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The airport is definitely a disappointment. Something will have to be done, I'm just not sure what right now. Whether it's a total remodel or a new terminal, the drive to your gate concept will go away. Voters need to be made sure they are aware of that before they shoot down a future bond vote. It's not going to be the same with a remodel.
There still seems to be a lot of construction going on from KU Med, UMKC, all the way to the River Market. Not booming, but lots of infill, which certain areas definitely need. I would like to see more, but the amount of construction in the last 10 years is monumental compared to the 1990's and early 2000's. So things are moving along. Not sure why it is so difficult to get a convention hotel off the ground, but I think it will get built with our current mayor pushing it forward.
Two light is going up nicely and Three Light should break ground next Spring (that according to one of the foremen I talked to a few weeks ago at Two Light as I was poking around).
Office again is non-existent, which is disappointing. Not sure how that will change until a large company decides to move its HQ's. I would think a developer would take a chance on a 10-12 story mid rise office building. OP has built spec towers in Corporate Woods, so why not downtown? I would bet it would fill up pretty quick with smaller blocks of tenants.
I just think the lack of major infrastructure projects in KC has hurt KC in more ways than one. Not only is KCI a terrible airport for the convention/hospitality industry and possibly business community as the airport has squandered flights to Denver and St Louis that should be in KC, but the city is losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars of new economic activity to design and build a new terminal. You are talking about a billion dollar project that would be mostly funded via airlines, federal grants and new revenue generated from a new terminal. That's thousands of construction workers plus all the architecture, engineering and planning firms that would benefit etc.
Same with KC doing so little with transit, major pedestrian bridges over the MO river etc. When I go to places like Dallas, Charlotte, Denver, Portland, MSP etc and see hundreds of millions, if not billions of ongoing investment in these areas. You are talking about a ton of economic activity that KC just does not have as part of their economy and a lot of the money KC could be using just goes to other cities. Not to mention these types of projects tend to attract considerably more urban core development. If KC was building a billion dollar airport and a billion dollar light rail line from NKC to Brookside for example, there would also probably be an additional 2 billion dollars in commercial projects going up in the city than there is now.
KC is afraid to change and spend money on this type of thing. So many people in KC literally hate developers and builders as if they are money hungry scumbags. The only reason the city wants a new terminal is to line the pockets of JE Dunn! When the real reason is to make your city better and so what if a local company like JE Junn benefits and grows because they get to build airport terminals and office towers. Yet at the same, time nobody cares when developers really are doing the wrong thing and getting absurd incentives to build suburban developments in areas already saturated with too much retail which causes blight in older areas rather than economic spin off projects. When it comes to this stuff, KC is a weird place.
Just like Denver and Charlotte and Minneapolis have done in the past 20 years, Nashville, Austin, Portland etc are spending money on infrastructure to improve their cities and take them to the next level and they too will pass KC because of their more aggressive and progressive mentality of change and investment is actually A GOOD THING...
KC is not doing bad, but it's still losing ground to most other cities (it only does better than a few rust belt cities) when that does not have to be the case at all.
I just think the lack of major infrastructure projects in KC has hurt KC in more ways than one. Not only is KCI a terrible airport for the convention/hospitality industry and possibly business community as the airport has squandered flights to Denver and St Louis that should be in KC, but the city is losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars of new economic activity to design and build a new terminal. You are talking about a billion dollar project that would be mostly funded via airlines, federal grants and new revenue generated from a new terminal. That's thousands of construction workers plus all the architecture, engineering and planning firms that would benefit etc.
Same with KC doing so little with transit, major pedestrian bridges over the MO river etc. When I go to places like Dallas, Charlotte, Denver, Portland, MSP etc and see hundreds of millions, if not billions of ongoing investment in these areas. You are talking about a ton of economic activity that KC just does not have as part of their economy and a lot of the money KC could be using just goes to other cities. Not to mention these types of projects tend to attract considerably more urban core development. If KC was building a billion dollar airport and a billion dollar light rail line from NKC to Brookside for example, there would also probably be an additional 2 billion dollars in commercial projects going up in the city than there is now.
KC is afraid to change and spend money on this type of thing. So many people in KC literally hate developers and builders as if they are money hungry scumbags. The only reason the city wants a new terminal is to line the pockets of JE Dunn! When the real reason is to make your city better and so what if a local company like JE Junn benefits and grows because they get to build airport terminals and office towers. Yet at the same, time nobody cares when developers really are doing the wrong thing and getting absurd incentives to build suburban developments in areas already saturated with too much retail which causes blight in older areas rather than economic spin off projects. When it comes to this stuff, KC is a weird place.
Just like Denver and Charlotte and Minneapolis have done in the past 20 years, Nashville, Austin, Portland etc are spending money on infrastructure to improve their cities and take them to the next level and they too will pass KC because of their more aggressive and progressive mentality of change and investment is actually A GOOD THING...
KC is not doing bad, but it's still losing ground to most other cities (it only does better than a few rust belt cities) when that does not have to be the case at all.
The problem with the airport is the asinine rule that voters have to approve the airport bond.
Nothing will happen to the airport as long as that rule/law exists.
I don't know of another major city where voters have had to pass a bond to fund airport improvements. Here in Phoenix the City of Phoenix opens the airport and has spent over $1.5 billion on a new people mover system and is spending another $600 - 700 million on the renovation of one of its terminals with no public vote.
It's because of the same reason the KC forum has been quiet. There's a notable lack of people trying to start a MO vs KS thread war. I like the overall absence of unnecessary mudslinging and backlash responses going on at the moment,
Please don't say "at the moment". I went to a lot of effort to make a point and I think we can all be entirely civil to one another going forward.
The problem with the airport is the asinine rule that voters have to approve the airport bond.
Nothing will happen to the airport as long as that rule/law exists.
I don't know of another major city where voters have had to pass a bond to fund airport improvements. Here in Phoenix the City of Phoenix opens the airport and has spent over $1.5 billion on a new people mover system and is spending another $600 - 700 million on the renovation of one of its terminals with no public vote.
I personally like the KC airport. I can see how improvements could be made but it's easy to get in and out of and is pretty functional.
Sure there is room for improvement but I guess that leaves us with the issue of prioritization.
Light rail would be one example where the money could be spent instead.
I personally like the KC airport. I can see how improvements could be made but it's easy to get in and out of and is pretty functional.
Not if you're waiting for or changing planes.
The concourses are too narrow to accommodate the security checkpoints and the other ancillary post-9/11 stuff and still allow passengers to move about.
The restaurant spaces in Terminal B (save for the one atop the main block of Southwest gates) are outside the security perimeters, as are the restrooms (again, save for that one block, and the men's room in that block is definitely overused, for it's the first airport restroom I've ever been in where I detected a urine smell).
Note how there's no hub operation at KCI? It worked in the era of point-to-point air travel, but (according to the Wikipedia article on the airport) when TWA, which recommended the drive-to-your-gate design to the city in the first place, decided it wasn't working for its needs after all and asked for a new terminal, the city balked (as it should have, having spent the money to build KCI to TWA'S original specs in the first place) - and TWA moved its hub across state to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
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Sure there is room for improvement but I guess that leaves us with the issue of prioritization.
Light rail would be one example where the money could be spent instead.
I'm with you on light rail, but I really don't think people realize how the airport is keeping the city from better realizing its potential as an air hub.
Light rail would be one example where the money could be spent instead.
You talk like Kansas City has a pot of money called "Transportation" and they're trying to decide whether to spend it on an airport, or light rail. This bears no relation whatsoever to reality.
The concourses are too narrow to accommodate the security checkpoints and the other ancillary post-9/11 stuff and still allow passengers to move about.
The restaurant spaces in Terminal B (save for the one atop the main block of Southwest gates) are outside the security perimeters, as are the restrooms (again, save for that one block, and the men's room in that block is definitely overused, for it's the first airport restroom I've ever been in where I detected a urine smell).
Note how there's no hub operation at KCI? It worked in the era of point-to-point air travel, but (according to the Wikipedia article on the airport) when TWA, which recommended the drive-to-your-gate design to the city in the first place, decided it wasn't working for its needs after all and asked for a new terminal, the city balked (as it should have, having spent the money to build KCI to TWA'S original specs in the first place) - and TWA moved its hub across state to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
I'm with you on light rail, but I really don't think people realize how the airport is keeping the city from better realizing its potential as an air hub.
And remember, I'm a native too.
It's not just a crappy terminal for delays or changing planes, it's not a well functioning airport for basic O/D traveling either. This is the part I don't think people in KC understand. People compare KCI to much larger and more congested airports, but compared to airports of similar size, KCI comes up short in almost every way possible except the shorter walk from the jetway to the curb for arriving flights.
Here is a quote on my facebook page from yesterday from a frequent traveler friend of mine that lives in KC.
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All the locals think it's the greatest thing. So I timed how long it takes to do certain things at different airports and kci always was the worst. I hate this airport.
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As a frequent traveler that has gone through most US airports, I agree 100% Many airports can get bogged down at peak times, but the only airports that tend to have long waits are MUCH busier airports than KCI. KCI is the only mid sized airport I have used that will bog down at peak times. Flying out of Southwest on Monday mornings for example is a miserable experience at KCI, right up there with the worst of the worst airports when it comes to wait times, no seating etc (on top of having no basic airport amenities.)
As far as putting light rail first. KCI and Light Rail are two totally separate entities funded by totally separate funding mechanisms and operate completely independent of each other. KCI is not funded with any general tax money. It's a self sustained and self funded arm of the KCMO government. Again, a new 1.2 billion dollar terminal would cost KC area residents nothing unless they fly and even then, ticket fees at KCI would be below the vast majority of large airports fees in the country. People would pay like $8 more per ticket. KCI's prices have gone through the roof because it has become a commuter to hub airport (like Omaha, OKC etc). That is effecting ticket prices way more than fees ever will.
The KC aviation department should not have to ask voters that know nothing about the business aspects of aviation for approval of how to run the airports (MCI or MKC). As Ztonyg says, this is the major problem in KC. Here in DC/Baltimore, the airports spend what they need to spend to remain competitive and grow and the people just use the airports and don't get emotional about how long they may have to walk. That's how it works in most cities.
Having to put a very needed and important project like KCI on the back burner for so long because it won't pass a vote or will conflict with other referendums is ridiculous. KC, like every other city int he country should be able to modernize it's terminal, extend the streetcar AND build sewers, bridges, roads etc as the same time.
Here is a "small jab". Even the KC Business Journal is obviously annoyed by these issues, and they have even stated in their articles that nobody cares when the bring up these topics. It's crazy that when people like me bring this stuff up, it's calling trolling or starting flame wars when this is a topic that every person in metro KC SHOULD be pretty upset about. What whatever. I'll keep talking about it. Sorry.
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