TIF and Planning Commission Meetings This Week--Please Read

"The Three Trails redevelopment can turn area around"
By John Sharp

http://www.kansascity.com/273/story/394635.html

 

Covered.

 

Living in Gardner, I can tell you that the best location in Olathe to build (if it goes that direction) would be the K-10 corridor. There just isn't much room in Olathe until you go further south towards Gardner, and I know it's quite a drive for everybody. To be honest, I just don't see where they would have enough room around the Great Mall unless they went further south. When Olathe was still in the picture (before the OP project came up), I was actually hoping for K-10 just west of I-435....lots of open land out there and excellent highway access for everybody. If Bannister doesn't happen, that's where I would hope they are looking in the Olathe area.

 

Great to see one of the council members step up and write this piece, instead of just being quoted in articles.

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=38.86063,-94.822226&spn=0.022423,0.031328&t=h&z=15&om=1

IIRC they were looking at a 25 acres lot north of the mall. see above.

I believe that is still unoccupied FWIW.

 

thanx muchly.

 

Hmm, I don't know this for a fact exactly, but I'm going to take a WAG that speculators own most of that land. Probably not the place to go if you're looking to keep costs down but I agree the location is very good.

 

Unless maybe you can convince a speculator which owns a large amount of it to sell you half... cause the stadium would probably spur growth in the area. Then you might be able to get a reasonable deal for a good location.

 

Except it's probably not the sort of growth the developers have in mind. Homes in that area will probably start around 500K once this housing crisis gets straightened out. Those buyers would probably not consider a handy soccer stadium as one of the amenities they're looking for. TPC course, yes; soccer stadium, probably not.

 

Just goes to show how out of touch with the home buyers these days. Good thing I'm in engineering and not real estate.

 

all we have to do is get all the hardcore fans to buy the houses around the stadium, then it wouldn't matter, and we could all just stumble home after the game.

 

http://cityclerk.kcmo.org/liveweb/M...4JcfD2Ba1fvRsisjvV4QZ4fEWLj6GzCIKR7pm+sp30pTl

Per the above, we are again on the docket for next Wednesday @ 8:15 AM.

Hope things go better this time, as we move towards the inevitable Mayoral Veto.

 

I used to work in the building just west of the mall. There's really not enough room there unless they took out the mall. Railroad tracks run between the mall and US 56, so that severely limits the space available.

 

Got the same response word for word.

Well, from Robb's "Thank You" thread, it seems they are still expecting a vote at this Thursday's City Council meeting if they get past Wednesday's Finance committee meeting. I will be there.

From David Ficklin's post earlier -

3 pm, Thursday, Dec 13 at City Hall, 414 East 12th Street, 26th Floor

On the kcmo.org website, Wayne Cauthen's newsletter had a link to a 30 page PDF describing the architectural design guidlines for the project. There are some interesting diagrams, but who knows how close they are to what we will see in reality.

http://www.kcmo.org/planning/threetrails.pdf

 

http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/8812

It looks like Funk is picking a bad time make enemies on the city council....I saw a report on channel 9 that this news about the city manager took the council completely by surprise and did not make them happy. Maybe this will help boost the council to possibly override the mayor's probable veto this week.....hmmm. Hopefully this situation works in our favor.

 

http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/398029.html

Write up on the confusion over economic estimates.

Pretty good point on the costs of failing to intervene.

 

Good find, I myself was wondering about how the differences came about. The one the city is using could be considered a 'worst case' estimate, in which the proprosed development does virtually _nothing_ to improve anything. In certain cases, this would be a good number to have, but should not be considered a reasonable economic estimate. Since we don't know how the EDC's estimates come about, I'll have to assume some amount of optimism is incorporated into it (i.e. assuming the project will succeed at some level and not fail horribly) and some of the more cynical would assume that there might be more optimism than not (i.e. assuming the project will be a wild success on all fronts and everything goes according to plan).

Which simply means that the city's numbers could be taken as a 'potential cost' for the opportunity for the redevelopment to take place - basically, consider the area after the proposed plan against what it's like currently and decide if that is worth the 'cost' the city is putting at risk. It's just like any investment - you can't be assured that you're going to get anything out of it, but the chances of you losing everything is very slim. The EDC's estimate could be considered an target (and again, depending on how aggressive the EDC is with their estimates, possibly an 'upper target' or 'upper limit') for what the city could get out of the redevelopment.

Fortunately it seems that the council understood this to an extent for this Hawthorn Plaza deal, and probably already understands it in relation to the Three Trails business.

 

They were still re-negotiating Cauthen's contract as recently as the day I attended the first City Hall meeting. He JUST signed it.

Funkhouser shouldn't have let the City Council get that far just to oppose him afterwards. They'd already spent countless hours and over 30k in negotiation fees. Now they'll also have to give him a sizable severance package. Just stupid.

 

Actually, this is worse than a worst case scenario, since it does not take into account the fact that derelict properties not only don't make money, but also cost the city money in terms of services... even the "worst case" scenario should subtract the ongoing cost of fire and police operations in the derelict area (which are high) and routine maintenance of water, sewer and roads in an area that is not bringing in any tax revenue from the total...

 

This is why you cannot have public decisions made by formula--it's nothing but a cop-out and a substitute for actual leadership. It's completely absurd not to consider the bad that will be eradicated along with the good that will be created.

 

http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/399928.html

The Funk appears to have made an incredible number of enemies in a matter of days. Looks like he believes the mayors role is one of wrecking ball. Talk about being drunk with power.

The details are leaking like a sieve now. Everyone appears to be leaking.

Wonder what the impeachment process is.

I really really fear for our project now.. Why did all have to blow up just now. Which Karmic Soccer god did we fail to sacrifice for?

 

On the other hand, it could work for us in the long run. If Funk is refusing to work with the City Council on anything, it might just piss-off the City Council enough to easily override his veto (assuming that does come to fruition). Not a great place to be, project-wise, bit we'll just have to take a wait-and-see approach.

 

This is kinda the feeling I had as well. Maybe this will work in our favor. Everything I have read lately says the council is all for the project...the biggest problem is the mayor's lack of support on super-TIF, even though the TIF commission passed it unanimously. If he decides not to be at the meetings this week or is still having communication problems with the council on this or other issues that have blown up lately, maybe they will override him now if he vetos it. He does seem to think radio shows are more important than council meetings as of late. I don't live in KCMO, but if I did, I wouldn't be real happy with the actions of my mayor lately.

 

http://www.kccommunitynews.com/articles/2007/12/12/wednesday_sun/news/doc475db247c3453599761863.txt

Looks like they have a 12 out of 12 majority.

Problem is the mayors veto may delay every thing into next year. Would Lane 4 & On Goal want to keep waiting, we shall see.

 

article from the sun on the situation.

http://www.kccommunitynews.com/articles/2007/12/12/wednesday_sun/news/doc475db247c3453599761863.txt