Creating Culture

THEMES, STRATEGIES & DESIRES
The architects who designed the downtown plan began their seven-month process by interviewing the stakeholders who have a financial or civic interest in downtown. The themes that emerged are nothing new. The need for revitalization is greatest within the Loop defined by the freeways, the city needs a prominent civic destination, downtown must provide a greater sense of safety along with more civic parks and streetscape improvements, parking is inadequate—in location if not in quantity, and focused financial incentives are required to make redevelopment work in an orderly fashion. And, of course, no one has come up with an effective way to connect the concentric rings.

The themes lead naturally into the plan’s strategies to improve the downtown
environment, which are:

• Concentrating destinations to create a sense of place and magnify benefits.
• Focusing investments and incentives to achieve plan goals in a consistent manner.
• Improving the environment and adding amenities like open spaces.
• Diversifying downtown beyond
business to create a viable space for
culture, the arts and living.
• Maintaining flexibility to accommodate opportunities without sacrificing principles.

Within these strategies lies the desire to make the most of hilltop sites, historic building stock and riverfront land, to create new parks and surround them with ground-floor retail, and to maximize the availability of parking while minimizing its profile.

CREATING THE CULTURE
Today, if you stand at the intersection of Main and 14th streets and use your imagination, you can see the South Loop Park instead of the headquarters of MT Massage, Whirlpool and Sauna. If you look south and west, maybe squint your eyes, you can see the Performing Arts Center planned for the top of the hill at 16th and Central streets, or you can make out the Convention Center’s new ballroom and its expanded exhibit hall that will span I-70. Turn east for a moment and search for the downtown arena on 14th Street just the other side of Grand Boulevard—this will take greater vision. North along Grand, before you get to 12th Street, a new “institutional” campus shimmers like a mirage. These sights-to-be are elements of the Downtown Corridor Development Strategy, also know as the Sasaki Plan, a plan designed to provide a “clear sense” of the future of Kansas City’s downtown. The document enumerates the concerns and responsibilities of “stakeholders” who have an interest in downtown, the areas most in need of redevelopment, the strategies necessary to complete that redevelopment, and the actions that must be taken to implement the plan. Within this scheme lies the blueprint for creating Kansas City’s new downtown culture.
Culture today has come to mean more than civilization—it comprises different kinds of people engaged in multiple activities. Such diverse activity is reflected in microcosm in the downtown plan’s “Priority Area,” the 300 acres covering Oak Street to Broadway and 9th Street to 18th Street. Put on your walking shoes at 14th & Main, the priority area’s center point, and within 10 minutes you will be able to reach: • The Performing Arts Center/Convention Center District • The Library District with the library and surrounding lofts • The South Loop redevelopment area including the new arena • The Avenue of the Arts and downtown theaters • The Financial District • The Crossroads Arts District These destinations, each with its unique character, form the first “ring” around the downtown core. Additional concentric rings reach out to Quality Hill, River Market, Ilus W. Davis Park and the Government District, the 18th and Vine Jazz District, Union Station and Crown Center, Berkley Riverfront Park, and the Country Club Plaza.
	THEMES, STRATEGIES & DESIRES The architects who designed the downtown plan began their seven-month process by interviewing the stakeholders who have a financial or civic interest in downtown. The themes that emerged are nothing new. The need for revitalization is greatest within the Loop defined by the freeways, the city needs a prominent civic destination, downtown must provide a greater sense of safety along with more civic parks and streetscape improvements, parking is inadequate—in location if not in quantity, and focused financial incentives are required to make redevelopment work in an orderly fashion. And, of course, no one has come up with an effective way to connect the concentric rings. The themes lead naturally into the plan’s strategies to improve the downtown environment, which are: • Concentrating destinations to create a sense of place and magnify benefits. • Focusing investments and incentives to achieve plan goals in a consistent manner. • Improving the environment and adding amenities like open spaces. • Diversifying downtown beyond business to create a viable space for culture, the arts and living. • Maintaining flexibility to accommodate opportunities without sacrificing principles. Within these strategies lies the desire to make the most of hilltop sites, historic building stock and riverfront land, to create new parks and surround them with ground-floor retail, and to maximize the availability of parking while minimizing its profile.
The plan does not expect the proposed Performing Arts Center to generate enough activity on its own to stimulate substantial new private business investment downtown. In fact, the report warns that the new facility may draw events from other venues, but as a part of a network of arts, business, residential and public investments, the Center will have an impact that is “positive overall.” As for the residential development downtown, most units do not generate enough rental income to the developer to justify construction without some kind of tax incentive. Many of the lofts renovated so far have depended on historic tax credits to make them work financially. Tax abatements and tax increment financing are also meaningful incentives. Finally, another resource that the plan recommends—one that is crucial to energize the downtown culture—is the formation of a Community Improvement District. Created by local government but managed by a private, not-for-profit corporation, a CID assesses fees to commercial property owners within the district to pay for services in the area above and beyond what the city provides, thereby increasing property values in the district. Opportunity Knocking at Both Doors The Downtown Corridor Development Strategy is more realistic in its goal of presenting a “clear sense” of downtown Kansas City’s future than previous development plans have been. The institutional campus is beyond our horizon at this point, however, and we might have to wear special glasses to envision the arena until a user or users have been identified. Corporate and public sponsorship will be key. Financial inducement is always an issue in attracting investment to downtown, and the downtown plan states that city incentives in the past have had “no geographic focus.” In other words, the city needs to use incentives to make people go where it wants them to go. Withholding incentives in one subdistrict area to force a business to go to another, however, risks losing the business to another city altogether. The city government is not the only stakeholder here, though; it has joined with the Civic Council, the Downtown Council and the Chamber of Commerce to develop the downtown plan. Now out of many must come one—the stakeholders must form a single entity to manage the Community Improvement District and to drive the plan forward. The most important of all the plan’s strategies is that of maintaining flexibility to accommodate unexpected opportunities. Probably few would object if a large user—an American Century, say—stepped up to replace the institutional campus forecasted for Grand Boulevard. And all the entrepreneurial development that has occurred in the River Market and in Crossroads has happened because of opportunity, not because of a single plan. With the Crossroads and Library districts already encroaching onto the priority area, and with the September announcement of the President Hotel renovation, you have to wonder if the ripple effect is moving out or is moving in. Each new district brings with it the kinds of surprises that shape the downtown culture, and there’s more to come.