Here is a headline and sub-headline:
More beauty, less ‘junk’ retail: Country Club Plaza’s new owner reveals future look
“I want people in the neighborhoods to walk across the bridge and feel like you’ve entered Oz. . . .The streets are beautiful,” said Ray Washburne, a new principal owner of the Country Club Plaza.
https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/a ... 98720.html
Here are some essential parts of the story:
And here is one of those renderings:“We are going to reconfigure all this area,” Washburne said. “We’re calling it the Paseo District, with wider sidewalks, outdoor dining. We’re going to take a lot of nothing and turn it into a lot of something.”
Grand roundabout fountains at intersections. Retail shops removed to make room for outdoor walkways. Asphalt streets out, brick streets in. Facades, roofs, entire buildings transformed to more thoroughly evoke the district’s Spanish flair.
[...]
Since the purchase, Washburne has already outlined, in broad terms, numerous plans he has for the district: added security, a boutique hotel, a new office tower in the empty 3 acres where a Nordstrom store had been planned, more unique local restaurants and local retail over national chains.
But in a discussion with The Star last week, those plans took on sharper focus. Maps and renderings were later shared which, when viewed together, reveal a Plaza whose future streetscape is likely to look remarkably different than the one that this weekend was set to draw tens of thousands of visitors to the annual Plaza Art Fair.
I would suggest that there is a disqualifying disconnect with reality here - that this can't even be described as what a best-case scenario looks like. If you're going to keep the Plaza fully open to vehicle traffic, then in a best-case scenario (meaning: the Plaza is doing well) there will be 3x more vehicle traffic.
Why do "aspirational" renderings like this matter? They anchor the public's expectations. Doing so unrealistically means you're setting yourself up to fail.
I, personally, think the bolder (and long-term better) play would be to close the center of the Plaza to personal vehicles, and instead have nodes on the borders/corners for parking and even dropoff, and then a network of small (electric, autonomous?) low-speed vehicles to provide a connectivity option within the core.
But if we're not going to close the Plaza off to personal vehicle traffic, then we need to be realistic about what the Plaza can and should look and function like.
tl;dr - just like with Royals (and the airport before), KC's got to get over the belief that it is not just reasonable, but justifiable and desirable, for people to be able to drive their own cars to precisely where they want to go, in all cases.
