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Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

Kansas City: A Downtown Profile

This one isn’t by me, but by the local newspaper. The Kansas City Star ran a three day series on downtown Kansas City. They talk a lot about the development there, including an interactive map with pictures. There’s also a lot of peer city comparisons and data available. Plus there are a number of videos with different folks.

Kansas City is one of the rare Midwest metro areas I have not visited. From what I can see, it appears to be one of the more successful. As the series authors note, however, the downtown development game is extremely competitive, and just investing to make yours better doesn’t even necessarily allow you to keep up with the Joneses. The series suggests that despite $3+ billion invested to far this decade, KC is actually in danger of falling behind. Wow. They appear to be doing great on the condo front, though, where they are among the Midwest leaders in new downtown units and residents.

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

Sprint Center Opens in Kansas City

The Sprint Center in Kansas City is now open to the public. The KC Star has extensive coverage, including a lengthy retrospective on the journey to building the arena.

I saw some photos of the interior of this, which was very unimpressive. However, the exterior, with its mirrored panels, is very nice indeed. In fact, I’d say Kansas City has done a far better job than most places in its arena design. This is particularly interesting since it came from the institutional HOK, which, while a local company, was hardly noted for forward thinking designs.

One thing city leaders did before just handing the work to the local boys was the at least explore the option, how seriously I’m not sure, to hire Frank Gehry to design it. He even made a pitch for it to a local selection committee, though it is clear from the article that either Gehry was never a serious candidate or else wasn’t used to having to actually compete for commissions. Nevertheless, the threat of out of town competition from a prominent architect forced HOK to up its game, coming with a modern and attractive design. This can be a lesson to other cities. The local boys can indeed to better, and what’s needed to bring it out is a little competition.

I actually think KC can count itself fortunate that it did not award the deal to Gehry, who would almost certainly have just built yet another Bilbao clone.

Whatever anyone might say about hosting the Big 12 tournement, the real reason for this arena is to lure an NHL and/or NBA team. If it doesn’t, I’m sure it will be viewed as a failure in many quarters. The interesting thing is, this goes to show that you can’t just promise to have an arena now to lure a team, you already have to have one built. That’s quite a risk to take on indeed.

Sunday, July 29th, 2007

Kansas, Missouri Facing Road Funding Crunch

The Kansas City Star had an interesting article about road construction funding in Kansas and Missouri. Apparently both states have had major decade-long construction programs running, and now the funding is running dry. Missouri at least is considering a gas tax increase to keep things going.

I found a couple of things interesting. The first was comparing the current spending levels of both states back to Indiana’s Major Moves program. Both Kansas and Missouri are larger than Indiana geographically, but smaller in population. Kansas actually has less than half as many people as Indiana. But both states’ current construction programs are as large or larger than Major Moves. The Kansas program was 10 years, $13 billion, or $1.3 billion per year. I don’t know the length of the Missouri program, but they are spending about $1.1 billion per year. Major Moves is a 10 year, $11.9 billion program, or about $1.2 billion per year. So it is interesting that Indiana has only been able to accomplish with its toll road lease not anything different than two other smaller states managed to figure out how to do without leasing out a toll road. Presumably at the end of Major Moves, as with the end of these other states’ programs, highway funding will fall off a cliff.

The other thing of note was a brief mention of a desire to put dedicated truck lanes on I-70. This is the “Corridors of the Future” application that INDOT is leading the sponsorship of with the FWHA.

Thursday, July 5th, 2007

Updated: Transportation Briefs

Chicago. The CTA falls flat on its face again as three L lines were shut down for several hours as crowds totalling a million people tried to make their way home after the fireworks. This CTA is an operational shambles that the city appears to have no interest in fixing. Problems like this have been going on for over a decade.

Indianapolis. I saw an picked up a copy of a local newspaper for the Pike Township area and it noted a story I somehow missed. Namely that INDOT rejected the bids for the replacement of the 34th and 46th St. bridges over I-46 on the west leg because they were over the price estimate. Construction costs have generally been going up. This can’t be a good sign for the overall project and hopefully it doesn’t delay construction.

I’ve been charting various tidbits of news about the I-69 northeast corridor widening, most of which seems indicate further delays on the project. But today’s paper has an article suggesting forward motion instead. The small cemetary surrounded by the I-465/I-69 interchange is going to be relocated. Cemetary relocations for highway projects are virtually non-existent in Indiana, so this is very unique development. Relocation is scheduled for next year. The article mentions construction starting in 2012.

Here’s a strange one. There’s an article about a new east-west corridor in Johnson County. Apparently the $1 million spent to date on studies isn’t sufficient to finish the job. What I find interesting is that this article is actually pretty long, but doesn’t have anything to say about the actual route selection.

The new $12 million segment of Ronald Reagan Parkway between Stafford Rd. and Washington St. (US 40) in Plainfield is set to open completely tomorrow.

A $12 million project to relocate and reconstruct 106th St. in Zionsville could start construction as early as next year.

There is also a brief blurb on high speed rail.

Louisville. The Restore 64 project’s full interstate closure is now underway. I think this is a great project and a great field test of the 8664 proposal.

Kansas City. Here’s an article about a series of needed road projects totalling $1 billion in Johnson County, Kansas (home to Overland Park and other suburbs).

Tuesday, June 26th, 2007

Kansas City’s Crossroad’s Arts District

One of the cities that has really started to shine in terms of urban development but which has pretty much gone under the national radar is Kansas City. There is a huge amount of development going on in the city, ranging from the Sprint Center arena (a “build it and they will come facility”) to the cutting edge architecture of the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum, to the large mixed-use Power and Light District.

This last development is being put together by Cordish about of Baltimore. They’ve done several of these districts across the country. I’ve yet to be impressed by any of them. Everything I’ve seen shows them to be mega-cheeseball generic bar/retail districts. From what I have read of KC’s version, it will be no different. Yet of course it is getting huge city subsidies.

But I digress. There is a lengthy article on the Kansas City Star talking about a very different type of development. This is the Crossroads Arts District. Unlike the P&L District, this one is almost entirely local businesses. It also has primarily redeveloped historic architecture rather than building new. Included are 50 (!) art galleries and 70 bar/retail/entertainment establishments. Of course this district is not receiving the kind of subsidies that Cordish is.

It is refreshing to see that at least one part of Kansas City’s downtown development is being driven by local, unique businesses rather than a collection of generic chains. The latter may be nice for conventioneers who aren’t interested in exploring a place. But they aren’t what make a city great or unique. One Crossroads Arts District with worth 50 Cordish developments as far as making a real urban neighborhood thrive.

Sunday, June 17th, 2007

More Transportation Leadership from Missouri

It’s not often that I point to good things people are doing in an article that is ostensibly about trouble, but this time I can’t resist. According to this article, the Missouri Department of Transportation is facing problems with its $400-600 million plan to fix 80 percent of its substandard bridges by 2012.

What’s good about this?

First, Missouri has a plan. Most states don’t. Also, rolling the design, construction, and maintenance of fixes to these 800 bridges into one contract gets it done sooner and gets it done better. What’s more, these’s 25 years of maintenance included, which should incent the contractor to do it right.

Missouri has been taking the lead in these mega design/build contracts to get its major projects moving. Rather than dithering for decades, dribbling these projects out one by one, incurring major administrative overhead in the process, they have accelerated and streamlined their approach.

This is far from the only place this type of contracting is being done. It is also the case on the $535 million I-64 project that is completely redesigning and reconstructing that route through the city, with all new pavement and interchanges plus some added travel lanes in basically three years. (This also includes some Hyperfix type closures). They are also doing it on the $245 million Paseo bridge replacement in Kansas City. And probably elsewhere I’m not aware of. These are getting projects done faster and reducing the construction hassle costs to drivers.

The challenge with these projects is that they are huge and, as a relatively small state, it can be difficult to find contractors who are capable of bonding out these big jobs. This means there has to be be consortiums, which can be hard to assemble. The state requires at least two bids per project, and MoDOT has been having trouble finding two bidders in some cases. I’m suspect these consortiums also involve out of state companies, which must be giving MoDOT headaches with the local construction lobby. Plus with a limited number of bidders, the state is also vulnerable to game theory strategies, where two bidders tacitly collude to split the projects amongst themselves, or otherwise act as shill bidders. I’m not saying this has happened here, but it is certainly something to watch for. (Wasn’t it in Freakonomics where there was an example of how this happened in the spectrum bidding process?)

Obviously there are challenges. But it is rare that things that are worthwhile come easy. MoDOT should be congratulated for this type of innovative contracting.

Missouri is also doing more too. It is developing a plan to improve I-70 throughout the state. And it spends $1.2 billion per year on highways, which is more than other similar sized states I’m aware of. All of this is why, in those graphs I showed earlier, it is the Missouri cities that will have comparatively low congestion in 2030, while competitors in Indiana and Ohio suffer in gridlock.

Monday, May 28th, 2007

Must Read David Hoppe Column on the Arts

I previously highlighted David Hoppe, a columnist at Indy free weekly Nuvo, as someone to read for arts coverage. This week he has a great piece about accessibility in the arts [dead link]. His thesis is that in the desire to make the arts more accessible, that those who truly care about them aren’t getting the quality they deserve. Some great quotes:

It seems that most of the arts administrators here are frustrated that such a small percentage of the adult population shows up for local arts offerings….The tactic has been to “reach out,” to play down art’s supposedly stuffy, snobbish image, to talk about how accessible the experiences on offer are in upbeat, reassuring tones….I think this is insulting to what is really the underserved audience here — people who actually know something about the arts. These folks are so hungry for the real thing they travel to other cities to experience what few venues in Indianapolis are willing to offer.

And

But the real problem is that trying to cajole the uninitiated into the arts tent will never really work. Telling them the arts are friendlier, softer, less intimidating and more fun than they think betrays a whiff of flop sweat. It also fails to identify what it is about the arts experience that might distinguish it from, say, a walk in the park or a trip to the zoo. This is no way to woo people that research shows place a premium on attending events of all kinds that promise the possibility of intensely memorable experiences.

What mystifies me is how most of our arts organizations continue to labor under the assumption that audience disinterest is based on audience ignorance, not on the products on display; that the arts organization’s job is to rally public support, rather than make real news in their chosen field.

Amen, brother. This was written about Indianapolis, but it could have been written about almost any city.

On the one hand, I can appreciate that arts organizations want a broad audience. And there are definitely financial realities that make the arts, like it or not, a business that has to sell tickets. But all too often breadth is pursued at the utter sacrifice of depth.

I really think it comes down to the fact that all too many people, including, unfortunately, those in the arts world itself, see the arts as a means to an end rather than an end in and of itself. Notably, cities now tout the arts for their “economic contribution” to the city as a lure to use to get the “creative class” to want to move there. World class art is only valued to the extent that it generates headlines for the city.

I highlighted a great example of this earlier, in describing Kansas City’s edifice complex. They are spending enough on a new performing arts building to fund the operating budgets of the groups that would call it home in perpetuity and still have change left over for other things. Someone there obviously read about how statement buildings in other cities had boosted tourism and downtown development, and was eager to cash in. The actual artistic product is a sideshow.

It is also evidenced in Indianapolis’ love of “public art”. I am constantly reading about the amount of money that is being invested in public art, such as the new “marbles” installation to go on the cultural trail, but little about how good or not good any of this is. In fact, much of the public art that has been installed in Indy isn’t very good, nor does it say much at all about Indy. Most of what was installed along Mass Ave, for example, amounts to little more than random bric-a-brac. The point seems to be merely that it is there, and that it can be bragged about in promotional literature. The not very good Circle Truss proposal (which I addressed previously) falls into the same camp.

While it can make the local booster groups feel excited to be able to tally up all the local arts orgs, number of patrons, and other quantity over quality measures to put them into their promotional literature, don’t expect it to have much of an affect on getting the truly creative to want to live in a place.

I think instead that arts organizations ought to be focused squarely on a mission that stresses the quality of the product on the field. That’s not to say things like buildings should be neglected. They shouldn’t. Or that they shouldn’t market their products. They should. But this should not come at the expense of artistic excellence. In particular, a city’s flagship arts organizations ought to aspire to world class levels. And the “outreach” efforts should focus less on “exposing” more people to the arts, but on the much harder task of educating and converting the casual attendee into a connoisseur.

And as Hoppe points out, true excellence is what is going to inspire real excitement and loyalty in your patron base. A look at a any successful movement will show that it is very rare for anyone to attract passionate followers by watering down the message. If an arts organization doesn’t have the courage of its own conviction and, yes, a bit of proper pride in what they are doing, don’t expect anyone else to have much feeling about it either. Going around hat in hand begging people to attend some weak, least common denominator program is both disgraceful and not going to work. Constrast, for example, the self-flagellation of classical music with the self-assurance of the indie rock scene, which is equally if not more so pretentious and exclusionary. Only the traditional fine arts, it seems, are expected to apologize for being what they are. I think it is high time these groups stood up and said No to the nay-sayers and reclaimed the artistic and moral high ground with a robust, confident defense of their ideals.

Saturday, April 14th, 2007

Review: The Kansas City Urban Society 2020 Plan

[Note: this organization appears to no longer exist. Its web site and plan are no longer available.]

Some time back I promised to take more in-depth look at 2020 blueprint plan put forward by a group called the Urban Society of Kansas City. Their purpose is to advocate for an urban future for Kansas City. I thought this sounded interesting so decided to dive in.

As it turned out, it shouldn’t have taken me so long to get around to this. The report itself is not that long and did not take long to digest. It highlights four objectives they want Kansas City to achieve by 2020:

• Add 100,000 new housing units. This is patently unrealistic. Their entire metro area probably doesn’t have more than 10-15,000 housing starts per year, and we are only 13 years from 2020 believe it or not!
• Around the clock transit within a 5 minute walk of everywhere. That’s an extreme density of transit, and no system in the world I’m aware of provides that level of coverage during owl service periods.
• Add 1,000 new storefront businesses.
• Fill 95% of the city’s vacant land, including surface lots.

Barring a miracle, this plan is unachievable by 2020. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. By setting an aspirational vision of what the city should be like, they are providing a pole star to guide future development.

What I would take issue with is the goals themselves. More housing, jobs, and transit are all good things. But if you think about what achieving these goals would actually mean, you can see that what we are talking about is transforming Kansas City into something along the lines of San Francisco or an old European city. That gives me pause. Kansas City isn’t San Francisco. And it isn’t clear to me why it would want to try to be. Now I love San Francisco. It’s probably my favorite city in the US. But to try to imitate San Francisco (or Boston or whatever the model of urbanity is this group is pursuing) is really a form of insecurity.

The cities I cover in this blog here are growing up, and like anyone coming of age, they look at their more established peers and feel a bit jealous. But there is no need to imitate the older kids, so to speak. Boston and SF aren’t the only templates for urban success. Smaller Midwest metros that have an entirely different history and development pattern are never going to be able to effectively replicate that old 19th century paradigm of urbanity. So why try? It isn’t necessary. Kansas City and other places can find their own definition of success, based on what they are, not on what they aren’t. Be the best Kansas City you can be, not the best imitator of Boston. I’m a big lover of cities. But a city doesn’t have to be Boston to be a city, even a great one.

What I do agree total with is the Urban Society’s revulsion towards encroaching suburban style development in the central city. Just as given the choice between the real Boston and a place that isn’t Boston trying to act like it, people will choose a real suburb over a city trying to act like one in a heartbeat. A San Francisco style urban development approach might even be the best way to do that in some areas, such as downtown and established urban districts. But it probably can’t and shouldn’t be replicated citywide. A “third way” needs to be found.

Beyond the goals, the report lays out a four step plan to achieve the vision. These are:

1. Adopt urban design principles, which they call the “Orange Card” (more on that later)
2. Six near term programs to improve the city: maximize on street parking, eliminate one way streets, ban strip malls, align tax abatements with economic objectives, rebuild intersections from suburban to urban style, demand better corporate citizenship and leadership.
3. Strengthen and connect neighborhoods and districts based on a neighborhood hierarchy of city center, town center, and neighborhood.
4. A list of “the hard stuff”: reconnecting schools to neighborhoods, broken-windows policing and community courts, improved access to services, removing freeways, mitigating sprawl, and encouraging risk taking to broaden revitalization.

Now there’s a lot to like in these. For example, the six quick hit items are difficult to quibble with, excepting perhaps their intersection recommendations. In particular, handing out TIF money and tax abatements like candy-canes to the connected who are as interested in lining their own pockets as building the city’s future is the bane of Kansas City and all too many other places.

Only item #3 seems a bit weak. Planners love functional hierarchies, but it is tough for me to get excited about them. “Strengthen and connect neighborhoods” is also the type of feel good statement that is operationally content free.

On item #4, yup, these are hard. Kansas City was the site of a disastrous federal intervention in local schools that should illustrate just how hard much of this is.

The “Orange Card” list of recommendations for urban design, however, are the highlight. I assume this group came up with the concept. It is a list of very simple design principles that should be applied to public and private development in order to achieve urban design.

The list for public entities is:

1. Permit curb cuts on no more than 10% of the sidewalk
2. Keep corners clear of obstructions for pedestrians
3. Maintain or reduce street width at intersections, do not widen. (That is, don’t add lots of special turn lanes and such to widen out a road at an intersection).
4. Maximize on street parking
5. Eliminate one way streets
6. Maintain tight corner radii
7. Require street trees
8. Allow traffic lanes no more than 10 feet wide
9. Maintain consistent appearance of streetscape elements.

This is a pretty good list. I’d probably quibble with a few points. For example, it isn’t necessary to eliminate one-way streets. Many of the truly urban places are replete with one way streets because of narrow street widths, for example.

The major point that should be thought about further here is the requirement for 10-foot travel lanes. This works for cars, but not heavy trucks. One thing you find missing from the Urban Society’s report in general is a discussion of the role of industry in the city. Cities were traditionally as much about being factories to the world as they were about storefront business districts. The Urban Society seems to have a post-industrial future in mind for Kansas City. I suppose that’s something one can aspire to, but it’s also something that should be explicitly laid out on the table with the pros and cons clearly understood. For example, what are the implications for lower income people? Are they simply to become a coolie-class, working in service jobs to cater to the needs of the elite knowledge workers and creative class? Now let me say that the Urban Society doesn’t say this is what they want. But when there is no mention of industrial districts in their plan, only major office, retail, and residential districts, you have to wonder if they’ve thought this all through. Again, the model seems to be San Francisco.

The list for private entities is:

1. Build out to the sidewalk
2. Make the building front permeable (no blank walls)
3. Minimize curb cuts
4. Use clear glass at sidewalk level
5. Establish primary entrances at sidewalks, not parking lots
6. Use durable building materials
7. Encourage shared off street parking.

Again, this is a hard list to argue with if traditional urban style development is what you want. I think the Urban Society did a great job in general of distilling the essence of urban development down to a few simple rules. Now I’ve seen similar lists elsewhere, so perhaps they can’t take all the credit, but I like the compelling “Orange Card” presentation.

One thought provoking item is the notion of durable materials. In a world of such rapid change, does trying to create buildings for the ages really make sense any more? This isn’t so much a comment on the Urban Society report as just a general notion. We’ve all seen how older buildings can be both a blessing and a curse. When a poor structure is erected, it can be difficult and expensive to replace or redevelopment. And even the newest “Class A” space is soon obsolete because of new generation amenities. Just look at the rate of innovation in warehousing, for example. Perhaps a better approach is to find out how to build with a defined lifespan and in a way that maximizes redevelopment opportunities later. This is a notion I’ve been kicking around for many years.

So overall, what is good about the plan?

• It sets explicit, aspirational goals. You can disagree with them, but the Urban Society has laid their cards on the table. No hidden agendas here.
• The Orange Card is a pretty good, simple distillation of urban design principles.
• There are plenty of example photos to illustrate exactly what they are talking about, which is nice.

What is weak? Fundamentally, I think it is that the Urban Society put forth the standard version of the conventional wisdom on urbanity and did not think through the broader implications, or put forth anything new or thought provoking. I mentioned the lack of consideration of industrial uses previously. There’s also the fact that in Kansas City, as in most metro areas, the bulk of the people now live in the suburbs, most new development is there, and what’s more, they like it there. They talk about mitigating sprawl and acknowledge it is hard, but don’t talk much about how this urban city is embedded into its overall region. For example, the bulk of the jobs are in the suburbs now too. How does a transit system built around city center nodes help with reverse commuters with highly diffuse origins and destinations?

Also, it is difficult to see the linkages between the actions they recommend taking, which seem to be primarily about achieving urban form, and the goals of increasing housing and businesses. There almost seems to be a view that if the infrastructure and form are in correct urban form, the rest will just take care of itself. I’m not so sanguine on that point. It would be useful to know, for example, why these recommendations are going to generate 100,000 new housing units.

Thursday, February 8th, 2007

Think Tank Ranks Bioscience Jobs Concentration

Battelle, a Columbus, Ohio based think tank, recently released a study measuring bioscience employment in metro areas across the country. This study tracked four key sectors: Drugs and Pharma, Agricultural Feedstocks and Chemicals, Medical Devices and Equipment, and Research, Testing and Medical Labs. Notably excluded from the survey are hospital and academic research institutions. However, given that most large cities have these, it may not be as distinguishing a factor as elsewere.

Among cities I typically cover in this blog, here is how some of them scored:

Only 25 metro areas had employment levels above 10,000. I normally focus on the 1-2 million population metro areas here, but I threw some larger cities on the chart for comparison. Among cities I normally talk about in this blog, Cincinnati, Columbus, Louisville, Nashville, and Charlotte did not make the list.

A few observations about some of the cities on the list.

Minneapolis was dominant in Medical Equipment and Devices. I believe Medtronic and others are based there or do much of their research and manufacturing there. It is number two in the country behind Los Angeles in total employment in this sector, which accounts for about 75% of all local bioscience jobs.

While everyone knows Indianapolis is home to pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, I doubt many people would have expected it to score #9 on this list. While pharmaceuticals does account for over half of local employment, this sector is not as dominant as medical devices is in Minneapolis. In fact, Indianapolis, with employers like Roche Diagnostics and Dow Agrosciences, is one of the few metros with respectable employment in all four sectors measured by the study. Indiana as a whole also did surprisingly well, as there are numerous outstate companies like Cook Group and Biomet in addition to the Indianapolis employment hub.

Kansas City also has a very respectable employment base for its metro area size. Of particular note is its large Research, Medical, and Testing Laboratory component, which is over 50% of the local bioscience employment base.

The full report is available online for review for those who are interested in more information.

Friday, January 12th, 2007

Kansas City’s Edifice Complex

One of the trends firmly entrenched in the urban development and arts world today is to spend a staggeringly large sum of money to hire a star architect to design a new building for local institutions. Cities and donors have long had an “edifice complex” so I suppose this isn’t surprising per se, but the scale of some of these investments is interesting. It also highlights how architecture as a discipline seems to be a thriving. Indeed, most of these projects are primarily about the architecture and building more so than the contents. Perhaps nothing shows better the success of architecture as a field today as the willingness of communities to invest huge amounts into it – often in stark contrast to the actual on the field product that the buildings are ostensibly designed to host.

This well-illustrated by the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City. This multi-purpose facility will cost $365 million and will house the Kansas City Symphony, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and the Kansas City Ballet. Of course it has a “statement” design as a deliberate attempt to put the building – and Kansas City – on the map.

But when you contrast the cost of the facility with the annual budget of the institutions that will be housed there, some troubling questions arise. The Kansas City Symphony has a budget of around $9.1 million. This puts it well below the top tier of US orchestras. Peer cities such as Indianapolis and Cincinnati spend about three times this amount. Other peer cities come in at double this amount. The Kansas City Ballet budget is around $4.5 million and the opera’s budget is $3.3 million.

Add these together and you get $16.9 million per year as the three major tenants combined operating budgets. Compare that to the $365 million cost of the building, and you begin to wonder. The principal amount of the building cost would pay for the entire operating budget of its three tenants for 21 years. More to the point, a $365 million endowment that earned 5% per year in income would generate over $18 million annually – enough to fund the three organizations in perpetuity, with change left over for other things.

It’s clear that the people of Kansas City value having a nice building over having world class performing arts. Of course buildings are always going to be popular civic investments. But the sheer scale of this price tag versus the relatively small budgets of the organizations contained therein raises serious questions about the priorities of the people in Kansas City (and by extension, the residents of other cities with similar projects underway) – and illustrates just how far below architecture classical music and ballet really stand.

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