These large scale pieces have a huge presence in cities and can do a lot for the overall feel of an area, be that good or bad. For us, they often feel as though they’ve been commissioned to “brand” a neighborhood making the whole thing feel more like propaganda than an organic human intervention.

Urban artwork is wonderful, but when a majority of it is “branded” to project a feeling or identity for an area, and not organic, I can’t help but feel a bit of dismay. Everything starts to feel a little like Disneyland, if you know what I mean.

There’s certainly a difference between say, a Banksy piece, and the mural at the corner of Troost and 39th. Even if Banksy is creating his own propaganda, there’s something more personal about it. The Troost mural, on the other hand, feels more like a group of people got together and commissioned it in order to not only project an identity for the entire area, but to hit you over the head with a history lesson.

And while we’re not ready to say that planned artwork in cities is a bad thing, we are prepared to say it shouldn’t be the *only* answer.

Admittedly, I’m a bit stuck about where we go from here. Is planned urban artwork always a good thing? Is it mostly a good thing? And if the answer is no, what exactly is an organic intervention? Things can’t really be too organic, without dancing into vandalism (which I’d assume most law enforcement would consider Banksy). And yet, still we (GUD) love it (but not all of it). What usually draws us to interventions that feel more organic is the ability for whoever, to engage that intervention with dialogue of their own (for instance, the chalk wall of “before I die” above which allows for some rather imperfect dialogue). Even with Banksy, there’s often the unspoken ability to speak back to the pieces, either literally (by tagging it with your own “intervention”) or silently.

Help me out here – what do you think? Over the next week or so, we’d love to see some of your favorite (or most hated) examples of planner urban artwork, and organic interventions. If you’re so inclined, reply with a comment and a link to a photo, or drop us an image twitter @gudkc or on Facebook at facebook.com/gudkc

Finally, what does this all mean for urban revitalization along the Troost Corridor? Assuming these interventions aren’t all graffiti (but what if they were?), could it begin to add yet another layer of depth and life to the street?

The post Planned urban artwork vs organic interventions appeared first on gudthoughts.com.

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 Know.”

AND, here they are:

1. Local government is the level at which historic places are protected most effectively.

2. A listing in the National Register of Historic Places does not grant protection against demolition — in fact, it can be useless if not backed by a local preservation ordinance.

3. Preservation ordinances are local laws that prohibit owners from destroying historic properties without local government approval.

4. Ordinances can protect individual landmarks, historic districts, or both.

5. Ordinances regulate changes to existing structures and new construction.

6. Ordinances must comply with federal and state laws.

7. Poorly crafted ordinances may lack “teeth” (compliance and enforcement mechanisms) and/or be successfully challenged in court.

8. Effective ordinances spell out criteria through which a property may be designated as “historic.” Some cities require an owner’s consent before a property may be officially “landmarked,” which is not advisable for obvious reasons. Owners should, however, be given notice and opportunity to be heard (in other words, historic designation should follow “due process” requirements).

9. Ordinances should include a process for evaluating economic hardship claims by owners, and they should provide interim protection to properties nominated for historic status (so they’re not demolished before a decision is made).

10. Ordinances may (and should) include clauses requiring proper maintenance of historic properties. These clauses prevent landowners from deliberately neglecting a historic structure with the purpose of obtaining a demolition permit based on the fact that the building has become hazardous.

11. Ordinances spell out the types of modifications or construction that are subject to review within historic districts. Often minor repairs and maintenance are exempt from review.

12. Ordinances must be enforced (through fines, requirements to restore, denial of permissions to build on sites of illegal demolitions, etc.)

13. Often an entity within local government is charged with administering the ordinance (this is often a preservation or design review commission).

14. Some commissions have very little power (only advisory, essentially), while others have the final word on whether and how a historic property may be altered. The more authority vested in the commission, the stronger protection for historic places.

15. Preservation ordinances usually stay out of land use questions, but some, more innovative ones (like Seattle’s Pike Place Market Historical District ordinance) include clauses that give preference to local businesses, which in turn protects the character of historic districts.

In other words, because the Pike Place Market ordinance protects local businesses like this one …

(Photo courtesy of veroyama)

… the market retains the character it had in the days of this other fish vendor:

(Photo courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives)

Kansas City has a preservation ordinance, and it has a Historic Preservation Commission.

So what role did these play in the demolition of the Orion Pictures Building?

That answer next.

The post Historic Preservation: 15 Things to Know appeared first on gudthoughts.com.

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 would be replaced by a parking garage, of all things. The owner of the building, Shirley Helzberg, argued that buildings in the area (other historic buildings she owns and has restored recently) need the parking, and that the street level of the new garage would be dedicated to retail.

The opposition was not quiet, but in the end Ms. Helzberg prevailed. As Kevin Collison reported last month, an effort a few years ago to have the entire district listed on the National Register of Historic Places fell through, so the building did not have local landmark protection.

The issue came down to this: Ms. Helzberg did not seek public funding for her project, and she is the rightful owner of the building, therefore she can do whatever she wants with it. Fair enough, right? Except, to demolish a historic building in a city with so much vacant urban land seems a bit … absurd, doesn’t it? There is room for legitimate disagreement here, yet in this instance, the community was completely powerless to protect what it regarded as a valuable asset, an important part of its character and story.

Are there no checks and balances? Does ownership trump all other interests?

As we consider the potential for redevelopment along the Troost Corridor, this question becomes important. Should a single property owner be able to decide what’s right for the neighborhood – from the kinds of uses that are introduced all the way to the physical form these interventions take? What processes regulate what owners can do with their properties? Whether it’s tearing down historic buildings (the way it obviously has happened along Troost) or building hostile structures (the way it, too, has been done along Troost), who calls the shots? What are the mechanisms by which communities can influence development?

We’ll explore these questions in upcoming posts.

The post Troost and the Case of Missing History appeared first on gudthoughts.com.

• 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 need to be something like the Sprint center or PAC or can a small grocery store work)?

• How do you draw in the existing community in an area so that they’re not only supportive of the project, but actively engaged?

The answers to these questions are still a bit elusive for us, but we may be getting to closer to a few answers. Just the other day, a friend mentioned a skyscraper in Bogota, Colombia, financed by crowd-funded methods. Curious. The first thing that jumps to my mind is the Troost Corridor.

Crowd-funding is something of a recent phenomenon, allowing people and companies to get help achieving small and large goals alike, by providing some kind of incentive or token of appreciation to those investing (and the scale of those rewards often vary depending on how much you invest). The skyscraper in Bogota takes all of this a step further by allowing investors to gain monetary returns on their investment over the lifetime of the building.

Take another step forward, and we start to see companies like Fundrise whose whole business model focuses on letting individuals buy shares (for $100 each) of real estate projects they’re interested in or passionate about.

Both the skyscraper and Fundrise have something in common – they begin to let individuals shape their city in very direct ways that go against the grain of traditional development models that hinge on a handful of investors with deep pockets. The really fascinating thing here is that a business model like this could be a gateway to redeveloping urban areas that typically seem too risky for our deep pocketed friends. If you manage to get a few thousand people to invest something like $100 each in a neighborhood grocery store, suddenly you’ve not only minimized the risk for any one individual, you’ve also got a body of people that are behind your project from the get-go (literally invested in it), which could ease some of the tensions associated with the “build it and they will come” idealism.

So, what could happen along the Troost Corridor if we employed that kind of methodology? There’s certainly some kind of interest along troost in terms of revitalization, but the whole stretch seems a little risky for anyone with the money to throw at it. Not only would a crowd funding approach minimize the risk for any one individual, it would also actively engage anyone invested or integrated in the community and make them a part of the process.

The question is – if a crowd funding method was viable along the Troost Corridor (a good question in its own right) what would you start with?

The post Crowd-Funding Our Way To A Better Troost Corridor appeared first on gudthoughts.com.

Seriously. That really happened, here in KC, to this guy (Shea Coffman):

We’re planning on catching up with him soon to hear more about his story – but in the mean time, the above video should give you a fairly good idea about the insanity that exists in people. Not only are we glad he’s alive (even though his bike wasn’t so lucky), we’re wondering if this says anything about the necessity to address both pedestrian, and cyclist safety here in KC (and maybe road rage?)…

What do you think? We hope he finds the guy (and we’re impressed that he doesn’t want to exact any kind of revenge).

The post Terrible Deeds: (Intentionally) Running Over Cyclists appeared first on gudthoughts.com.

And while the focus of the blog no longer revolves around those situations, I figured it would be fun to start a new series: enter, Tragic Tuesday. Each week I’ll share with you oddities present in KC and beyond.

That leads us to the first “Tragic Tuesday” which highlights a rather odd condition along Main street. Take the build below, for example (my apologies on the shaky, taken out the bus window photo):

Looks like a decent abandoned, waiting for some love, building right? It’s not until you notice it’s immediate surrounding that things take a turn for the bizarre.

That’s right. This building facade is snugged up right next to an OfficeMax. But wait, there’s more:

Further inspection reveals that in fact, the entire thing is an OfficeMax. So – a big box retailer, maybe in an attempt to garner a little favor with the locals, skinned an old building, and smashed their project around the entire thing.

This is certainly old news, but considering I hadn’t noticed it until recently (and apparently all the people I’ve pointed it out to thus far hadn’t either), I figured it was worth a share.

Gross much?

The post Tragic Tuesday: Main Street Renovation appeared first on gudthoughts.com.

Take a gander at the video below. I’m curious to hear what you think. After watching the presentation, I found myself feeling a bit let down at the “progress” being reported. What stuck out most to me is that UNI has been researching and crafting a list of action items for a little over a year, and yet there’s still no tangible goals that have been vocalized. To anyone – at least not publicly.

Sure, if you dig back to October on UNI’s website, they link you to a post that “unveils” their action agenda, and yet it too is lacking any kind of certainty. Don’t get me wrong – focusing on:

1. Prosperity

2. Health & Safety

3. Education

are all great things, especially for the Troost Corridor. They are, however, meaningless if UNI isn’t willing to attach firm measures and goals to those objectives (and if we the public can’t get a snapshot of what that looks like after over a year in development, I’m a little concerned about the future of these goals and the initiative). At the end of the day, I suppose I was hoping that if the Chamber and the companies involved are “putting all their might” behind these 5 goals, that we’d be seeing a bit… more.

Enough of my banter. Here’s the video. What do you think about it?

The post Progress Or Wishful Thinking? Troost Corridor + Urban Neighborhood Initiative appeared first on gudthoughts.com.