ideas, ramblings, and coverage of kc urban development

Think about the last time you were in any urban environment. What did you see? Chances are, aside from the traffic, residential buildings, micro breweries, empty lots and abandoned buildings hanging around, you also saw some kind of planned artwork sprawled across the entire side of a building (extra credit if it was a brick building). In the broadest way, it probably qualified as urban artwork. These large scale pie

The recent demolition of the Orion Pictures Building in Kansas City’s Crossroads Arts District left us scratching our heads. How could the legitimate objections raised by the historic preservation community lead to … nothing? We set out to investigate the process by which historic landmarks are protected, and (with the help of the National Trust for Historic Preservation) we’ve boiled it down to a handy “15 Things To

Last month began the demolition (now over) of the Orion Pictures building at 118 W. 17th St. The Orion was part of what is known as Kansas City’s “Film Row District,” which consisted of 18 buildings that were used by Hollywood studios to store films for distribution in our area. Opponents of the demolition pointed out the character of the building, the piece of Kansas City history it told, and the fact that it

We’ve been focusing on the Troost corridor for quite a while now, and one of the biggest stopping points for us in exploring the area and imagining “what could be” has always come back to a critical set of questions: Who would actually invest in development in the area? Can one project act as the catalyst for change? Does the size and scale of the project dictate the success of the catalyst (does it