KCRag Forum

chrizow wrote: what has apparently happened here is that, since Beth G and Jan M live in the district, they cannot advocate for pushing it through.  no one else is picking up the slack either, so the project is in limbo for the forseeable future.  weak.

Council Members advocate for projects in their district all the time, often very stridently.  More likely is that since they both live in Southmoreland, it would be a little awkward if they took money from their own neighborhood and gave it to another.

dangerboy wrote: Council Members advocate for projects in their district all the time, often very stridently.  More likely is that since they both live in Southmoreland, it would be a little awkward if they took money from their own neighborhood and gave it to another.

ah, maybe that's it.  just passing along some info i (thought i) heard from some in-the-know folks. 

dangerboy wrote: Council Members advocate for projects in their district all the time, often very stridently.  More likely is that since they both live in Southmoreland, it would be a little awkward if they took money from their own neighborhood and gave it to another.

Yeah, they don't represent the entire district just Southmoreland.  The big wigs at American Century and the Nelson don't want the money to roam too far from their front yards.  What big money wants, big money gets.

This thing needs to get done!  They have been trying to clean up this intersection for over 25 years now with little success.  About the only long time positive presence has been the Unicorn.

dangerboy wrote: Council Members advocate for projects in their district all the time, often very stridently.  More likely is that since they both live in Southmoreland, it would be a little awkward if they took money from their own neighborhood and gave it to another.

Could someone direct me to any information concerning this alleged "Southmoreland" TIF district that would be losing money to the 39th and Main proposal?
From the limited research I've managed to do, there are only two TIF districts anywhere near Southmoreland -

1. the 43rd & Main TIF, which was originally done to develop the H & R Block Headquarters building at 45th and Main, along with the Office Depot at 42nd, and which boundaries stretch from roughly 41st to 45th and from Mill Creek Parkway to half a block west of Warwick.
2. the Southtown Corridor/Maincor TIF, which stretches from 31st to roughly 41st on Main Street, and includes 1 block on either side of main, from Baltimore to Walnut Street.

The 39th and Main location is in the Maincor TIF boundary, which was expanded around 2006 to do the following, and I quote from Bear Sternes TIF study commissioned by the city,
"The purpose for expanding the benefit area is to rejuvenate blighted and eliminate potentially blighting elements along the Main Street Corridor."

Which one is it?  Last time I checked, the Southmoreland neighborhood is "located in midtown Kansas City from 39th St. south to 47th St. (Cleaver II Blvd); and Main St. east to Gillham/Rockhill Road.  (http://www.southmoreland.org/pages/about.html which only encompasses about 20% of the Southtown Corridor TIF area.
Convserly, only about 15% of the Southmoreland neighborhood is located within the boundaries of the existing Southtown TIF (from 39th to 41st, and from Main to Walnut) which includes no residences that I can think of, the business in the 3900 E block of Main Street, and St. Paul's Church & School, which may be tax exempt anyway...

It's the 43rd and Main TIF.  It is strongly controlled by Southmoreland residents and business interests closer to the Plaza than the Hawthorne, including American Century.  They don't want the change falling out of their pockets to roll too far from their shoes.

They may be proposing to amend the 43rd and Main TIFF to include their property at 39th and Main, but this would still only affect the Southmoreland neighborhood from 45th to 41st for a block and a half east of Main, including the office building and hotel at the northeast corner of 45th and main, the Office Depot, and all of the residences on Walnut street from 41st to 45th.  That is still less than 15% of the Southmoreland Neighborhood.

Noted. 
They should try to get their TIF money from the Southtown Corridor TIF, then.  Oh wait - most of that was sucked dry by the Federal Reserve Project.

By the way - I strongly despise this posturing that the TIF district at 43rd and Main helps residents.  It does not even come close to touching most of the residents of Southmoreland.

Perhaps the Hawthorne developers should be happy they got the TIF they did and live within those means.  They already terrible precedent of handing out unwarranted TIFs is now expanding into a new precedent of the City Council approving even more subsidies for existing TIFs.

dangerboy wrote: Perhaps the Hawthorne developers should be happy they got the TIF they did and live within those means.

i heard that the owner is grumbling that the building would probably be done now if he went section 8.  too bad we can't streamline the process for market-rate projects.

dangerboy wrote: Perhaps the Hawthorne developers should be happy they got the TIF they did and live within those means.  They already terrible precedent of handing out unwarranted TIFs is now expanding into a new precedent of the City Council approving even more subsidies for existing TIFs.

If there was a project that deserved a TIF, it would most certainly be this one.  Don't let the city's ability to hand out subsidies for the West Edge, Federal Reserve Bank, and Briarcliff Village cloud your observations.  This decrepit building is rotting rather quickly, and is doing nothing to help an oddly distressed area (I say oddly because it is surrounded by decent residential areas, but the commercial corridor is lacking).
Rehabbing an existing 14 story decrepit building into market rate housing on a dilapidated street seems much more worthy of TIF than any corporate office building or retail development of recent memory...

This REALLY needs to be done, amazing it is taking this long.

So is something actually happening with this building now or....?  It has a barricade around the facade and Kiva only says a request from Dangerous Buildings is the reason.  Prior to the barricade I noticed a chunk of brick had fallen off the building at street level.

http://kivaweb.kcmo.org/kivanet/2/land/ ... 86621&pid=

i've noticed that a lot of the windows are gone, which means the elements are getting in, and once you have that, it's only a question of time before the whole thing gets torn down for being in shitty condition and "beyond renovation".

What's going on?  They should at least be protecting the interior from the elements, a building can sit empty for a while with no issues, but it's going to go to hell very quickly if water is getting in (which is what's happening with so many windows missing).

Agreed.  It's really pissing me off twice a day as I go to and from work.  There's no reason for the gaping holes, many of the windows just need to be shut.  Is some jackass landowner just purposefully trying to get the building to decompose beyond feasibility to rehab so he can tear it down or what?  F-ing ridiculous.  What's going on here?

PumpkinStalker wrote: Agreed.  It's really pissing me off twice a day as I go to and from work.  There's no reason for the gaping holes, many of the windows just need to be shut.  Is some jackass landowner just purposefully trying to get the building to decompose beyond feasibility to rehab so he can tear it down or what?  F-ing ridiculous.  What's going on here?

But we really need another car wash or strip mall on Main . . .

What's going on is the controllers of the TIF for that area got greedy and wanted all the money to go for projects closer to their Southmoreland diggs and American Century corner windows.  They blocked the funds and ended up getting the money taken from the entire district.  Councilpeople didn't want to upset their neighbors and large campaign donors and decided to shrink back.  The Hawthorn is the type of project that TIF money should be spent on and instead I guess the building gets torn down after a brick from the crumbling facade falls on someone.

voltopt wrote: Noted. 
They should try to get their TIF money from the Southtown Corridor TIF, then.  Oh wait - most of that was sucked dry by the Federal Reserve Project.

By the way - I strongly despise this posturing that the TIF district at 43rd and Main helps residents.  It does not even come close to touching most of the residents of Southmoreland.

A quick yahoo search reveals no evidence that TIF was used to build the federal reserve building. In fact just the opposite is true. The new Federal reserve building generates taxes that were used to make improvements to public property in Penn Valley park and along main street.


I gather you have a problem with the improvements that were made to Penn Valley Park.

Does anyone knows if one can call the city so they can ask the builder what is going on ? This is a cool looking building and SHOULD be fix ... 

"At 39th Street and Main, the plywood may finally come off the historic Hawthorn Plaza building"

Pitch, Nov 8.

Fingers crossed.