Walmart coming to STAR bond mission project lol...

[kcmo]

From KC Business Journal (no link, I only have PDF).

The developer says that 1 million people a year will visit Gateway from outside of 100 miles.

"240,000 visitors from "outside" the metro area to visit Mission Walmart annually" (they will pass by 19 other walmarts in the metro to get there.)

They say all these tourists justify the use of 63 million dollars in STAR bonds to build a 20 million dollar aquarium.

They say the aquarium will attract 650,000 visitors a year. So a small mall type aquarium will outdraw the KC Zoo? Possibly if it were near Union Station, or the Zoo or on the riverfront, but will this place even be taken seriously located between a megatheater and a walmart in some suburb? It's better than that south Overland Park Smithsonian I guess.

The Omaha Zoo had 1.3 million visitors and they have one of the country's best zoos and a 1 million gallon aquarium at the zoo. So the mission aquarium will draw half of what the Omaha Zoo draws?

Why such nonsense? Because in order to qualify for STAR bonds, a development must bring in 30% tourist from outside 100 miles. This is why they say a walmart will become one of the biggest toursit attractions in Kansas and why they are overstating the draw of a rather small aquarium in a stupid location that few from outside of KC (or even those visiting) will even know exists.

Will the aquarium in the mission strip mall be on the list with Worlds of Fun, Liberty Memorial, Nelson, Royals etc for visitors to KC?

(basically they are using STAR bonds to relocate a walmart a mile down the road) and using the aquarium and these bogus "tourist" numbers to justify it.).

I still can't believe that 99% of the population of metro KC (especially ks tax payers) are okay with this project (as well as others like Prairiefire at Lionsgate which uses temporary "Smithsonian" exhibit space to justify STAR bonds to pay for a retail development in a greenfeild of affluent southern Overland Park.)

If you are going to use star bonds to build walmarts, use them to redevelop the one in Roeland Park and turn that entire area into a mixed use high density development. This use of star bonds is only going to create blight in Roeland Park.

Anybody that supports this nonsense is an idiot and it does far more harm than good to the urban fabric and economy of metro KC.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by luzianne

So what? Because this is what you see people in Washington DC do, we are supposed to model our behavior after them? I don't live in Washington, DC, never have, never plan to, and what they do and don't wear in public is of no importance to me whatsoever. Or what anyone else anywhere wears in public, for that matter. I don't base my choice of clothing on what other people wear. Well maybe for a funeral or a wedding or work. But just going out in public to eat or shop or a plane trip? If people don't like what I'm wearing they can kiss my butt.

Wear what you want. KU fans have and will always have a wardrobe of KU crap. I was just defending myself to jason who seems to think it's normal to dress like KU people dress everywhere they go. It's only normal for KU fans and a few others. Nebraska and Oklahoma (as well as a several teams down south) come to mind.

You will stand out walking around in head to toe KU gear in a large Northeastern city. Most people here seem to consider it tacky to wear sports clothing as casual clothing and it comes off as quite blue collar.

BTW, I have been to one college bb game in my life. We dropped in on Columbia during a KU/MU game while enroute from StL to KC one weekend. Almost didn't get in because we bought "student" tix from scalpers not knowing what were are doing.

Anyway, many of the ku fans were wearing MuckFizzou shirts. I remember because I thought it was awesome. Part of the rivalry. But ku fans are not the innocent bunch. They are just like MU fans. Kids having fun.

But good god, when you graduate, move on .

[kcmo]

^ why did this post here?

[aragx6]

Super weird! I've posted here for years and never seen a hiccup like this, though other forums I hang out on have, in the past, had similar issues, Maybe they were making some updates?

[kcmo]

Wow, there are some people in KS with brains! I can see why KS people would ignore this corporate welfare stuff if they are only hurting kcmo. But they are only hurting themselves here and I was just amazed at how everybody thought this is just a dandy project and all was quiet. Surprisingly general tax payers are still quiet. They don’t know or don’t care I suppose. I guess KS tax payers are too busy ripping on the kcmo etax and whatever else kcmo is doing to worry about the nonsense that goes on in their own state.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascit...lans-face.html

Roeland Park Mayor Adrienne Foster wrote a letter dated Feb. 17 petitioning the Kansas Commerce Department to deny Cameron Group’s bid for STAR bonds. She argued that the application violates a portion of STAR bond statutes that forbids granting the incentive if it would cause the relocation of a business within the state.

Roeland Park officials estimated that the Walmart generates $500,000 in annual sales taxes, or more than half of the $900,000 in yearly sales and motor vehicle taxes that the city collects.

Roeland Park’s report claims that the Cameron Group feasibility study overstates the likelihood that the Kansas Aquarium can attract 650,000 annual visits. It also questions the developer’s claim that 30 percent of Mission Gateway’s projected 3 million annual visitors will travel from 100 miles away or more.

“Everyone who wants to shop at Walmart already does and, typically, lives within a few miles of a store,” the Columbia Capital report said. “The assumption that average hotel stays will equal two nights seems excessive given the intended uses of the Gateway Project.”

Rick Hughes, CEO of the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association , said the location and boutique nature of the Mission Gateway hotel mean it is less likely to add net hotel room nights to the region and more likely to draw business from existing hotels.

And Fairway is not fond of parking lot water run-off

Fairway Mayor Jerry Wiley said he has sought meetings with Mission officials to address concerns about how Mission Gateway might affect flooding in the Rock Creek watershed. Wiley said the watershed has faced an increasing burden because of earlier upstream developments by Mission and Roeland Park.

[MOKAN]

The way I see it is if Roeland Park wanted to retain Walmart and it's so important to them, they should have already worked with them to get a new store built. I also think Foster's argument involving STAR bonds is flawed being that the Walmart won't be receiving that benefit. Besides, I'd much rather see this innovate Walmart than a new status-quo store built in RP.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by MOKAN

The way I see it is if Roeland Park wanted to retain Walmart and it's so important to them, they should have already worked with them to get a new store built. I also think Foster's argument involving STAR bonds is flawed being that the Walmart won't be receiving that benefit. Besides, I'd much rather see this innovate Walmart than a new status-quo store built in RP.

For 60 million bucks of state subsidy to build that project, it better be the most amazing walmart ever.

By the way, they said the same thing about the new walmart in blue springs. It was to be the most "innovative" walmart ever.

This is not going to be a well done mixed use urban project like what you see with recent projects that have walmarts and targets in crowded cities.

This will be a walmart with parking lot. Maybe Walmart will have some weird second story to it. That's about it.

This is simply a case of using all the tax money from a walmart to build a retail project that otherwise would not get built because the retail market in KC is overbuilt and it’s doing it at the expense of another retail area down the street and the end result will be less taxes going to the cities and state and yet another subsidized retail development in metro KC.

[MOKAN]

I don't know what "they" have said, or what the new Walmart 25 miles away in Blue Springs looks like, but the Mission Walmart as proposed will be quite innovated for this area. No, the project won't compare to those around DC or whatever, but it's a great start for the KC area.

As for Blue Springs, I would complain about building Adam's Dairy PKWY versus rebuilding 7 Highway, which is the new Noland Rd.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by MOKAN

I don't know what "they" have said, or what the new Walmart 25 miles away in Blue Springs looks like, but the Mission Walmart as proposed will be quite innovated for this area. No, the project won't compare to those around DC or whatever, but it's a great start for the KC area.

As for Blue Springs, I would complain about building Adam's Dairy PKWY versus rebuilding 7 Highway, which is the new Noland Rd.

I have been one of the most vocal people out there "against" all the development along Adams Dairy. Not because it's suburban sprawl. I have nothing against market driven suburban development that pays its own way.

But because it's also heavily subsidized and corporate welfare. Tifs and supertifs and transportation taxes etc should be reserved to redevelop areas (either urban or suburban). While the gateway project is a redevelopment and I was all for the orginal project (minus the aquarium which I think should go in a more cultural part of the city). The project has changed from a true mixed use with a lot of residential to mostly retail and the retail is coming from down the street.

Abusing these incentives makes it that much more difficult to redevelop exiting retail areas.

Sales taxes are sky high in metro KC. So high that using them to fund things like transit and regional culture are becoming nearly impossible.

Now that gateway will keep all city and state taxes that used to go to the city and state via the RP walmart. Roeland Park will be forced to do the same to re-develop the area where walmart is leaving.

But because retailers can get the same incentives to build on a greenfield or in a more affluent area, chances are far more likely that the area around the exiting Roeland Park walmart will only deteriorate and become severely blightened over time instead fueling the vicious cycle of subsidized retail and resulting retail blight in metro KC.

This gateway project. How many residential units are in the FIRST PHASE. (the phase likely to be built). This project should be heavy on residential, if it’s mostly retail boxes, a megatheater and an aquarium that will charge $25 a person to get in (meaning the star bonds won't make the aquarium free or cheap to visit). Then this is nothing more than abuse of tax incentives.

[westender]

Why is this site, Roe and Johnson Drive and Shawnee Mission Parkway, such a PITA? This was an old, original Macy's Midwest, with a strip mall tail, back in the day (the 1950s until the mid 1980s), and it did a reasonably good job as a department store for the Mission area. It balanced with the Jones Store in Prairie Village, and did not detract from the retail at Katz/ Skaggs drug and Venture (a May stores discounter from St. Louis akin to Target) a few blocks north in Roeland Park. This was a convenient alternative to driving to the Plaza for many in northeast Johnson County.

Then the two-story structure was demolished and re-built in the late-1980s with a more "mall-like" enclosure on basically the same footprint (an amazing expense I thought then). The site sits directly above a Brush Creek tributary, which may explain its curse.

Anyhow, the new construction lasted less than 20 years and was demolished, and now we have another elaborate mini-mall planned for this site.

The amount of wasted money and time consumed by this small corner of cupcake-land would astonish almost anyone. Perhaps planners could dam the waterway and turn it into a real aquarium.