And now the latest in my ad-hoc collection of Kansas City pictures.
Crossroads is the area between downtown and Crown Center/Union Station. It's mostly an old warehouse area with some other stuff mixed in. Bounded by the red lines in the map below:
West of about Grand Blvd is the main - and most interesting - part, and is the main part where I took the photos. East of Grand has fewer interesting stuff, and still has a fair amount of active industrial use. The warehouses also tend to be newer (and thus less interesting) and it's got more area in parking lots. I think they call that area "East Crossroads." Undoubtedly it'll get developed over time, but for now it's not very interesting. I actually have this fantasy they would allow highrises in at least some of the parking lots.
Anyway I've got a ton of pictures, I'll break them up into several posts.
Here's a building they're renovating into apartments. Got several shots with this one.
I wonder if the people who built these warehouses a hundred years ago or more could ever have imagined they'd someday become hip and fashionable offices and apartments?
Good tour! I've long been intrigued by this area of KC, partly due to the Western Auto Building, which has a classic look and sign. This area seems like it has immense potential and reminds me of the Minneapolis Warehouse District/North Loop. Maybe a few well placed city squares or small parks would add a needed natural amenity to this concrete hardened area.
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Gotta throw the AIA building in there. Appropriate for this thread!
The new Kansas City Star building is the big green hulking thing in the back:
Then I wandered over to the eastern half of Crossroads. As I said, it's not as interesting and still has a fair amount of active industrial. Lots of it looks like this:
One building in the southeast corner of the district is just *dying* to be turned into lofts, or hip and fashionable offices, or something like that. Someday. Unfortunately it's about the farthest away from the action as you can get in this neighborhood.
There is one small area along 18th St just east of Grand that has the beginnings of a nifty neighborhood district. I suspect as the eastern parts of Crossroads develop, it'll gradually emanate from this little area. This next 4 photos show what it looks like:
KC is a city that thrives on activities to generate foot traffic in most of it, i.e. the area in these photos is a bit bustling in the evening hours and especially on a Friday and Saturday when people are out and about going to restaurants and bars. Of course when First Fridays occurs and the art galleries and other creative venues are open to the public, it's actually hard to walk around since the area is quite crowded.
This is an interesting development. It's called the Corrigan Station and it was originally slated to be residential, but it's now a commercial rehab. A new three story commercial annex of sorts will be built on the parking lot that faces Main St. depending upon a tenant. On the bright side, the rehabbed building and parking garage across the street will feature numerous restaurants and the building itself is nearly 100 percent leased.
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“Most planning of the past fifteen years has been based upon three destructive fallacies: the cataclysmic insists upon tearing everything down in order to design from an absolutely clean slate; the automotive would plan for the free passage of the automobile at the expense of all other values; the suburban dislikes the city anyway and would just as soon destroy its density and strew it across the countryside.” Vince Scully
good area, looks like the foot traffic is still a bit sparse but looks better than ever. i've also seen it engorged with thousands of people on first fridays. i used to ride my bike down there from midtown on first fridays (or to the brick, etc)...sometimes i made it back up to midtown.
there couldnt be any more prime location for massive amounts of infill!
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