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The exception - Charlotte - should be an example for what Kansas City could do if they really tried. Especially since Charlotte is a relatively evenly split bi-state metro.
I would not say that, a sizable majority live in NC, SC is mostly a residential extension of the metro.
The cities that have entered into the discussion during the past few comments are:
Nashville
Denver
Charlotte
Indianapolis
Austin
Oklahoma City
What do all of these cities (save one) have in common? They are CAPITAL CITIES.
These cities do not just represent themselves, they represent their states as a whole (except maybe the weirdo, Austin) and thus are more investment-prone. In addition to city leadership, you have state leaders who want to spruce up their showrooms, and are willing to spend the political capital to do it.
The exception - Charlotte - should be an example for what Kansas City could do if they really tried. Especially since Charlotte is a relatively evenly split bi-state metro.
Honestly, I think this is just an excuse. I know that KCMO is generally a second thought in Missouri and while the Kansas side of the metro is the largest metro in Kansas, that state does more harm than good to the city of KCMO. It's obvious the lack of regional cooperation continues to harm the KC region as well.
But that's all the more reasons for KCMO residents to NOT be so anti change and anti development. KC is just not getting it done when it comes to things they CAN do despite having Kansas as an enemy and Jeff City not caring.
Honestly, I think this is just an excuse. I know that KCMO is generally a second thought in Missouri and while the Kansas side of the metro is the largest metro in Kansas, that state does more harm than good to the city of KCMO. It's obvious the lack of regional cooperation continues to harm the KC region as well.
But that's all the more reasons for KCMO residents to NOT be so anti change and anti development. KC is just not getting it done when it comes to things they CAN do despite having Kansas as an enemy and Jeff City not caring.
If you at least think it's a factor, then we're in agreement. I did say that, if Charlotte can do it then KC can do it. So I'm not claiming that only capital cities can accomplish the kinds of development Kansas City needs. Any city can (theoretically). And in fact I think that KC is doing it better than St. Louis, for all the claims that Jeff City cares more about the Lou.
They want to spend 6 billion over the next 25 years building a regional transit system. They are going to spend 1.6 billion on a new airport terminal. A serious regional transit system is not even on the drawing board in KC and the city loves its old outdated airport terminal...
In 20 years, Nashville will be considerably larger than KC and it won't be by accident.
I doubt that the entirety of that transit plan gets built. However, what is built will be more significant than the KC streetcar. Luckily, it does appear that the KC region does appear to be moving in a more integrated direction in terms of transit planning.
The airport terminal is something that is absolutely ridiculous. I just flew through it a few weeks ago and it's simply sad. There is no reason why KC shouldn't be building a new terminal now.
I know I'm the one that posted this, but I still just don't get how KC ranks this high. There is a lot more going up in Downtown Baltimore than KC right now. Even if you include sort of hidden projects like P&L renovation and Commerce, I just don't see it. Baltimore is building several large and expensive towers and several more smaller buildings. KC basically just has 2 Light and it's not really all that large by large city standards.
And there is no way that DC is only three times KC. There are more tower cranes up in central DC right now than there probably has ever been in the history of KC combined.
Nashville is ranked near KC and they are pretty much in a totally different league than KC when it comes to started and proposed projects. Same with Austin, Seattle etc.
I want to believe that KC should be on this list. I just don't see it though. KC still feels very slow growth to me compared to most other cities. Downtown KC is growing faster than Downtown St Louis, but even Clayton and Midtown StL has more going on than the Plaza/Midtown KC. So I'm just confused on this. Did the entire 4 billion dollar Cerner project get thrown into stats somehow even though it's only started the first phase of two relatively small office buildings?
Nashville:
This is just the south side of downtown Nashville, there are 40 story towers going up in other parts of the city as well.
The listing shows construction starts from January to June, not the amount of development currently in progress. So hypothetically, Nashville could have 50 towers under construction but if only one major projects started in that time frame the numbers will look really low. And proposals aren't included at all.
The listing shows construction starts from January to June, not the amount of development currently in progress. So hypothetically, Nashville could have 50 towers under construction but if only one major projects started in that time frame the numbers will look really low. And proposals aren't included at all.
There are tower cranes all over Nashville and they have a ton of very large projects in the works. Literally dozens of office, residential and hotel towers will go up there in the next five years in addition to what has recently opened. I don't know what happened, but that once sleepy town has just exploded recently, much like Charlotte, Austin and Denver did (and continue to do). I really think that if Nashville of all places can do what they are dong, then what has KC done wrong to be so stagnant?
Recently another city has awoken. Milwaukee. They are building a new office skyscraper (tallest in city I think) and have several residential towers in the works and large developments are being proposed there quite often lately.
Meanwhile one of the biggest projects in KC "was" a 13 story building on the Plaza, but it was too big and too dense and now will be 8 stories and they still call it a "tower". http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascit...mendation.html
Again, KC has a few nice projects going on. The Light towers are the most promising by far. But compared to anything on the either coast and most cities in the rockies, south and midwest (outside rustbelt)? It's a very slow growth place, like Cleveland. Even Cleveland has at least as much going on as KC does.
Not to be a downer. I like KC's smallish infill projects, but the city is still losing substantial ground to most cities in the country even if stats say it's growing right now. Where? KC's growth is still mostly suburban. I'm really starting to think the number one difference between all these other cities and KC is that KC just seriously lacks a downtown corporate presence which seems to be the fuel that really gets these other cites going and creates a snowball effect of other economic development.
Imagine if Sprint and or Cerner were Headquartered downtown. That's only a tiny fraction of the metro workforce, but one or both of them downtown would have been the game changer for KC that most other cities have. In addition to millions of sq ft of new offices, downtown would be seeing many more large scale high rise hotel and residential projects in addition to the low rise infill and redevelopment projects it gets now.
The cities that have entered into the discussion during the past few comments are:
Nashville
Denver
Charlotte
Indianapolis
Austin
Oklahoma City
What do all of these cities (save one) have in common? They are CAPITAL CITIES.
These cities do not just represent themselves, they represent their states as a whole (except maybe the weirdo, Austin) and thus are more investment-prone. In addition to city leadership, you have state leaders who want to spruce up their showrooms, and are willing to spend the political capital to do it.
The exception - Charlotte - should be an example for what Kansas City could do if they really tried. Especially since Charlotte is a relatively evenly split bi-state metro.
Baltimore was also mentioned and not a capital city. The reason I bring it up is because, along with the Red Line light rail project, the governor cut the rebuilding of the state office complex in Baltimore, State Center, into a mixed use office/commercial/residential district when he took office. Although the Red Line is going to stay dead, there are signs that the State Center plans will rise from the grave. Something needs to be done eventually because the buildings in State Center are in such bad shape. And to be fair, the Governor seems to have backed off from his earlier anti-Baltimore rhetoric and has even become downright cooperative lately.
I don't know about KCMO's relationship with the rest of the state, but the rest of the state of Maryland doesn't want any state money to be spent in Baltimore. In the case of State Center, spending of state money might just be unavoidable.
Baltimore was also mentioned and not a capital city. The reason I bring it up is because, along with the Red Line light rail project, the governor cut the rebuilding of the state office complex in Baltimore, State Center, into a mixed use office/commercial/residential district when he took office. Although the Red Line is going to stay dead, there are signs that the State Center plans will rise from the grave. Something needs to be done eventually because the buildings in State Center are in such bad shape. And to be fair, the Governor seems to have backed off from his earlier anti-Baltimore rhetoric and has even become downright cooperative lately.
I don't know about KCMO's relationship with the rest of the state, but the rest of the state of Maryland doesn't want any state money to be spent in Baltimore. In the case of State Center, spending of state money might just be unavoidable.
I think KCMO's relationship with Missouri is very similar to Baltimore/Maryland, probably worse. Missouri generally ignores KCMO while St Louis gets most of the attention. KC actually comes in third in Missouri. It's metro St Loius, out state/rural Missouri then the KC area. However, even St Louis often gets the shaft by the state. Missouri is just not a state that knows how to help build its cities. For example, Missouri is one of the only states that does not help fund urban transit and probably the only state with large cities that doesn't help fund transit.
Anyway, back to Baltimore. Despite the problems there with crime etc and the fact that the state does not give the city a lot of attention as you mentioned, there is a LOT of private development and interest in the urban core there, especially from the local corporate community. Much more than KC. That is what KC is lacking. From Under Armour's huge new development to office and residential towers proposed and going up all along the harbor, the city is on a huge rebound. KC is too, it's just missing the corporate side of urban development, which is keeping residential and hotel construction lower than it could be due to the lack of companies downtown.
Personally, I think the purple line is more important to Maryland's economy than the Red line would have been. It's just that it's in the DC area and not Baltimore. The Purple line will connect many large suburban business districts (Silver Spring, Bethesda etc) plus the University of Maryland and many other lines of METRO and MARC and will actually take traffic off the beltway. That line will do a lot for PG County as well. The red line would have been an okay investment, but it was also very expensive because much of it was subway. I honestly think Baltimore could better use streetcars (in dedicated rights of ways) to connect areas like Federal Hill to Inner Harbor to Harbor East to Fells Point. It would be much cheaper and help those areas of Baltimore thrive even more while the city and state figure out ways to fund larger transit infrastructure improvements.
Again, at least in Maryland it's a state and county issue. The state is who is funding much of the purple line while large counties pay the rest. In Missouri, the cities are on their own (except St Louis County) which is one reason very little gets accomplished in Missouri. It's nearly impossible for a city like KC to build a light rail system using only local city money (and any matching federal funds). Even St Louis County can only do so much which is why metrolink has not expanded much. The purple line is bringing in 900 million in fed money to Maryland. That's money KC never sees because they never build anything significant to bring in those types of federal dollars. Other cities get it instead.
I think KCMO's relationship with Missouri is very similar to Baltimore/Maryland, probably worse. Missouri generally ignores KCMO while St Louis gets most of the attention. KC actually comes in third in Missouri. It's metro St Loius, out state/rural Missouri then the KC area. However, even St Louis often gets the shaft by the state. Missouri is just not a state that knows how to help build its cities. For example, Missouri is one of the only states that does not help fund urban transit and probably the only state with large cities that doesn't help fund transit.
Anyway, back to Baltimore. Despite the problems there with crime etc and the fact that the state does not give the city a lot of attention as you mentioned, there is a LOT of private development and interest in the urban core there, especially from the local corporate community. Much more than KC. That is what KC is lacking. From Under Armour's huge new development to office and residential towers proposed and going up all along the harbor, the city is on a huge rebound. KC is too, it's just missing the corporate side of urban development, which is keeping residential and hotel construction lower than it could be due to the lack of companies downtown.
Personally, I think the purple line is more important to Maryland's economy than the Red line would have been. It's just that it's in the DC area and not Baltimore. The Purple line will connect many large suburban business districts (Silver Spring, Bethesda etc) plus the University of Maryland and many other lines of METRO and MARC and will actually take traffic off the beltway. That line will do a lot for PG County as well. The red line would have been an okay investment, but it was also very expensive because much of it was subway. I honestly think Baltimore could better use streetcars (in dedicated rights of ways) to connect areas like Federal Hill to Inner Harbor to Harbor East to Fells Point. It would be much cheaper and help those areas of Baltimore thrive even more while the city and state figure out ways to fund larger transit infrastructure improvements.
Again, at least in Maryland it's a state and county issue. The state is who is funding much of the purple line while large counties pay the rest. In Missouri, the cities are on their own (except St Louis County) which is one reason very little gets accomplished in Missouri. It's nearly impossible for a city like KC to build a light rail system using only local city money (and any matching federal funds). Even St Louis County can only do so much which is why metrolink has not expanded much. The purple line is bringing in 900 million in fed money to Maryland. That's money KC never sees because they never build anything significant to bring in those types of federal dollars. Other cities get it instead.
You are correct that the cost/benefit of the Red Line wasn't what the best. But even Red Line opponents were put out by the governor's redistributing the money set aside for the project to road projects in rural parts of the state (which I also suspect have a pretty low benefit to cost ratio) so that no significant transit infrastructure can be built in the city for at least a decade. The presentation map used at the announcement showed Baltimore City as part of the Chesapeake Bay. You know what they say, a picture's worth a 1,000 words.
People in other parts of the state really believe that city residents are not real Marylanders and therefore city projects shouldn't be eligible for state transportation funding. My guess is that Kansas City residents feel our pain.
Well, I would say KC gets the short end of the stick a lot more than Baltimore. St Louis has a much more modern highway system than the MO side of KC does. Most of the MO side of KC highways have barely been upgraded since they were built while nearly every interstate in metro St Louis has been totally rebuilt and widened extensively. MoDot gives the StL area much more attention than the KC area.
The Baltimore area does get a lot of transportation dollars from the state in both highways and transit. Baltimore and Maryland has huge bridges, tunnels etc that KC doesn't have for one. (although Maryland also has tolls to pay for those).
Even though the governor killed the red light rail line, the city still has 30 miles of light rail, another 20 miles of heavy metro rail and has extensive commuter and intercity rail via MARC and Amtrak/Acela. Baltimore also has lots of commuter coach express bus routes.
Not to mention a well funded and fast growing airport (that can actually improve itself without asking the general public for permission).
KC has two miles of streetcar, a 1950's interstate system with zero HOV lanes etc and a 1960's airport that is rapidly deteriorating into one of the worst in the country. Not really a comparison.
Last edited by kcmo; 10-09-2016 at 09:58 PM..
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