KCRag Forum

I think I'm personally sick of seeing everything new go up downtown being "luxury" myself. I think back to nearly two decades ago when I moved downtown and there was no in between. It was income restricted or high-end. I wish we'd dedicate a portion of EV to the middle section of income earners. It's hard to do this when flipping an older building or building anything tall in a tight footprint. EV has the room and could even use more traditional construction methods to help control costs.

Every new building going up that's luxury also provides more supply that creates more mid income level housing downtown from maybe a building that was built more high end a decade or two ago. it' all helps make housing affordable for all levels.

DColeKC wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 4:46 pm I think I'm personally sick of seeing everything new go up downtown being "luxury" myself. I think back to nearly two decades ago when I moved downtown and there was no in between. It was income restricted or high-end. I wish we'd dedicate a portion of EV to the middle section of income earners. It's hard to do this when flipping an older building or building anything tall in a tight footprint. EV has the room and could even use more traditional construction methods to help control costs.

That’s what happens when you (as a collective society) spend the better half of half a century demolishing the existing housing stock to the point that all that exists in any reasonably habitable state is stabilized affordable units or new construction. Had we kept more of the building stock, the organic housing supply would’ve kept much more middle supply around.

Build a new campus for the KC Art Institute with the Nelson expanding to buy out their existing campus.

KCAI has no interest in moving, Nelson has no interest in expanding into Southmoreland, especially after Rockhill nixed expansion on grounds of Laura Nelson home.

moderne wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 2:28 pm KCAI has no interest in moving, Nelson has no interest in expanding into Southmoreland, especially after Rockhill nixed expansion on grounds of Laura Nelson home.

This would be nothing like the former Nelson expansion, something they really need with space getting scarce. It would have no effect on the neighborhood since you would just be exchanging one arts use for another. KCAI would get a massive influx of capital and space as well as being in the business district for easy projects with businesses there. Downtown would get an increase of 1500 students everyday and the arts ingenuity that seems to spur business creation.

I like as much stuff downtown as the next guy but I don’t see how sending an art school almost 4 miles away from the giant art museum it already sits next to makes any sense. Nuking one of the only instances of synergy in the entire metro.

On the other hand, UMKC definitely needs more of a downtown presence. Maybe once the streetcar extension is open they could do something

The duo are the only reason for the 45th St streetcar stop.

From Shortridge's "Kansas City and How it Grew", "The eastern edge of downtown , between Locust Street and the freeway loop, had always been more residential than commercial. The old Kerry Patch around St. Patrick's Catholic Church and the African American Church Hill district formed its traditional core. But by the 1950's this entire neighborhood was seriously blighted and therefore a target for renewal by (City Manager L.P.) Cookingham. He completely cleared the area south of Twelfth, dubbed South Humboldt, to allow space for a series of public buildings that would complement the existing city hall and county courthouse. The area's anchor was a large Federal Office building completed in 1966. North of Twelfth, in a 58-acre project called Eastside, about two-thirds of the buildings were razed, leaving St. Patrick's and other symbolic and solid structures as a nucleus for renovation. The primary aim here was the creation of new, middle income housing, mostly apartments."
Guess it did not happen, unless The View(Vista del Rio) and Manhattan(River Hills) were a part of this?

I've been really fascinated about this exact subject recently. If anyone knows more information please PM me. Below is a map with the sections of land cleared for these projects and where in the city they were. As you can see, most of the area cleared is still under built today



Other resources that I've found helpful in figuring out how this area came to be what we see today are Kevin Gotham's A City without Slums: Urban Renewal, Public Housing, and Downtown Revitalization in Kansas City, Missouri and his associated book Race, Real Estate, and Uneven Development

There is a local real estate guy whose first job was working for the city while they developed and then started to implement the downtown renewal plan. He tells a story of writing a paper countering the proposed plan that quickly led to his demise in that position. Hope you get the chance to hear it.