KCRag Forum

By the way, I wasn't saying we should wait for lot-by-lot piecemeal development.

By all means, if we can fill the hole with a big scale project, lets do it!  I want the holes filled, too.

All I was saying is, if we do big development, lets shoot for it to have a variety of architectural styles.  Have some brownstone apartments, mix in a few modernist residential towers, and one or two postmodernist/Art Modern/Art Deco office buildings.  Mix the styles and materials up.  As others have stated, that will at least give the illusion of organic design.  

The mix of styles is what already gives downtown KC such a distinction from cities like Denver (some old, but mostly 1970's) and Dallas (totally 1970's and 1980's).  

KCwriter wrote:All I was saying is, if we do big development, lets shoot for it to have a variety of architectural styles.  Have some brownstone apartments, mix in a few modernist residential towers, and one or two postmodernist/Art Modern/Art Deco office buildings.  Mix the styles and materials up.  As others have stated, that will at least give the illusion of organic design.  

The mix of styles is what already gives downtown KC such a distinction from cities like Denver (some old, but mostly 1970's) and Dallas (totally 1970's and 1980's).  

Although i disagree with the idea of large scale urbanism-in-a-can projects (which most people on here seem to want, as if any of the great cities they then rave about are made up of that shite.........)  If it is to be done, then i agree with KCwriter, it should be done as an innovative project.........  (one example is the Bottle District in St. Louis, which is being masterplanned and designed by Libeskind).  I wouldn't mind seeing a project masterplanned by one architect, and then have context buildings designed by another, and the towers have their own starchitect designers.  If large scale development is what people want to see, then we might as well bring in the big design guns to atleast make it "innovative" (atleast innovative compared to Quality Hill). 

However, this developer's previous projects don't suggest there will be anything of that sort happening.  Instead i'm guessing we'll have 12 blocks of "varying" degress of shite that looks like this:

(one of the Sherman Associate's projects in Minneapolis)

Ok, and i agree it's way too early to make those kinds of calls since there haven't been any designs or concepts thrown out.... however, it's something to watch for.

Interesting....the guy who also spends time at urbanstl.com finds our masterplanned urban neighborhoods bad but the bottle district as "innovatative".  Interesting. 

I have no problem with 12 blocks of surface parking lots being master planned....how do you really expect surface parking lots to grow organically?  the owners of those lots have done nothing with them for how many years but all of a sudden they are going to rise up and individually begin developing the blocks w/o a master plan?  Riiight.

My God, they can't POSSIBLY call this "east village" can they?

That is so shameless.  Coupled with teh SoHo lofts, we're just embarrassing ourselves.  Just call it Crack-Town, or Hooker-Appolis.  But NOT a shameless rip off.

I agree, this area-along with the performing arts site--need to be filled in quickly.  I would love to see high density, mixed use development.  Quality Hill is nice, but I would rather see something quite a bit more dense for both of the above mentioned areas with more businesses and lots of space for restaraunts and some retail.  Yes, organic growth is much better, but as many of you have mentioned, there is not much left in the 'east village' area but parking and nothing but grass in the performing arts site.  It would be nice to take an approach whereby several builders and firms are awarded rigths to design and build on both areas.  While remaining within a master plan, this would allow for more organic oriented growth.

KCPowercat wrote: Interesting....the guy who also spends time at urbanstl.com finds our masterplanned urban neighborhoods bad but the bottle district as "innovatative".  Interesting. 

I have no problem with 12 blocks of surface parking lots being master planned....how do you really expect surface parking lots to grow organically?  the owners of those lots have done nothing with them for how many years but all of a sudden they are going to rise up and individually begin developing the blocks w/o a master plan?  Riiight.

well.... first off, i don't think i ever said "innovatative", lol, atleast give me that  :lol:

KCP if you go over there and read my posts you'll see i slammed the original version of the Bottle District as the P.O.S it was (mostly because it was an open air mall.  It was so below anything remotely urban i couldn't even criticize it on the level of this project).  Once Libeskind got onboard it definitely became a completely different animal since he's promising a lot of different things that wouldn't make it a P.O.S and might even make it cool.  I admit i should definitely wait till i see the revised plans and concepts, but from what i've seen of his previous projects and work i'm definitely optimistic about what he'll come up with.  Then again, that's a huge assumption, and he might just come up with a nicely starchitected turd.  So, you got me there, I shouldn't have used that as an example of an "innovatative" urban masterplanned development, since it's all in Libeskind's head as of right now.  But the possibilities are very enticiing......

Second, Quality Hill worked for its time and age, it was a necessary step in bringing back downtown.  The P+L district was another necessary step in bringing back downtown.  I don't necessarily agree with them from an ideological or design p.o.v, but the large benefits they bring more than outweigh the negatives.  At this point, however, we've had enough of these large scale developments.  I'm not arguing against masterplanning or having a sense of what we want to go there, but i am against handing huge chunks of land to one developer/design team.  The ideal situation would be that the city clear the land, masterplan the area, and then sell parcels to different development/design teams.  It's a question of diversified ownership, uses, interests, and design.      

KCPowercat wrote: I have no problem with 12 blocks of surface parking lots being master planned....how do you really expect surface parking lots to grow organically? 

Thistle and ragweed.

The area does need a master plan, more or less. Maybe they could have a national or even international design competition similar to the one for the Tribune Tower in Chicago several decades ago. Certain qualities, like variety of architecture, could be stressed in the specifications. Yeah, it may never happen, but you never know.

i agree with pa, which means i am probably intoxicated, but these new york rip offs are starting to piss me off too. soho, is a fucken joke. south of what offices? and soho in new york is full of great clubs. and the village? yeah, right
kc has premier places of its own
westport
plaza
west bottoms
river quay
quality hill

give me a break people

grammar smack sux.

it shoor dus

As far as a name for the district. Are there any historical hooks that could be used, like Quality Hill on the east side or Columbus Park to the north.

Maybe some take off on city hall or the Jackson count court house. Government Park doesn't sound good. There are a couple of old churches (one south on Holmes one up by the Ozark buidling), Maybe the names or history of those churches could provide a hook. When the churches were built in the late 1800s what was the neighborhood called?

it could also be named after the original subdivided plats of that area.
for instance, the area between oak and cherry streets, and 8th and 9th street, is originally platted as William Bales Addition.

There are many other blocks and additions that might produce interesting, influential local names, not something ridiculous and disneyland like East Village.

How about Sportscastleville in honor of the old Gart Bros?

Or maybe "Top of the Hill"... something to play with the idea that it's one of the highest points in downtown.  I think it might be higher than the Lewis & Clark statue by Case Park.  Anybody know for sure?  Also, the old, old KC Library is a magnificent building wedged between the Federal Courthouse and the FAA building.  Unfortunately, we've already got a Library District popping up on 10th Street, so that one's probably moot.

Has anyone looked at a parcel map for this area?  I think our best hope for "organic, varied architecture" would be if the all the surface parking lots are actually still composed of individual parcels.  If the entire blocks are single parcels, it's gonna be more difficult to get a varied streetscape.

Moderne, were you considering the Cherry St. Inn ho's to be "entertainment" or "neighborhood services/retail"?

How about:

East Gate (to suburban)
East Port
Cherry Hill
Cherry Flats
Admiral South
East loop (Bla!)
Admiral Plaza
Admiral Park
Or just the Admiral Neighborhood
Spirit Hill
Admiral District
East Quarter
Admiral Village
Admiral Hill

I wonder what all of the recent proposed projects total to.  There is about $3B or so actually under construction or approved downtown.  It sounds like close to another $B is in the works between this project, Tesla, East 12th/Grand and a few others.

A "masterplan" generally does not include design of the actual buildings

It is just a guide that says what types of buildings and other spaces should occur in what locations

It is then up to the owner to decide how that masterplan is implemented, if they want to hand off the whole thing to one architect with one developer, or if they want to market the masterplan and sell off the property piece by piece to different developers.  And the masterplan should be flexible, because you can't really predict organic growth.  But it needs to be kept under control, so keep the masterplan architect on board to oversee changes.

For the owner of the surface lot to just put up a for sale sign and say "come buy how ever much land you want" and then allow people to build whatever they want would likely be a disaster in terms of the urban environment.  But if the demand is truly there, it wouldn't take 200 years for this.

Quality Hill and the P&L district needed to happen to jump start what was stagnant.  But now, I think we can afford to wait a little bit and see.  If the demand is there it will happen, if not, then we didn't need it in the first place.

Maybe we allow a developer to come in, clear out the perceived impediments to growth (i.e. the gas station), and develop a few blocks to get things started.  But leave space and potential for other things to happen.

Most of the area within this plan is in the city legal description of Smarts Addition.  Not sure if the Smarts name is one that would fit, but it is historic.  I am not a big fan of using hill in the name, we already have Quality Hill, Union Hill...  How about something like the Near East End?

There is also so much underdeveloped land in and around the loop.  I am less concerned about having 12-blocks master planned.  The areas immediatly to the north and east of this area will grow organically if we add population and remove blight.  We should definitly fight to make sure that the design of the buildings going in fit the Sasaki and city plans.     

how about totaltown in honor of the only gas station that hung out in that neighborhood for  a long  time.

Name:    Dunnville, Dunnhill (not the cigar)
           

nice.