KCRag Forum

I hope they're also more urban than his work down on Cleaver Boulevard. Yes, I know the whole thing about beggars and choosers...

Ordinance No. 130720 passed unanimously. It declares an area south of 26th Street, north of 27th Street, east of Troost Avenue and West of Tracy Avenue as blighted and in need of redevelopment. Another ordinance, No. 130769, was introduced and later referred to the Planning, Zoning and Economic Development Committee.

The second ordinance would transfer redevelopment rights for the Beacon Hill area away from Beacon Hill Redevelopment Corp. to the 27th and Troost Redevelopment Corp. The ordinance did not say what the 27th and Troost Redevelopment Corp. is, where it is based or what entities form the corporation.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... etcar.html

I wonder if the 27th and Troost Redevelopment Corp. is the entity Truman Medical Center has formed to build the grocery store?

http://tinyurl.com/oq2dvh7

http://fox4kc.com/2013/03/07/grocery-st ... rban-core/

Excavation on the NW corner of Troost and 25th Street. The UMKC apartments across the street on the East side of Troost have had the foundations poured and some framing is going up. Five new houses have been added, and a foundation is poured for a sixth. Four near 24th and Forest and another one near 24th and Tracy. Randy Kietzman is the architect and builder.

FangKC wrote:Excavation on the NW corner of Troost and 25th Street. The UMKC apartments across the street on the East side of Troost have had the foundations poured and some framing is going up. Five new houses have been added, and a foundation is poured for a sixth. Four near 24th and Forest and another one near 24th and Tracy. Randy Kietzman is the architect and builder.

The elevator core is up on the apartments. It's a little startling to see, after there nothing being there for years.

The houses on Tracy look really good. Nice level of design.

I really like the design of the houses. Especially the brown house on the southwest side of 24th and Forest.

FangKC wrote:I really like the design of the houses. Especially the brown house on the southwest side of 24th and Forest.

So do I. Multistory SFH infill on an existing city lot is almost shocking to see around here.

New house on the SW corner of 24th and Forest.

New house on the southeast corner of 24th and Forest.

New houses being constructed on the east side of Forest Avenue court.

New house on the SW corner of 24th and Tracy.

WOW! I've been meaning to go over there and check those out. I think they look great. Thanks, Fang!

Those houses look great. Any thoughts on who might be in the market for those?

We just went by these this morning after bfast at Succotash. They look better when there and in context to entire neighborhood but there's one that has a rather large concrete base that didn't work for the hood. Should be a nice area when it matures with aging trees. I like that none are similar.

I really don't like those and I'm surprised they are getting praise in here! They look like fortresses with no connection to neighboring houses. Why are they so spread out and walled off from the street/neighbors.

I've found high fences is just how housing is done downtown.

Columbus Park, Westside, Quality Hill all have walls around their housing on all sides. Even the modern row homes at 5th and Oak have walled yards

beautyfromashes wrote:I really don't like those and I'm surprised they are getting praise in here! They look like fortresses with no connection to neighboring houses. Why are they so spread out and walled off from the street/neighbors.

They're more connected to the neighboring houses than the photos let on. And they may look that way until all the lots are infilled. What I like is that they set a good precedent for new residential construction staying on the lot and going vertical, instead of combining two lots and going horizontal. Also the materials use and articulation is rather nice. Traditional but not old timey (shoutout to Mike Burke!).

IIRC the architect is the guy who built the modern place at 20th and Summit.

I hope your right. I'm not really a fan of the materials either. They look Colorado ski lodge instead of Midwest brick and stone and not very futuristically modern either. Maybe they just don't feel like Midtown/ Downtown to me, but, if they attract people to the city, I'm all for it.

beautyfromashes wrote:I hope your right. I'm not really a fan of the materials either. They look Colorado ski lodge instead of Midwest brick and stone and not very futuristically modern either. Maybe they just don't feel like Midtown/ Downtown to me, but, if they attract people to the city, I'm all for it.

I think that may be the best part of these homes. This neighborhood could eventually be rather unique to Kansas City. The backbone of it is classic Kansas City (3 story flats with porches on a grid just off a boulevard), yet with different materials and a slightly different style.

Now I'm not sure, but I'm assuming that most of these houses are flats. If so, then I really like the density of this neighborhood. I feel like most new developments of multi-family buildings are large, squat buildings with many apartments per floor. It is refreshing to see the more classic individual flats buildings with only one or two apartments per floor. If these are all single family houses though... then I will be disappointed. These are very large, and if everyone is just living in mansions in this neighborhood then it will be missing out on a lot of the potential that it has.

The way that this neighborhood is being built one property at a time is also great. Even though this neighborhood has a master plan, I feel that just about anything could be built within it. Including the dorm in the neighborhood adds more variety to it, as well as more people which should be very good for the area.

In the New Kansas City, I see this being one of the more premier neighborhoods. (Though I want to bomb the townhomes across Troost from this neighborhood. So ugly!)

The thing I like about how this neighborhood is being developed in that the new houses are all individual. It's not a cookie-cutter suburban approach. Each house is distinct, and different from the others. If you look at how J.C. Nichols developed his neighborhoods, you will see he did this on a mass scale. Creating entire neighborhoods of individual houses side-by-side. Different styles, a mock tudor next to a colonial next to an arts and crafts bungalow. Different scales as well. Even when Nichols reused a house style, he spaced them far enough part so as not to be cookie-cutter, and even adjusted the materials a bit so no two were exactly the same.

I also like that each house is a different color, or combination of colors, instead of the street of monochromatic beige houses.

These are new styles of houses that incorporate many design elements from traditional Kansas City houses. The green house is a narrow two-story with a two-story porch that you see so often in Columbus Park.