News: Overland Park approves huge development project tied to the American Museum of Natural History (Kansas City: buying)

[GraniteStater]

Overland Park approves huge development project tied to the American Museum of Natural History - Kansas City Star

[kcmo]

no comment.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by kcmo

no comment.

I understand

[sparksharp]

Actually, this sounds pretty cool to me!

But this confused me a tad.

There is no guarantee that the bonds would be issued or the project would be built.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by sparksharp

Actually, this sounds pretty cool to me!

But this confused me a tad.

Getting financing for a project of this scale is probably hard given the current economic conditions.

[Samantha S]

Originally Posted by kcmo

no comment.

Now what's your problem???

Nall is pretty close to the state line and this will benefit local economies on both sides. Can I assume you will be pushing for bi-state regional cooperation to fund this? Or will you just freeload off of KS?

[kcmo]

Would have been great for this to go to Union Station rather than it being USED as LEVERAGE to use public money to build a suburban development on the greenest possible field in metro KC.

This is nothing more than a way for developers to get STAR bonds. It's not a museum it's space for traveling exhibits and it should be in a building like Union Station, not a strip mall 25 miles deep into the suburbs.

Are you seriously buying into all this economic stuff? People are going to drive from hundreds of miles to this "tourist haven"? What? Soccer fields, a golf course and a museum exhibit is a tourism haven?

You see, developers can't figure out a way to finance a project. So they want STAR bonds which is a massive Super TIF of state and local taxes. The only way to get a STAR bond is to build some sort of attraction that is supposed to bring people to Kansas. So they throw this silly museum into the project to get the STAR bonds. Basically the "museum" (hardly a museum) is only there to make the project pass the star bond test and the taxes get to fund the construction of the actual retail development. The museum or aquarium things are just little side jobs to get the star bonds for the rest of the project.

It's the same reason Mission threw a little aquarium onto the side of their gateway project. STAR bonds.

STAR bonds should be saved for projects and areas that could really make the biggest difference. Use STAR bonds to build the actual attraction like a REAL full sized aquarium or history museum at KAW point in KCK. Do not use STAR bonds to build retail centers on open land in the suburbs just cause you have a little attraction as part of the project.

Total wasted opportunity. Again.

And Kansas is hardly providing a regional attraction. They are only getting creative in ways to finance an upscale suburban shopping center that will ultimately only cannibalize existing shopping centers in JoCo.

Let me know when JoCo passes a tax to build a 100 million dollar museum or something, not a 5 million dollar big box that will host traveling exhibits in order to land 100 million in star bonds to develop the rest of the development with public money.

[Samantha S]

Originally Posted by kcmo

Are you seriously buying into all this economic stuff?

I was really just teasing you.

Getting City approval is a far cry from getting the actual funds approved.

We'll see ...