want to take a chance and build something without enough parking and take the risk there is enough interest in my place to sell/rent it out? I don't think there are enough people in KC at this time who want to go without a car for a developer to take a chance on.

[FangKC]

You can solve some of that problem by possibly having a mix of senior housing in the complex. Many seniors no longer drive, or only need one car (even if there are two seniors in the apartment). One of the benefits of placing housing near mass transit corridors is that it benefits seniors who can no longer drive, but still need to go places. Many are also at that place in their lives when they no longer what to oversee maintenance on homes, or repairs.

There are situations where HUD will provide funding for building senior housing units, and the developer doesn't have to deal with some of the problems of renting to lower-income residents. In this case, attracting the carless would benefit everyone. The developer and project could get buy on fewer spaces in a garage.

You also have situations where seniors have cars, but don't drive them daily, so in that instance, parking in a shared neighborhood garage isn't such a hassle.

[aknowledgeableperson]

However, some large percentage of the people who want to live downtown are people who would prefer that the car not be the primary method of transportation.

It doesn't matter if the car is or is not the primary method of transit. What matters is that a large majority (or if you prefer "most") still want to know where the car is going to be parked. In other words they don't want to own/rent a space and then be on their own to find a spot for their car. Developers/builders know this and for now are not willing to take the risk to find out otherwise. True, this may work in Chicago or New York or some other large city but in those places the monthly cost of a parking space is what many may pay for apartment rent in KC that comes with a parking space or two.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

But when the strong majority of the parking needs for the project are from residents, and when the parking needs for the remaining uses are pretty predictable and stable (there's almost never going to be a big shopping craze at a grocery store), there is little risk of the residents not having a space available. Most projects have some extra parking available to handle worst-case scenarios. By segregating the parking, you need to build in that extra buffer for each set of parking. These worst-case scenarios will be hit at different times for different types of uses (after all, people/their cars can only be in one place at a time, and people can't all be at home and elsewhere at the same time). So combining the parking allows you to build fewer parking spaces in order to maintain the same degree of confidence that there will always be a space available for someone who needs it. Eliminating unnecessary parking cuts project costs which ultimately results in more projects being completed sooner, and with more net economic benefit (more profit for developers, or lower rent for tenants, or less public subsidy, etc).

I could be misunderstanding the details, but it's my impression that some of the other projects being developed right now will have residents sharing parking spaces in this manner.

I agree with you when you're talking about residents/office workers sharing spaces. That's absolutely what should be happening downtown.

But, a grocery store? People go their apartment at 5 when they get off work and on weekends. People go grocery shopping at 5 when they get off work and on weekends. People are home and shopping at the same time. Those two uses for parking can't share spaces.

[shinatoo]

But when the strong majority of the parking needs for the project are from residents, and when the parking needs for the remaining uses are pretty predictable and stable (there's almost never going to be a big shopping craze at a grocery store), there is little risk of the residents not having a space available. Most projects have some extra parking available to handle worst-case scenarios. By segregating the parking, you need to build in that extra buffer for each set of parking. These worst-case scenarios will be hit at different times for different types of uses (after all, people/their cars can only be in one place at a time, and people can't all be at home and elsewhere at the same time). So combining the parking allows you to build fewer parking spaces in order to maintain the same degree of confidence that there will always be a space available for someone who needs it. Eliminating unnecessary parking cuts project costs which ultimately results in more projects being completed sooner, and with more net economic benefit (more profit for developers, or lower rent for tenants, or less public subsidy, etc).

I could be misunderstanding the details, but it's my impression that some of the other projects being developed right now will have residents sharing parking spaces in this manner.

I agree with you when you're talking about residents/office workers sharing spaces. That's absolutely what should be happening downtown.

But, a grocery store? People go their apartment at 5 when they get off work and on weekends. People go grocery shopping at 5 when they get off work and on weekends. People are home and shopping at the same time. Those two uses for parking can't share spaces.

That's what I said, and was promptly shouted down by pash, and ignored by KAS.

[aknowledgeableperson]

(after all, people/their cars can only be in one place at a time, and people can't all be at home and elsewhere at the same time)

And only one car can be in a space at a time. And that is the problem. For those who walk or go to work or shop by other means their cars will be parked in the garage which means that space cannot be used by an office worker or a shopper. And even when they are out with their car that space needs to be set aside since one never knows when that person will return.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

(after all, people/their cars can only be in one place at a time, and people can't all be at home and elsewhere at the same time)

And only one car can be in a space at a time. And that is the problem. For those who walk or go to work or shop by other means their cars will be parked in the garage which means that space cannot be used by an office worker or a shopper. And even when they are out with their car that space needs to be set aside since one never knows when that person will return.

So, are you saying that every spot downtown has somebody paying for it?

Even if we assume that every spot needs to be reserved 24 hours a day, it would still take a long time for downtown parking to sell out if no new parking gets built in the next few years. But, that's assuming you can't oversell a garage, which you easily can. If there's a 400 car garage, you could easily have 250 workers and 250 residents share it without any problems. It would never be 100% full.

[aknowledgeableperson]

So, are you saying that every spot downtown has somebody paying for it?

Of course not. But developers are not willing to invest in and develop a property without some sort of dedicated parking, parking that is either attached or extremely close-by. There was some recent discussion about City Center Square and its difficulties with parking, or lack of.

Question. Say you lived in a building that "reserved" a spot for you and that building's parking facility also provided parking for retail spaces nearby. You leave with your car and when you return the facility is full and you had to "hunt" for an open space wherever it is would you be happy? Happens only once you would be OK. But say it happens quite often, what about then?

[TheBigChuckbowski]

So, are you saying that every spot downtown has somebody paying for it?

Of course not. But developers are not willing to invest in and develop a property without some sort of dedicated parking, parking that is either attached or extremely close-by. There was some recent discussion about City Center Square and its difficulties with parking, or lack of.

Question. Say you lived in a building that "reserved" a spot for you and that building's parking facility also provided parking for retail spaces nearby. You leave with your car and when you return the facility is full and you had to "hunt" for an open space wherever it is would you be happy? Happens only once you would be OK. But say it happens quite often, what about then?

No matter where you go downtown, there's parking nearby. I can see buildings that are selling condos or are all rents are $1,000+ needing dedicated attached parking for the majority of the units. Rentals at or less than $1,000? No way. They don't even need a parking option within a block.

That used to happen to me in the River Market whenever there was a concert at City Market or I was out early on a Saturday morning. Not really that big of a deal and also not really the point. If you overfill a garage by 100%, yeah that's going to happen. If you overfill it by 25% with a mix of residents and office workers, that will never happen. But, again, even if overfilling a garage was illegal, it would still be a long time before every parking spot downtown was leased. A very long time.

[Demosthenes]

Question. Say you lived in a building that "reserved" a spot for you and that building's parking facility also provided parking for retail spaces nearby. You leave with your car and when you return the facility is full and you had to "hunt" for an open space wherever it is would you be happy? Happens only once you would be OK. But say it happens quite often, what about then?

This actually happens to me very frequently at my crossroads loft. Sometimes I even have to park a block or two away. And guess what? I am very happy with where I live.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Are you paying for a spot or is it a first-come first-serve garage? Yeah, there are apts on the Plaza where parking is not reserved since it is on-street parking but where you and your neighbors told you have reserved parking?

With first-come first-served you know what you are getting - you take your chances. But with reserved you are suppose to have a spot 24/7.

[pash]

.