Downtown Baseball Stadium

[GRID]

Just in Denver. Nothing in the outfield building wise. Everyone love Coors field. Being downtown not seeing downtown is the key to a good urban stadium.

Wrigley and Fenway also come to mind.

I guess. Was hoping for something very different and innovative. Don't get me wrong, I like the basic ideas of both renderings and if the stadium ends up pretty close to the renderings, I think it will be fine. But in the mean time, nothing wrong with throwing ideas out there to enhance it.

And come on. The southeast corner of the freeway loop vs the Rocky Mountains? And Fenway and Wrigley have very urban outfield views.

But I get your point and generally agree.

[KCPowercat]

You cant see the mountains from Coors. Maybe you can from the tip top of the seating, I didn't go up there.

Something innovative could very well be on the way. Again that stadium was a placeholder. It says as much on each picture

[alejandro46]

I agree the views are pretty far down on the priority list. The mid-rises and proposed developments seem like a fine background. I mean the K's outfield view is currently a highway, a couple crappy and/or abandoned hotels, and an office building. Kind of disengious how they faced the NKC rendering with views of downtown and that is not going to get approved by MLB.

[Imarealperson]

The views from Wrigley and Fenway really aren’t any better if not worse than the EV site. People love Wrigley in part because they can walk across the street to the game after pregaming at Murphy’s. Not because downtown is 6 miles behind them.

[TheUrbanRoo]

The big difference between Denver, St. Louis ballparks vs. the KC one is that it only has one area around that is really walkable and useful. The new KC stadium will be active from all sides. So while the "views" may be just of some midrise or highrise created in the EV or Paseo area, you can also exit from the other side of the stadium into the city center. They don't have that in Denver. In fact, the only thing on the left side if Denver is a giant road that dips into the pits of hell and is horrifying to walk through. Beyond the outfield, it's nothing but lots forever. Only coming from the right side of Denver stadium is there any actual activity. St. Louis is similar in that regard, except it's the beyond outfield with activity and nothing behind home plate. Cleveland it's a deadzone behind home plate, but active over the outfield. I'm telling you it's a huge deal that KC stadium is being wired so that you can have real walkability from all angles of it -- that is how an urban ballpark is supposed to be but yet it's seldom done. Fenway & Wrigley have this and that's why they're popular. Adding in this Paseo bridge(s) makes this a truly walkable 360 environment. And it will *still* even have some decent view from what is built over the years. This will be a very rare stadium setup in this regard, so who cares about "view" tbh if we're getting the walkability factor from any direction, which is going to yield far better results when people visit.

[GRID]

The views from Wrigley and Fenway really aren’t any better if not worse than the EV site. People love Wrigley in part because they can walk across the street to the game after pregaming at Murphy’s. Not because downtown is 6 miles behind them.

Not talking about what's six miles away. Jesus, there is NOTHING in EV or within miles of it to the east or southeast. Even if they build a few things, the stadium there will be landlocked by government buildings, parking structures and highways and that will be the view till they build one or two buildings in the outfield which won't really add that much to the overall urban feel of the area.

So yeah, I would like to see a view, but everybody needs to stop attacking me and saying "views don't matter, there will be a neighborhood".

Unless that EV is TOTALLY REBUILT and includes covering the east loop and building up Paseo West, there is not going to be much around the stadium but a few bars at the bases of a couple of buildings.

That's why I'm so adamant on the Royals doing as much with EV as they seem to be doing for the NKC site. I would like to see the stadium turned more toward the city yes, but I also want to see a real neighborhood develop to the east and honestly, I don't see that happening. I just don't. Not in a timely manner. I see the same thing that happened with sprint center. Nothing has changed east of Grand around that arena except tear downs and and a few renovations that would have happened anyway.

That doesn't mean I don't support a new stadium there. I just think people here are not being realistic about how that EV area is going to develop and how much it will take to truly create blocks and blocks of real dense neighborhood development. It will take decades or it might never really even happen (see areas around stadiums in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, even Baltimore etc.)

How do you make sure you get a San Diego or Denver instead? It's going to take a lot of money from the city and the state to help rebuild the east side of downtown. I just hope they are ready to step up and do that. They weren't with the Broadway Bridge.

Sorry, but my comments are not just about having a view of the city. I want what you guys want. I just don't want the view from the stadium to look like the view from City Hall. It's hideous looking out to the southeast and I don't think there is anything wrong with not wanting that view.

[beautyfromashes]

...the stadium there will be landlocked by government buildings...

I was thinking yesterday about those government buildings. Who's to say they will stay government buildings forever? If they were close to the stadium and activity, the city might determine that it's time to rebuild City Hall in another location just like the Federal Reserve moved to a new location.

[TheUrbanRoo]

...the stadium there will be landlocked by government buildings...

I was thinking yesterday about those government buildings. Who's to say they will stay government buildings forever? If they were close to the stadium and activity, the city might determine that it's time to rebuild City Hall in another location just like the Federal Reserve moved to a new location.

To me this has the city moving into a newer modern set of buildings filling out some surface lots downtown while the old ones gets repurposed and redeveloped entirely for something else

[dnweava]

...the stadium there will be landlocked by government buildings...

I was thinking yesterday about those government buildings. Who's to say they will stay government buildings forever? If they were close to the stadium and activity, the city might determine that it's time to rebuild City Hall in another location just like the Federal Reserve moved to a new location.

To me this has the city moving into a newer modern set of buildings filling out some surface lots downtown while the old ones gets repurposed and redeveloped entirely for something else

City Hall isn't moving out of city hall. It'd be an architectural tragedy if that happened plus the city is spending a ton of money on it right now anyways to fix up the underground garage.

[langosta]

...the stadium there will be landlocked by government buildings...

I was thinking yesterday about those government buildings. Who's to say they will stay government buildings forever? If they were close to the stadium and activity, the city might determine that it's time to rebuild City Hall in another location just like the Federal Reserve moved to a new location.

Good point but with each level of Gov minus the state making 20-30 year time frame investments in their facilities over there I don’t see any moving.

[TheUrbanRoo]

I was thinking yesterday about those government buildings. Who's to say they will stay government buildings forever? If they were close to the stadium and activity, the city might determine that it's time to rebuild City Hall in another location just like the Federal Reserve moved to a new location.

To me this has the city moving into a newer modern set of buildings filling out some surface lots downtown while the old ones gets repurposed and redeveloped entirely for something else

City Hall isn't moving out of city hall. It'd be an architectural tragedy if that happened plus the city is spending a ton of money on it right now anyways to fix up the underground garage.

Was thinking more about the others one. The uglier ones.

[Major KC Fan]

You’re probably talking about the 11 Oak tower (please restore!), the ugly AT&T Longlines building and the finally being replaced jail.

[GRID]

City Hall is not and should not ever be anything but a public office building, preferably city hall. It would not be a good conversion to anything else mostly due to its big setbacks etc, but it should remain a historic public operational building in KC.

Same with the Jackson County Courthouse. And it's currently being renovated.

The massive federal building is not going anywhere. The govt has spent like a half billion dollars on that building in the past 20 years and it also has a huge setback from the sidewalk like City Hall so it will never interact with the street or pedestrians.

The Federal Courthouse is relatively new and about to go through a renovation. It's not going anywhere.

The FAA and its parking garage are also relatively new and not going anywhere.

The KCPD and city courts are likely not going anywhere either.

The JE Dunn Building and parking garage is new an not going anywhere.

Oak Tower needs to be renovated, but it's pretty well leased by city agencies I think. That building might changes uses, but it's a pretty solid building with a small foot print and tall unlike all the govt buildings. So it is not really a problem.


The only government buildings that might go away in the next 10-15 years are the jail and MO state building.

The Jail might go away and open that up for development if the county can find the money to tear it down. But I would bet that jail is still there in 2035. It will cost a lot just to tear it down and it will sit for a long time.

The Missouri state building is the one government building that could and should come down relatively quickly for redevelopment if the state of Missouri gave a shit about downtown KC, which they have not really shown they do. The state should build a new state office building or lease space in one of the new buildings in the district and that would open the blocks south of the federal building for some much needed residential development on that side of the loop.

But for the most part, a stadium in EV is going to be walled off by all the existing gov and office buildings on two sides and a freeway to the east. That's why there needs to be very high density residential and some large hotels built in the EV along with this stadium. The EV needs a ton of high density residential and the Royals don't seem to have hardly any planned. The city and state should already be working on ideas to do something far more permanent with the east loop so that the Paseo West area will actually develop. It's not going to develop very well with that highway there in its current state. Especially when nobody knows what Modot is going to do with the highway.

Maybe it will come later, but later in MODOT world, "later" is decades and decades or never. Modot will just do what they do and replace one bridge at a time every 7 years or so and never actually rebuild or redesign it.

But in a perfect world, this EV stadium should come with a plan to redo the east loop of the highway and the blocks that border it. That's really the best way to really create a functioning neighborhood around a stadium there. How long will it take for anything but maybe that one 15 story building to go up in the outfield? That's why I say try and face the city. It's going to be a long long time.

[KCPowercat]

I personally wasnt trying to "attack" you grid. I want to make sure we align our priorities and s view is pretty far down there in my opinion. Sure it would be cool but let's be honest about how great even the best view would be. It's much more important to get the surround right and how the building plops into the street grid.

[Imarealperson]

My point is that Wrigley doesn’t exactly have an “urban” view.

[Imarealperson]

Denver

[KCPowercat]

yeah that was my point as well. These aren't outfields with some great skyline (or any) view. they are beloved ballparks because of their neighborhood not because of a highrise in the background. I can't honestly think of many MLB stadiums that applies. Guess Pittsburgh but in order to get that they had to put the stadium ACROSS the river from downtown. Meh.

[Imarealperson]

yeah that was my point as well. These aren't outfields with some great skyline (or any) view. they are beloved ballparks because of their neighborhood not because of a highrise in the background. I can't honestly think of many MLB stadiums that applies. Guess Pittsburgh but in order to get that they had to put the stadium ACROSS the river from downtown. Meh.

Yep, Wrigley for instance looks opposite of downtown which is 6-7 miles away.

[GRID]

I personally wasnt trying to "attack" you grid. I want to make sure we align our priorities and s view is pretty far down there in my opinion. Sure it would be cool but let's be honest about how great even the best view would be. It's much more important to get the surround right and how the building plops into the street grid.

I know, I was just making a point. I just hope a lot of development comes with the stadium and it comes relatively quickly. It's hard to see such a thing happening, but I'll try to stay positive lol. I guess getting the stadium approved needs to happen first.

[GRID]

Let me ask you guys that might be more in touch with this development one question that might make me far more at ease with this plan.

What are the chances that "everything" west of the east loop gets built along with the stadium within the first five years of the stadium opening? If the stadium goes up and everything in this site plan is either going up at the same time or will go up very shortly after the stadium opens, then I feel like that changes everything. I can look past the other things I said and say "let's go". That's enough development that Paseo West should naturally take off.



And what is the deal with the Evergy building? I hope they can acquire that quickly as well.

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