Kansas side of metro KC develpment thread (Kansas City, Lee's Summit: credit, theater)

[rwiksell]

Originally Posted by kcmo

Metcalf south project looks like ****. Once again a project that is supposed to be "mixed use" and "walkable", is jut more of the same old thing.

There



But this time, Overland Park just might have the balls to say no and is asking the developers to try again. Maybe they can come up with a site plan that is post 1990.

Developers of $320M Central Square urged to think outside the big box - Kansas City Business Journal

I LOL'd at this: "But this is a suburbia," he said, objecting to staff's criticism of the south side's suburban layout.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by zach_33

This is something I have noticed in JoCo, the areas of it which I frequent, which bugs me a lot. Take Metcalf and 119th, for example. I don't think I can imagine a more pedestrian unfriendly intersection. With Blue Valley Expressway diverging from Metcalf just north of the intersection, it's almost like having 20+ lanes of traffic at a single bisected intersection. Add in the acres of cracking, weed strewn parking lots and shuttered fast food restaurants that separate the intersection from the big box shopping, and you end up with a completely depressing vision of future suburban ghetto.

135th and Metcalf is only marginally better - from that intersection, the Corbin Park Mall is like two football fields away. To get into any of the shopping areas, you have to guess which direction to go such that you can turn into the parking lots. Again, you have 12 lanes of traffic in both directions and with cars speeding through orange lights at 50+ mph I'm sure it would be a little less than fun to walk across the roadway.

So the message I get from the city planners is pretty clear. If you value your life, you will stay in your car. Who needs exercise anyway? Enjoy some low-cost American style Chinese food. Forget about the melting ice caps up north - we've got air-conditioning here.

It's not without it's conveniences and benefits, but the dark side of it is kind of scary to me, not because the people are snobby or look down upon other parts of the metro, but because many of the people seem blissfully ignorant to the unsustainability of it all.

I've noticed the same thing about these intersections. Everything is just so spread out, and it looked to me like there was way more parking than needed. Suburbs across the country have this type of development, but in south JoCo, it seems like they just keep building things further and further apart over the decades to the point where it's just annoying.

[PA650]

I guess I was hoping for more. It seems the concept went from mixed-use to a glorified strip mall with a Walmart.

The Mission Planning Commission on Monday advanced the latest in a long series of revised preliminary plans for Mission Gateway, a mixed-use project that's been in the works for nearly a decade.

Construction of the project, to be anchored by a 155,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter, could begin late this year or early next near, said developer Tom Valenti, a principal with the Syracuse, N.Y.-based Cameron Group LLC.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascit...n-forlong.html

[denverian]

Originally Posted by PA650

I guess I was hoping for more. It seems the concept went from mixed-use to a glorified strip mall with a Walmart.



http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascit...n-forlong.html

I don't think the term "gateway" applies to a WalMart

Considering this location, it's rather shocking that they couldn't do something much nicer with it.

[Ztonyg]

Originally Posted by denverian

I don't think the term "gateway" applies to a WalMart

Considering this location, it's rather shocking that they couldn't do something much nicer with it.

They could have. They just would've had to provide more incentives to the developer to do so. I love how we, as a society, cannot stand the thought of "handouts" or "welfare" to individuals but developers know that the only way that anything useful gets built is based upon receiving handouts from the city or state.

[SyraBrian]

The Vue in Overland Park looks like one of the new apartment complexes on SE Division Street that Portlanders just can't stand.

[SPonteKC]

Oregon, whine country.

[PA650]

Well, that's interesting...

TIF debate leaves BNIM in a potentially costly quandary

One hundred signatures on a petition could cost Kansas City architecture firm BNIM as much as $1 million, its president said.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascit...ly-costly.html

This will certainly have an impact on future development plans in the Metro if this continues.

[PA650]

Hockey coming to JOCO.

BluHawk developers plan $75M arena, will seek STAR bonds

Price Brothers plans to develop a $75 million arena anchored by a United States Hockey League team in BluHawk, a 300-acre mixed-use project under development in south Overland Park.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascit...seek-star.html

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by PA650

Hockey coming to JOCO.



http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascit...seek-star.html

Kansas....

They are not even sure how to fund their schools:
Shawnee Mission schools superintendent: No certainty Kansas schools will open next year | The Kansas City Star

Yet this developer will ask for and probably get STAR bonds to do this project. Which means that for the next 20 years, this huge development in a very affluent fast growing outer suburban greenfield area will not only redirect state sales taxes back to the developers, but they will get the money upfront before they even build everything (Like Prairie Fire). Oh and it will cannibalize all the subsided retail development along 135th (corbin park, prairie fire etc) that has taken a decade to get off the ground because the county is so overbuilt with retail.

If Overland Park wants a little hockey arena, then the city should simply find a way to fund the hockey arena and then put it someplace that is not halfway to Wichita.

Using STAR bonds, on top of local tifs, overlay TDD sales taxes etc which ultimately funds much of the entire development way beyond what these "tourist attractions" cost is ludicrous. Developers keep including these attractions to gain STAR bond approval so they can get the rest of the project funded by tax payers. This is why this project has a little science museum and arena, the KCK project also has an arena and amercian royal complex, prairie fire has a museum, the project proposed for 435 and Antioch has an amphitheater, the Mission Gateway was to have an aquarium.

It's great that kansas wants to build all these mini cultural attractions (although I still think contributing to real full scale first class regional attractions is a better use of the money), the Kansas tax payers just keep bending over to not only build little museums, but entire private developments in affluent areas in the middle of nowhere.

If you are going to go broke and be in love with corporate welfare Kansas, at least try to put something in downtown KCK. These types of incentives are unheard of almost anywhere in the country. But on 167th Street in affluent and rapidly developing (yet still rural) south Overland Park? Jesus Christ Kansas tax payers, when are you going to say enough is enough?

STAR Bonds and PEAK should be limited to KCK inside of 635. If you can't do a project in Overland Park with just a normal tif or property tax abatement (you really shouldn't need incentives at all), then the project is probably not ready to happen yet.