OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Issues concerning Downtown as described by the Downtown Council. River to 31st Street, I-35 to Bruce R. Watkins.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by WoodDraw »

I deleted a previous post because I thought it was too navel gazing. And it was.

But like Twitter and Facebook didn't exist back when kcp started this.

It was a weird ass place with different characters.

I don't consider myself part of it, even though I've become closer friends with some of them, but it had a hard, weird culture to it.

I think my first dm came from a moderator who I won't name that told me to shut the fuck up and grow up.

Time repeats.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by normalthings »

TLDR: we need to push multiple balls at once and make it clear there are catalytic projects but no project will be the single “ticket to growth”.

I feel like there is a more incremental approach being taken today. In the 80’s and 90’s projects like the Marriott were hyped up to be the ticket to success. City has to be pushing multiple things at once and has been for most of this decade and did during the 70s.

- Loews
- Airport
- 3 streetcar expansions
- Bartle Reno
- WC (this will be a decade long endevour)


In regards to WR and the Convention Center: I do think this site would have served better as a hotel for the convention center. Such plans for hotels in this area had been drawn up by multiple parties years ago. It’s great we got a new office tower but I wish it had been farther east.

KC had a major focus on events/tourism in the 60s-70s. I honestly think we have a much better set up than most peers other than the lack of hotels and to a lessor degree transportation and spread our activities.

- Indy sucks but has a great airport and great hotels.
- STL has a great connecting airport, 5 star hotels, great LRT, bad downtown
- Milwaukee and Ohio cities are pretty meh when I’ve gone to events there. CLE and Columbus have some great new hotels but Cincinatti has nothing left.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by TheUrbanRoo »

normalthings wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 4:10 pm TLDR: we need to push multiple balls at once and make it clear there are catalytic projects but no project will be the single “ticket to growth”.

I feel like there is a more incremental approach being taken today. In the 80’s and 90’s projects like the Marriott were hyped up to be the ticket to success. City has to be pushing multiple things at once and has been for most of this decade and did during the 70s.

- Loews
- Airport
- 3 streetcar expansions
- Bartle Reno
- WC (this will be a decade long endevour)


In regards to WR and the Convention Center: I do think this site would have served better as a hotel for the convention center. Such plans for hotels in this area had been drawn up by multiple parties years ago. It’s great we got a new office tower but I wish it had been farther east.

KC had a major focus on events/tourism in the 60s-70s. I honestly think we have a much better set up than most peers other than the lack of hotels and to a lessor degree transportation and spread our activities.

- Indy sucks but has a great airport and great hotels.
- STL has a great connecting airport, 5 star hotels, great LRT, bad downtown
- Milwaukee and Ohio cities are pretty meh when I’ve gone to events there. CLE and Columbus have some great new hotels but Cincinatti has nothing left.
What I'd like to know is whether Loews + 4L hotel would be enough to start getting the conventions back that we lost many years ago
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by normalthings »

UMKC Roo wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:44 pm
normalthings wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 4:10 pm TLDR: we need to push multiple balls at once and make it clear there are catalytic projects but no project will be the single “ticket to growth”.

KC had a major focus on events/tourism in the 60s-70s. I honestly think we have a much better set up than most peers other than the lack of hotels and to a lessor degree transportation and spread our activities.

- Indy sucks but has a great airport and great hotels.
- STL has a great connecting airport, 5 star hotels, great LRT, bad downtown
- Milwaukee and Ohio cities are pretty meh when I’ve gone to events there. CLE and Columbus have some great new hotels but Cincinatti has nothing left.
What I'd like to know is whether Loews + 4L hotel would be enough to start getting the conventions back that we lost many years ago
Loews was already helping pre-covid. Aside from pushing the ball on hotels, I think its time to take a serious look at major renovation or reconstruction of the convention center.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by shinatoo »

normalthings wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 6:23 pm
UMKC Roo wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:44 pm
normalthings wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 4:10 pm TLDR: we need to push multiple balls at once and make it clear there are catalytic projects but no project will be the single “ticket to growth”.

KC had a major focus on events/tourism in the 60s-70s. I honestly think we have a much better set up than most peers other than the lack of hotels and to a lessor degree transportation and spread our activities.

- Indy sucks but has a great airport and great hotels.
- STL has a great connecting airport, 5 star hotels, great LRT, bad downtown
- Milwaukee and Ohio cities are pretty meh when I’ve gone to events there. CLE and Columbus have some great new hotels but Cincinatti has nothing left.
What I'd like to know is whether Loews + 4L hotel would be enough to start getting the conventions back that we lost many years ago
Loews was already helping pre-covid. Aside from pushing the ball on hotels, I think its time to take a serious look at major renovation or reconstruction of the convention center.
YES, it's as outdated as the current terminals. And too small to get any significant convention. Or to host multiple conventions at, or near, the same time.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by normalthings »

Obviously reconstruction of the original segment is an easy target. Also adding north/south horizontal circulation to allow multiple conventions at once. However, Bartle Hall is about 1/3 to 1/4 size of the top players.

Nashville’s main exhibit hall is “just” 350k sqft but the facility feels light years ahead of Bartle.

Multi role floors with a total of 2.1 million sqft. Large glass curtain walls make circulation and meeting spaces bright.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by GRID »

KC doesn't need one of those massive convention centers like Vegas, Chicago, Orlando etc. It doesn't attract and probably could not support conventions of that size (not enough quality hotel rooms). Does it even need to be any bigger than it is now? A major overall is probably all that is needed to freshen it up and update it.
It already has a nice ballroom, just need to update the main space and finish it out nicer and make the outside nicer.

Doing something with the roof is a pretty cool idea, but probably not feasible for such a large column free footprint. I'm sure it could be done, but it would cost a lot.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by TheUrbanRoo »

Normalthings is right. We need to renovate & expand this and atleast be at same level with Nashville. Again, settling and saying “we cant do that” is how you ensure you actually will never do that.
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GRID
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by GRID »

UMKC Roo wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 10:41 am Normalthings is right. We need to renovate & expand this and atleast be at same level with Nashville. Again, settling and saying “we cant do that” is how you ensure you actually will never do that.
Oh, it can be done. I just didn't now if KC needed to actually make it bigger. It might. I really don't know how it compares to other venues in square footage. I know it's on the smaller size now, but it may not need to be any bigger, just nicer. But if it does need to be bigger, then by all means make it bigger.

I would just concentrate on making it better and nicer first that's all I was saying. Fixing BAP and developing the west side of Broadway will go a long way by itself to make it feel less like a warehouse that doesn't really interact with anything else downtown.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by Highlander »

GRID wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 10:45 am
UMKC Roo wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 10:41 am Normalthings is right. We need to renovate & expand this and atleast be at same level with Nashville. Again, settling and saying “we cant do that” is how you ensure you actually will never do that.
Oh, it can be done. I just didn't now if KC needed to actually make it bigger. It might. I really don't know how it compares to other venues in square footage. I know it's on the smaller size now, but it may not need to be any bigger, just nicer. But if it does need to be bigger, then by all means make it bigger.

I would just concentrate on making it better and nicer first that's all I was saying. Fixing BAP and developing the west side of Broadway will go a long way by itself to make it feel less like a warehouse that doesn't really interact with anything else downtown.
Bartle Hall is the 40th largest convention center in the US when ranked by total space. Some cities have more than one convention center larger than Bartle (e.g., the LA metro has 3 larger convention centers and Las Vegas has 2).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ted_States
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by GRID »

^ looking at that list, I'm still not sure it needs to be much larger. But that's for the people running the convention center to figure out I guess. Could go to 500,000 sq ft which seems about as large as KC would ever need. They could always do an expansion over the freeway interchange. That was one of the options for the previous expansion.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by WoodDraw »

I wish there was an easy to use web interface to look at taxes and what they’re paying for and when they expire.

I live downtown and sales tax is pretty damn high. My limited recollection is that hotel and rental car tax rates are fairly high as well.

I'm happy to have the discussion on improving it, but I wish it came with a discussion on how we pay for it. It's a bit of a zero sum game.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by TheLastGentleman »

The convention complex feels pretty massive as is, I’m not sure we should be eating up any more urban fabric for expansions, unless it’s covering otherwise unusable space like freeway ditches
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by normalthings »

TheLastGentleman wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 1:48 pm The convention complex feels pretty massive as is, I’m not sure we should be eating up any more urban fabric for expansions, unless it’s covering otherwise unusable space like freeway ditches
Nashville’s center is 4? floors. Seattle is building a multi floor center as is Milwaukee.

I would advocate for a rebuild of the original section of Bartle adding lower level support space, adding a second floor of approximately 200k sqft above the main level of exhibition space.

I don’t think we can reach IND’s size without building over BAP, Holy Trinity, KCS, etc. but we should have flexible modern space at least as nice as Nashville, Milwaukee, Cleveland, etc.

Nashville Music City Center guide with photos and floor plans
https://www.nashvillemusiccitycenter.co ... _guide.pdf
Last edited by normalthings on Sun Sep 25, 2022 2:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by normalthings »

GRID wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 10:45 am
UMKC Roo wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 10:41 am Normalthings is right. We need to renovate & expand this and atleast be at same level with Nashville. Again, settling and saying “we cant do that” is how you ensure you actually will never do that.
Oh, it can be done. I just didn't now if KC needed to actually make it bigger. It might. I really don't know how it compares to other venues in square footage. I know it's on the smaller size now, but it may not need to be any bigger, just nicer. But if it does need to be bigger, then by all means make it bigger.

I would just concentrate on making it better and nicer first that's all I was saying. Fixing BAP and developing the west side of Broadway will go a long way by itself to make it feel less like a warehouse that doesn't really interact with anything else downtown.
I think I’m saying that too but how I see that happening is demo of Phase 1 and rebuild as a multistory space.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by im2kull »

You guys can't have a discussion about convention centers while failing to recognize the fact that our convention center offers the most column-free space of any facility in the US. You shouldn't minimize that space or want to erase it to increase total SF. The column-free space matters more than you recognize.

It's also embarrassing that this discussion centers only around Bartle Hall, and everyone seems to forget that conventions often look at a city's pooled convention space. Especially in a convention district. Stop ignoring our other convention facilities in that district. They all add to the SF total. A "lack" of convention space has NEVER been noted as any reason we have lost out on a convention. Hotel rooms has.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by normalthings »

im2kull wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 2:37 pm You guys can't have a discussion about convention centers while failing to recognize the fact that our convention center offers the most column-free space of any facility in the US. You shouldn't minimize that space or want to erase it to increase total SF. The column-free space matters more than you recognize.

It's also embarrassing that this discussion centers only around Bartle Hall, and everyone seems to forget that conventions often look at a city's pooled convention space. Especially in a convention district. Stop ignoring our other convention facilities in that district. They all add to the SF total. A "lack" of convention space has NEVER been noted as any reason we have lost out on a convention. Hotel rooms has.
I think if you go back to the original posts. It is about what are the next big things to address. As I have pushed for the past decade, more and better hotels is #1. Rethinking the convention center is something that will need to happen
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by WoodDraw »

I was fucking around with credit card rewards and realized KC had nothing worthy of mentioning.

Need to get a high end hotel.
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by normalthings »

WoodDraw wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 2:58 pm I was fucking around with credit card rewards and realized KC had nothing worthy of mentioning.

Need to get a high end hotel.
Super TIF is the price to pay!
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Re: OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

Post by WoodDraw »

normalthings wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 3:35 pm
WoodDraw wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 2:58 pm I was fucking around with credit card rewards and realized KC had nothing worthy of mentioning.

Need to get a high end hotel.
Super TIF is the price to pay!
Cordish could do it without a super tif. The rest yeah
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