Streetcar to the riverfront

[Anthony_Hugo98]

Unless the buildings in the remaining lots are 40 stories each, the amount of residents that will be added at this point don't justify the streetcar extension cost. That area needed to be built out at a much higher density. Looking at that site plan and how much room there is around the structured parking, they might double the units that have been built so far.

I agree, they need to find a way to rebuild the grid and get the Riverfront connected to Columbus Park.

KC Current is going to pave over all those empty lots for parking and who knows how long they will take to develop.

I still think the streetcar should take a left at the Berkley stop and go across the river to NKC from there and connect to Swift. Rather than having the riverfront a spur or something.

It's still a nice investment though. Got a bunch of money from the feds and building that pedestrian bridge will really improve the entire area.

It’s justified for functionality and activation alone. It’s a site bordered on all four sides by geographic obstacles. This doesn’t even address the functionality benefits to the streetcar as well. Both having a terminus stop in an area that will offer significant amounts of parking provides utility for downtown, and its ability for smoother operations with Layover abilities.

Until we have regional funding or the state wants to throw money, NKC isn’t happening, and even before this extension came about any NKC proposal included a separate line operating independently from Main.

[WoodDraw]

My skepticism would be significantly less if it involved a casino/river "resort".

But I'm not against it! It's just...odd.

[langosta]

Unless the buildings in the remaining lots are 40 stories each, the amount of residents that will be added at this point don't justify the streetcar extension cost. That area needed to be built out at a much higher density. Looking at that site plan and how much room there is around the structured parking, they might double the units that have been built so far.

I agree, they need to find a way to rebuild the grid and get the Riverfront connected to Columbus Park.

KC Current is going to pave over all those empty lots for parking and who knows how long they will take to develop.

I still think the streetcar should take a left at the Berkley stop and go across the river to NKC from there and connect to Swift. Rather than having the riverfront a spur or something.

It's still a nice investment though. Got a bunch of money from the feds and building that pedestrian bridge will really improve the entire area.

It’s justified for functionality and activation alone. It’s a site bordered on all four sides by geographic obstacles. This doesn’t even address the functionality benefits to the streetcar as well. Both having a terminus stop in an area that will offer significant amounts of parking provides utility for downtown, and its ability for smoother operations with Layover abilities.

Until we have regional funding or the state wants to throw money, NKC isn’t happening, and even before this extension came about any NKC proposal included a separate line operating independently from Main.

Grid visit the park during a warm Friday or Saturday night and tel me this area isn’t popular.

[FangKC]

I think it's a mistake they aren't going right up to the door of the casino and adjacent hotel. There is also that small amphitheater being built there for public events. I am disappointed that Bally's didn't include a permanent theater for regular performances. That would draw more people to their facility.

[Anthony_Hugo98]

I think it's a mistake they aren't going right up to the door of the casino and adjacent hotel. There is also that small amphitheater being built there for public events. I am disappointed that Bally's didn't include a permanent theater for regular performances. That would draw more people to their facility.

Blame the casino. They didn’t at all want to support a further extension to them.

[WoodDraw]

I think it's a mistake they aren't going right up to the door of the casino and adjacent hotel. There is also that small amphitheater being built there for public events. I am disappointed that Bally's didn't include a permanent theater for regular performances. That would draw more people to their facility.

Blame the casino. They didn’t at all want to support a further extension to them.

Less support and more contribute to. Not much went into that where I think more people at the time were hopeful.

I am not a huge supporter of gambling, but you could come up with like a casino, sports book bar, restaurants, and hotel that would be a draw there. Because of laws and money, they were like we'll just go with the chain smoking parking lot group thank you very much.

[langosta]

I think it's a mistake they aren't going right up to the door of the casino and adjacent hotel. There is also that small amphitheater being built there for public events. I am disappointed that Bally's didn't include a permanent theater for regular performances. That would draw more people to their facility.

Blame the casino. They didn’t at all want to support a further extension to them.

Less support and more contribute to. Not much went into that where I think more people at the time were hopeful.

I am not a huge supporter of gambling, but you could come up with like a casino, sports book bar, restaurants, and hotel that would be a draw there. Because of laws and money, they were like we'll just go with the chain smoking parking lot group thank you very much.

The luxury St Louis casino has a crowd similar to Isle of Capri. Despite having luxury restaurants, stores, and a Four Seasons.

[WoodDraw]

Blame the casino. They didn’t at all want to support a further extension to them.

Less support and more contribute to. Not much went into that where I think more people at the time were hopeful.

I am not a huge supporter of gambling, but you could come up with like a casino, sports book bar, restaurants, and hotel that would be a draw there. Because of laws and money, they were like we'll just go with the chain smoking parking lot group thank you very much.

The luxury St Louis casino has a crowd similar to Isle of Capri. Despite having luxury restaurants, stores, and a Four Seasons.

It is a fair point. In my head I pictured sports gambling being more of a sports book and less of an application addiction zone to the point where people line up their cars on the Kansas border to bet on games.

I got it wrong. Happy to see what they pull off down here.

[langosta]

Less support and more contribute to. Not much went into that where I think more people at the time were hopeful.

I am not a huge supporter of gambling, but you could come up with like a casino, sports book bar, restaurants, and hotel that would be a draw there. Because of laws and money, they were like we'll just go with the chain smoking parking lot group thank you very much.

The luxury St Louis casino has a crowd similar to Isle of Capri. Despite having luxury restaurants, stores, and a Four Seasons.

It is a fair point. In my head I pictured sports gambling being more of a sports book and less of an application addiction zone to the point where people line up their cars on the Kansas border to get on games.

I got it wrong. Happy to see what they pull off down here.

I suspect that KC lacks the high roller gambling crowds to support a luxury casino/resort. Just given that it doesn't seem to work out in STL and they have a larger wealthy population to pull from.

To be fair, the luxury casino lacks a sports book but the next Metrolink station down they do with again a very similar crowd

[GRID]

Grid visit the park during a warm Friday or Saturday night and tel me this area isn’t popular.

Never said the park was not popular. Last time I was in KC, I rode scooters in the area. It's popular for KC at least. Not sure it's up there with other urban parks, riverfronts etc. KC in general still lacks people doing outdoors stuff compared to most cities. It is what is is. Don't hate me for saying it. But yeah, it's 100 times busier now than when I took my kids down there to ride bikes 15 years ago. We were all by ourselves back then.

I just wonder if the cost of the extension was worth it for what is going to end up being a relatively low density spread out neighborhood that is landlocked and can only have so many residents.

And while I am 100% for the women's soccer stadium, I think you have to question the sustainability of that league. An MLS stadium there would have been better. The stadium is nice, but it's nowhere near the same league as modern MLS stadiums. But maybe it's a better fit since it's quite a bit smaller.

It's all good though. They are building it. I just hope the remaining lots are actually developed dense. I just don't really see it happening. I think the best hope is for something maybe slightly more dense than what has been built with most of the structures being for parking.

So at build out, what will be the total population of the riverfront? And since the are is being built with enough parking for all the residents, how many will really use the streetcar?

It's still great to see Berkey Park come to life.

And I personally would not even mess with the casino. The priority should be to cross the river to NKC, not go to the Casino. I just hate everything about casinos. I'm so glad KC's casinos are hidden away on the river. Urban casinos are the worst thing you can do to a city.

[langosta]

Grid visit the park during a warm Friday or Saturday night and tel me this area isn’t popular.

Never said the park was not popular. Last time I was in KC, I rode scooters in the area. It's popular for KC at least. Not sure it's up there with other urban parks, riverfronts etc. KC in general still lacks people doing outdoors stuff compared to most cities. It is what is is. Don't hate me for saying it. But yeah, it's 100 times busier now than when I took my kids down there to ride bikes 15 years ago. We were all by ourselves back then.

I just wonder if the cost of the extension was worth it for what is going to end up being a relatively low density spread out neighborhood that is landlocked and can only have so many residents.

And while I am 100% for the women's soccer stadium, I think you have to question the sustainability of that league. An MLS stadium there would have been better. The stadium is nice, but it's nowhere near the same league as modern MLS stadiums. But maybe it's a better fit since it's quite a bit smaller.

It's all good though. They are building it. I just hope the remaining lots are actually developed dense. I just don't really see it happening. I think the best hope is for something maybe slightly more dense than what has been built with most of the structures being for parking.

So at build out, what will be the total population of the riverfront? And since the are is being built with enough parking for all the residents, how many will really use the streetcar?

It's still great to see Berkey Park come to life.

And I personally would not even mess with the casino. The priority should be to cross the river to NKC, not go to the Casino. I just hate everything about casinos. I'm so glad KC's casinos are hidden away on the river. Urban casinos are the worst thing you can do to a city.

At 1.5x occupancy, ~1500 residents in open + North Point/Lux site. So around 4,000 for the full build.

[TheUrbanRoo]

Unless the buildings in the remaining lots are 40 stories each, the amount of residents that will be added at this point don't justify the streetcar extension cost. That area needed to be built out at a much higher density. Looking at that site plan and how much room there is around the structured parking, they might double the units that have been built so far.

I agree, they need to find a way to rebuild the grid and get the Riverfront connected to Columbus Park.

KC Current is going to pave over all those empty lots for parking and who knows how long they will take to develop.

I still think the streetcar should take a left at the Berkley stop and go across the river to NKC from there and connect to Swift. Rather than having the riverfront a spur or something.

It's still a nice investment though. Got a bunch of money from the feds and building that pedestrian bridge will really improve the entire area.

It’s justified for functionality and activation alone. It’s a site bordered on all four sides by geographic obstacles. This doesn’t even address the functionality benefits to the streetcar as well. Both having a terminus stop in an area that will offer significant amounts of parking provides utility for downtown, and its ability for smoother operations with Layover abilities.

Until we have regional funding or the state wants to throw money, NKC isn’t happening, and even before this extension came about any NKC proposal included a separate line operating independently from Main.

Grid visit the park during a warm Friday or Saturday night and tel me this area isn’t popular.

He thinks literally everything in KC is either dead or blighted. I stopped engaging with him years ago.

[GRID]

It’s justified for functionality and activation alone. It’s a site bordered on all four sides by geographic obstacles. This doesn’t even address the functionality benefits to the streetcar as well. Both having a terminus stop in an area that will offer significant amounts of parking provides utility for downtown, and its ability for smoother operations with Layover abilities.

Until we have regional funding or the state wants to throw money, NKC isn’t happening, and even before this extension came about any NKC proposal included a separate line operating independently from Main.

Grid visit the park during a warm Friday or Saturday night and tel me this area isn’t popular.

He thinks literally everything in KC is either dead or blighted. I stopped engaging with him years ago.

I love KC, but if you think it's a very active city, you don't get out much. I'm sorry if the truth hurts. But KC feels like a very "empty" city for a large city most of the time. That's just how the city is. It has small pockets of activity, but for the most part, it's just not a very busy city and the same goes for the parks etc. I mean have you spent time in the parks in Austin or Minneapolis or Denver or even St Louis? And KC does have a high percentage of "blight".

I'm sorry this is so offensive. Doesn't mean KC is a terrible place by any stretch. But on the surface and to most people when the visit it for the first time, the city still lacks "people" and the urban core lacks any real urban bustle. Nearly every video of KC on youtube is full of comments of people asking "where are the people?" "it looks like a very quiet place". It's a photogenic city from the air etc, but from the street level, it's empty in most places (compared to central urban areas of other large cities).

If you don't see this, then you don't get out of KC much.

Stop taking shit so personal. Maybe KC could improve some things if people there would even acknowledge some things about it. It's like the area around the stadiums. It's like people don't even realize how bad that area looks now and if you say something like I do, then you are the bad person.

[Anthony_Hugo98]

Grid visit the park during a warm Friday or Saturday night and tel me this area isn’t popular.

He thinks literally everything in KC is either dead or blighted. I stopped engaging with him years ago.

I love KC, but if you think it's a very active city, you don't get out much. I'm sorry if the truth hurts. But KC feels like a very "empty" city for a large city most of the time. That's just how the city is. It has small pockets of activity, but for the most part, it's just not a very busy city and the same goes for the parks etc. I mean have you spent time in the parks in Austin or Minneapolis or Denver or even St Louis? And KC does have a high percentage of "blight".

I'm sorry this is so offensive. Doesn't mean KC is a terrible place by any stretch. But on the surface and to most people when the visit it for the first time, the city still lacks "people" and the urban core lacks any real urban bustle. Nearly every video of KC on youtube is full of comments of people asking "where are the people?" "it looks like a very quiet place". It's a photogenic city from the air etc, but from the street level, it's empty in most places (compared to central urban areas of other large cities).

If you don't see this, then you don't get out of KC much.

Stop taking shit so personal. Maybe KC could improve some things if people there would even acknowledge some things about it. It's like the area around the stadiums. It's like people don't even realize how bad that area looks now and if you say something like I do, then you are the bad person.

Yeah, no. Compared to any city in the Midwest of a similar size that I’ve been to, KC absolutely blows the others out of the water. The core has a significantly higher bustle factor as compared to even just 5 years ago, and if you’re going to compare KC to other spots, at least make them places with comparable metro populations and densities.

[TheUrbanRoo]

Grid visit the park during a warm Friday or Saturday night and tel me this area isn’t popular.

He thinks literally everything in KC is either dead or blighted. I stopped engaging with him years ago.

I love KC, but if you think it's a very active city, you don't get out much. I'm sorry if the truth hurts. But KC feels like a very "empty" city for a large city most of the time. That's just how the city is. It has small pockets of activity, but for the most part, it's just not a very busy city and the same goes for the parks etc. I mean have you spent time in the parks in Austin or Minneapolis or Denver or even St Louis? And KC does have a high percentage of "blight".

I'm sorry this is so offensive. Doesn't mean KC is a terrible place by any stretch. But on the surface and to most people when the visit it for the first time, the city still lacks "people" and the urban core lacks any real urban bustle. Nearly every video of KC on youtube is full of comments of people asking "where are the people?" "it looks like a very quiet place". It's a photogenic city from the air etc, but from the street level, it's empty in most places (compared to central urban areas of other large cities).

If you don't see this, then you don't get out of KC much.

Stop taking shit so personal. Maybe KC could improve some things if people there would even acknowledge some things about it. It's like the area around the stadiums. It's like people don't even realize how bad that area looks now and if you say something like I do, then you are the bad person.

I just spent the last two months living in Vienna. You're the one who's nuts and obv got triggered.

[GRID]

If you guys think KC has a lot of activity (pedestrians, cyclists, even traffic on the surface streets), that's your opinion I guess. Yeah, it's way better now, but it's still a very quiet city as far as that goes even compared to places of similar size like Indy and Columbus. Before you say anything, I do think KC is a much much better city than Indy or Columbus, but even those cities seem to have busier downtowns with more people out and about.

I think a lot of it has to do with the geography and layout of the city but most of the time the city does feel pretty empty. Even streets like Grand etc have few cars on them.

The parks systems are scattered and isolated. You don't have what you have in say Austin or Minneapolis with what seems like miles and miles of river front parks systems that are full of people.

But if you don't agree that's fine.

[langosta]

If you guys think KC has a lot of activity (pedestrians, cyclists, even traffic on the surface streets), that's your opinion I guess. Yeah, it's way better now, but it's still a very quiet city as far as that goes even compared to places of similar size like Indy and Columbus. Before you say anything, I do think KC is a much much better city than Indy or Columbus, but even those cities seem to have busier downtowns with more people out and about.

I think a lot of it has to do with the geography and layout of the city but most of the time the city does feel pretty empty. Even streets like Grand etc have few cars on them.

The parks systems are scattered and isolated. You don't have what you have in say Austin or Minneapolis with what seems like miles and miles of river front parks systems that are full of people.

But if you don't agree that's fine.

Indy gets a big boost from their events business. They are building an expansion to their facilities or new major hotel every 5 years if not less.

[GRID]

If you guys think KC has a lot of activity (pedestrians, cyclists, even traffic on the surface streets), that's your opinion I guess. Yeah, it's way better now, but it's still a very quiet city as far as that goes even compared to places of similar size like Indy and Columbus. Before you say anything, I do think KC is a much much better city than Indy or Columbus, but even those cities seem to have busier downtowns with more people out and about.

I think a lot of it has to do with the geography and layout of the city but most of the time the city does feel pretty empty. Even streets like Grand etc have few cars on them.

The parks systems are scattered and isolated. You don't have what you have in say Austin or Minneapolis with what seems like miles and miles of river front parks systems that are full of people.

But if you don't agree that's fine.

Indy gets a big boost from their events business. They are building an expansion to their facilities or new major hotel every 5 years if not less.

I understand that. They also have way more hotels in their downtown, They also have the zoo near downtown which is connected to downtown via the parks system. There is a major college down there etc. All of that contributes to a busier downtown. Indy is still not a busy city compared to many mid sized cities, but has more activity than Downtown KC does most of the time.

Again, I'm not saying KC is a bad place. KC has way more to offer as a city than Indy overall. But on most days, the downtown area outside of river market maybe, it's pretty empty most of the time. Main along the streetcar has the most pedestrians when I'm in town. But even Main is not a busy street.

[GRID]

All of this bodes well for a downtown stadium. Downtown KC is an extreme amount of excess road and parking capacity and has freeways coming into it from every direction. I honestly don't see how 25,000 people going to downtown stadium is even remotely a problem. As long as everybody doesn't try and get off on the same exit, you would have plenty of streets to accommodate the traffic even for a weekday afternoon game.

[WoodDraw]

I think people underestimate how quiet kc can be. I can often walk from the crossroads to power and light without seeing anyone.

River market has more activity and power and light too.

KC punches above its weight in activities, but is quite poor in streat level activation. It's still dominated by point to point car trips. Not as bad as it used to be but still there.