Kansas City #1 - Downtown

[Jaborandi]

I love the older high-rises. There are some real gems there. Thanks for the tour.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Now that spring is here we get better light with shorter shadows and all that sort of thing. Downtown looks a lot better in this light than the winter ones I've shown thus far.

But first, a money shot of the skyline from afar.



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[James Bond Agent 007]

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[James Bond Agent 007]

North end of downtown puts Pioneer Square or any of the old parts of my old abode to shame.







The area does, however, contain several parking lots which are just *dying* for someone to build something nifty on them



This is being converted to lofts



Another one of those parking lots









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[James Bond Agent 007]

And the skyline from the south

[Centropolis]

those pockets of buildings on the north end of downtown may be my favorite part of town.



cozy.

[Brizzy82]

Great photos! I enjoyed this & the other KC threads as well. I have never been but I really like the look of it.

Also, I can't believe that's JANUARY! For some reason I have this idea that the midwest is sort of similar to Winnipeg in the winter (I know it's a bit warmer).. didn't expect your Jan to look like our April

It's funny because after scrolling through the first page, I was going to post a nice KC skyline thread that I had seen before & then I load page 2 and you had went ahead and posted the exact pic I was about to.

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

But first, a money shot of the skyline from afar.



More ...

[James Bond Agent 007]

I mostly took the January shots on sunny days. Winter is a semi-dry season here so you get a lot of them. It does get cold here but usually you get a lot of breaks where the temp goes up to the 40's or 50's for a few days.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I mostly took the January shots on sunny days. Winter is a semi-dry season here so you get a lot of them. It does get cold here but usually you get a lot of breaks where the temp goes up to the 40's or 50's for a few days.

i was looking at observed temps this january. the temperature sort of oscilated between artic fronts (some pretty mild) followed by peaks into the 50s and 60s (15.5 C) on around a weekly basis. these sunny, clear winter days can be quite pleasant in the southern midwest. we hit 70 ( 21 C) in january one weekend over here in st. louis down in the city (the official high at airport is always cooler, think it was 68 F).

[James Bond Agent 007]

Yeah I probably should have said, 'goes up to the 50's or 60's,' highs in the 40's are pretty normal.

Lowest it got was around 0.

[EastSideHBG]

Nice pics, thanks for sharing!

[Wheelingman04]

Great architecture downtown!

[James Bond Agent 007]

OK, last batch of downtown photos - for a while. And then a video. Some of the photos are repeats of ones shown above, but this was taken the weekend after the batch above, and the weather was even nicer.

Many of the old warehouse-type buildings in the north end downtown were actually part of what was once a pretty sizable garment district. There's a little museum about the district.



This is inside the museum.



Back to the street scenes...

























Folly!



Video will be posted shortly ...

[James Bond Agent 007]

And here is the video. This is a segment of a video I recently made called Spring Time in Kansas City, which you can watch if you have 19+ minutes to kill. That video also has an opening Easter segment, an early spring segment, a segment at the zoo, and lastly a downtown KC segment. The downtown KC segment shown here is a little under 10 minutes. Be sure to have your speakers on for the soundtrack.

• Video Link

[IMBY]

Coming from Minneapolis, I always thought if I did move back to the Midwest, it would be Kansas City, more mild, shorter winters, if nothing else, and the question: I'm bored, where can I drive to within 2-3 hours of this city? Far more choices than isolated Minneapolis!

There's a big plus to the availability of parking lots as the land is already cleared, and a developer, once approvals are in place, can start construction the next day! No delays with the historic preservationists debating if a building should be torn down or saved!

What have they done with the riverfront in Kansas City? I read one time KC suffered a major flood way back, before the dams were in place upstream.

There's one 6-sided building there, about 16-20 stories or so, that is identical to the building design of Pillsbury Center in Minneapolis. I always hated that design when I lived in Minneapolis, and there it is again, sitting in KC!

I'm sure KC gets some of that mercurial weather that can plague so many of the Plains cities, but not as extreme as Denver, where the temp's can skyrocket in a day, and fall off a cliff the next!

Doesn't KC also have a rather dense midtown district that distracts from the downtown area? I was through there way back in the 70's and I saw that shopping center which, I understand, was the first major shopping center in the country.

[SPonteK]

Originally Posted by IMBY

Coming from Minneapolis, I always thought if I did move back to the Midwest, it would be Kansas City, more mild, shorter winters, if nothing else, and the question: I'm bored, where can I drive to within 2-3 hours of this city? Far more choices than isolated Minneapolis!

There's a big plus to the availability of parking lots as the land is already cleared, and a developer, once approvals are in place, can start construction the next day! No delays with the historic preservationists debating if a building should be torn down or saved!

What have they done with the riverfront in Kansas City? I read one time KC suffered a major flood way back, before the dams were in place upstream.

There's one 6-sided building there, about 16-20 stories or so, that is identical to the building design of Pillsbury Center in Minneapolis. I always hated that design when I lived in Minneapolis, and there it is again, sitting in KC!

I'm sure KC gets some of that mercurial weather that can plague so many of the Plains cities, but not as extreme as Denver, where the temp's can skyrocket in a day, and fall off a cliff the next!

Doesn't KC also have a rather dense midtown district that distracts from the downtown area? I was through there way back in the 70's and I saw that shopping center which, I understand, was the first major shopping center in the country.

Probably you mean the Plaza, which is kind of our "uptown". Built in the 20s, with "Spanish"-inspired architecture? From probably 1980-just a few years ago, it really functioned as KC's downtown, and remains our densest, most walkable neighborhood, though downtown is increasingly flexing it's muscle as our primary entertainment district and our fastest growing and increasingly most urban neighborhood. The Plaza remains KC's primary retail shopping district, however, and directly adjacent to it is the heart of KC's historic (up until just a few years ago) entertainment and nightlife scenes.

And KC is kind of like a smaller, surlier, warmer, funkier (and blacker) Minneapolis that made all the wrong choices that Minneapolis made right. Like Minneapolis is the Becky on Roseanne and KC is the DJ.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by IMBY

What have they done with the riverfront in Kansas City? I read one time KC suffered a major flood way back, before the dams were in place upstream.

Due to topographic reasons (plus a big railroad in the way), doing something to the KC riverfront would be very difficult, at least in the area closest to downtown. I discussed it a bit here.

Doesn't KC also have a rather dense midtown district that distracts from the downtown area? I was through there way back in the 70's and I saw that shopping center which, I understand, was the first major shopping center in the country.

You're referring to The Plaza, which I have photos of here.

There's a large area between downtown and Crown Center that one might call "Midtown" (though technically, one of the specific neighborhoods in that area is called Midtown). I'll eventually get around to doing a photo thread on it. Don't know when.

[IMBY]

Any number of cities have this "problem" with rather dense uptown/midtowns, devitalizing the downtown areas, and you do your fantasies: uprooting those buildings and transferring them to the downtown areas, which isn't going to happen!

I believe St. Louis has this "problem" as well, given the photo spreads I've seen of St. Louis. Ditto to Detroit and Houston.

Here, in stuck-in-the-60's Las Vegas, they've created a whole new downtown area out in Summerlin, 25+ miles west, called Downtown Summerlin.

And, there's Hughes Corporate Center, a parklike area, close to the Strip, with one tall tower and other smaller towers of 10-9-8 stories. How I wish somehow, those buildings could be relocated downtown! Dream on!

I didn't realize there were steep hills leading down to the riverfront, which invites the possible idea of tram some day, along with some riverfront development or park. Even a simple tram, like they have in downtown L.A. rising up to Bunker Hill!

The main reason Minneapolis (City of Lakes) has developed such a dense downtown area is due to the Lake Calhoun/Kenwood/Lake of the Isles Nimby's around the Uptown district, who have squashed any mid-rise or high-rise plans around their precious lakes. When I lived there, I saw proposal after proposal shot down. In the early 70's, miracles of miracles, with the intervention of Senator Hubert Humphrey, no less, a 21 story tower (Lake Point Tower) got built, and nothing since then! I see they are finally building some apartment buildings around Hennepin/Lake but nothing taller than 4-5-6 stories.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by IMBY

Any number of cities have this "problem" with rather dense uptown/midtowns, devitalizing the downtown areas, and you do your fantasies: uprooting those buildings and transferring them to the downtown areas, which isn't going to happen!

I believe St. Louis has this "problem" as well, given the photo spreads I've seen of St. Louis. Ditto to Detroit and Houston.

Here, in stuck-in-the-60's Las Vegas, they've created a whole new downtown area out in Summerlin, 25+ miles west, called Downtown Summerlin.

And, there's Hughes Corporate Center, a parklike area, close to the Strip, with one tall tower and other smaller towers of 10-9-8 stories. How I wish somehow, those buildings could be relocated downtown! Dream on!

I didn't realize there were steep hills leading down to the riverfront, which invites the possible idea of tram some day, along with some riverfront development or park. Even a simple tram, like they have in downtown L.A. rising up to Bunker Hill!

The main reason Minneapolis (City of Lakes) has developed such a dense downtown area is due to the Lake Calhoun/Kenwood/Lake of the Isles Nimby's around the Uptown district, who have squashed any mid-rise or high-rise plans around their precious lakes. When I lived there, I saw proposal after proposal shot down. In the early 70's, miracles of miracles, with the intervention of Senator Hubert Humphrey, no less, a 21 story tower (Lake Point Tower) got built, and nothing since then! I see they are finally building some apartment buildings around Hennepin/Lake but nothing taller than 4-5-6 stories.

st. louis had a terrible air quality problem due to high sulfur southern illinois (and south st. louis) coal being burned. the city used its guilded age wealth to sprawl out on the uplands away from the valley very early on. i've read st. louis planning documents that state that the city was building too much too far in the 1920s. by 1960 there were 2 districts in a line west of downtown that essentially were performing similar commercial functions to downtown.

kansas city really seems to have emulated that same early pattern of building secondary nodes that actually duplicated and then took over functions of downtown. perhaps it had similar air quality problems as st. louis in the industrial river valley that also spilled over into downtown.

[kcexpress69]

Sorry, I'm a tad bit late to this party!! A big thumbs up to 007 for an awesome showcase!! I've seen the best and the worst of this town in the 40 some odd years that I've been here. Fortunately, the worst days are hopefully behind us, permanently. While there are many businesses that committed to keeping downtown alive during the 80s and 90s, I believe that it was the building of the Sprint Center in the late 2000s that paved the way for the massive overhaul that is taking place. New construction for various residential/hotel is now possible, since most of the older smaller buildings have been swiped up. Even the commercial skyscrapers, such as the 911 Commerce Tower, Traders on Grand, and the old P&L Building are now being re-purposed for mixed residential use. The Streetcar, which finally opened up a couple of months ago is looking to be a success and talk is underway to extend it beyond downtown. Downtown Kansas City, while still has a ways to go, is starting to look like the city I always desired it to be..a 24 hour hour, active, happy downtown!!!