When I lived in Manhattan, my office was nine blocks from my apartment. It was an easy walk. I never minded it because there was plenty to look at along the way, so I didn't really notice that I was walking nine blocks.

When one lives in great cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, Paris, Prague, Vienna, London, Tokyo, or Rome, it is actually pleasurable to walk in them.

One of my favorite streets to walk down is Pennsylvania from Westport Rd. south about two blocks. It's a shame it's only a couple of blocks. It's the only place in KC that reminds me of Greenwich Village.

I also like Westport Rd. from Pryde's to Pennsylvania. I like to walk the N-S streets along W. 39th St. as well.

That is what's so hard in convincing laymen of the benefits of dense cities. So accustomed to suburban, car-dependent crappery has everyone become that the thought of a continuous urbanscape unfettered by parking lots is an utterly foreign concept to most Americans.

Here's the list of possible retailers that would fit in well with the boutique-leaning concept Cordish seems to be doing on Baltimore:

Kate Spade-- the name says it all. A Kansas City icon.


Rugby by Ralph Lauren. A younger leaning new concept by Lauren with prices that also match a younger crowd.


Sephora. An phenom in cosmetics retail.


Tourneau America's finest watch retailer.


Charles David Upscale shoes and accessories for the fashion-conscious women.


Tumi Known worldwide as maker of luggage, business cases, and accessories.

It would be amazing to actually see some of these retailers downtown.  What a way to say downtown is alive and well!

Here's the current status of this block (northern 2/3 anyway).   Not much change since the TWA Building came down... just lots of moving around of dirt.

A new construction ramp was built into this pit this morning, so something (garage excavation maybe?) should be starting here soon.

I thought there were just the 2 underground garages?  May be wrong though.  Glad to see some actual work starting here.

Maybe on this block it's above ground, I'm not sure.  I know that parking for the hotel fits in there somewhere.

I was wrong, I should have looked at the first post in this thread.

I wonder why they did not start this earlier to have it done by the opening of the President?

Looks like digging is about to really get going

or perhaps the humble beginings of a fish hatchery.

Olympic sixed pool!!!

That south facade of the Midland looks atrocious when you can see it straight on like that-- it was clearly meant to be experienced as one side of the "cavern" of 13th street, not as something you can stand back and look at from a block away, and it looked great as one side of the cavern with TWA across the street forming the other side (and even the Soakies garage building, even though it wasn't right up against 13th).

oh be honest, you are just looking for a subtle way to say you miss soakies.

Did they axe the underground parking from this block?  They have been going to great lengths recently to slowly fill in this hole and bring the ground level back up to street level.

Didn't they do something similar with the KC Live block?

a lot of dirt to move for no reason

Removing the old foundations, and possibly there were some contamination issues with the soil under Soakies garage and the surface lots.  I'm sure these contractors aren't going to waste their time and money pushing dirt around for no reason.

So I am assuming that they are designing this one story section to eventually have the H&R Block expansion built on top?  Has anyone seen what the design is?  I am assuming that if they are building the foundations they have to already know what the above structure will eventually entail. 

I thought the H&R Block expansion would be an addition to the 18 story building going up now? SO the final height of the building would be 28 Stories. I might be wrong...