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Neighborhood Backgrounder Thinking
about development in |
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 Apartments proposed to be torn down to build a publicly-subsidized 12-story high-end hotel on The Plaza. |
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| Updates In addition to the updates please review the detailed Neighborhood Backgrounder - below the updates - for a complete discussion of this project. |
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On 4/7 the Oak Hall Condo Association sent a list of questions to Wilson Development regarding their proposed development, requesting their answers in writing. We appreciate the hard work of the Oak Hall residents - our entire neighborhood will benefit from their past and continued diligence. |
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On 3/25 the Board of Directors of the Kansas City Convention and Visitors Association voted to oppose the Cleaver TIF plan. To view their 3/31 opposition letter to Mayor Funkhouser and City Council click here. (Also see explanatory note below.) |
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On
3/21 the Southmoreland Neighborhood Association provided
a letter to the property owner requesting consideration of alternatives
that preserve the existing buildings on the property. To view the letter click here. |
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On 3/11 we received the first written documentation of the proposed development from Wilson Development. To view it click here. |
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On
3/11 the Sophian Plaza Condo Association voted to support
the concept of the proposed development. |
A
quick note on the Kansas City Convention and Visitors Association
opposition. The KCCVA believes that
a small boutique hotel on the Plaza will not generate additional
new tax revenue, rather, a hotel of that size at that location
will receive hotel business that would have otherwise gone to one
of the other hotels in the area. This is called the "substitution
effect".
Take
a few minutes and familiarize yourself with the neighborhood backgrounder
(below), and then please join us for a discussion of this topic
on our blog.
To get on the email list for this issue click here. (There are a fair amount of pictures in our discussion, so make sure you can open Adobe PDF files and your browser allows pop-up browser windows for this web site.) The Cleaver Blvd. TIF is a proposed development that would demolish 10 historically-significant apartment buildings (which are in need of repair) and replace them with a 12-story hotel, luxury condos and newly-constructed apartments. The project cost is approx. $90M. $15M will be publicly-financed via TIF of underground parking. Development decisions, especially on this scale, are forever decisions that significantly impact our neighborhood, surrounding community and city. For this and many more reasons, we owe it to ourselves to apply a high level of scrutiny and thought as we consider this and other development projects in our neighborhood. For a map of where these apartments are, click here. For pictures of the current apartments click here. Before we get into the specifics of the Cleaver Blvd. TIF, we'd like to say two things: |
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We
like developers...as
long as they make our neighborhood a better place to live. |
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We
like TIFs, as long as they're applied correctly. We
are pleased to have the 43rd & Main TIF in our neighborhood.
Approved in 1993, this TIF removed real blight, is among the
top three performing TIFs in the city, and it supports continuing
improvements for our neighborhood -- including the SMART housing
program in the north end of Southmoreland. To find out more about
our SMART housing program, click
here. |
| There are 6 areas we can, as a neighborhood, begin considering as we think about this development project: | |
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Do we
have a say? We have a significant amount of influence
to do the right thing. Read
more… |
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How
do we ultimately decide whether this project is good for the
neighborhood? We
have a yardstick. Read
more… |
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What’s The
Big Picture? Has anybody considered the combined impacts
of ALL of the development going on in our neighborhood? The
short answer is no one has, and the impacts are significant.
Read more… |
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What are the development
risks? There is significant development risk associated
with all development projects, including the proposed Cleaver
Blvd. TIF. Read
more… |
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What are the problems
being solved and caused by this project? Read
more… |
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Do we care how this
project is financed, and that there may be public financing
involved? The short answer to this question is “yes”. Read more… |
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We’ll
be updating it as frequently as we can. If you would like to hear
about updates on this issue, sign up for our email list here.
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