While Mayor Barnes' Downtown Plan hangs by a thread in Jeff City, The Country Club Plaza is riding high with Highwoods. Valencia Place grabbed Lockton from Van Tuyl after the neighbors pitched a battle; Jack Henry finally moved to 47th street so higher rent national retailers and restaurateurs could move in; Nieman Marcus and Nordstrom are undoubtedly still looking for their opportunity; the City Council has made it a TIF district and we voters approved an additional ½ cent sales tax so our Plaza shoppers can pay for their new parking garages. Is there no end to their success?

The Plaza is zoned C3a2, a category that would allow Highwoods to demolish and redevelop most of the low-scale 1920's, 1930's and 1940's buildings for more Valencia Place-scaled projects.

And now the Blackwell law firm spawns the latest score, using our TIF revenue to help them build their silk stocking office building on the site of the venerable old Park Lane. The Kansas City Star reports, "Two levels (of a seven level parking garage) will be visible on the east side, which faces Mill Creek Park", to which Highwoods' senior vice president says, "It won't look like a garage". But its 750 new cars will all arrive over our existing streets.

Hey, I'm a great fan of the Plaza. I grew up foraging through the wonderful maze of stores, offices and parking garages and I live within walking distance now. It enjoys an international reputation as "the place to be" in Kansas City, and we sure need sophisticated managers to make sure it maintains its place in the market. Highwoods is probably as good an owner as any. But what do we Kansas Citians want for our city?

Our FOCUS plan, the product of some 3,000 volunteers, unanimously adopted by our City Council, says our Central Business Corridor is the lifeline of our city and needs to be healthy… but Downtown is not. The Sasaki plan, sponsored by the Civic Council, says we should concentrate our efforts on reviving Downtown. Julia Irene Kauffman has agreed to put her investment in her Performing Arts Center Downtown, a major coup around which Mayor Barnes is building her SoLo Downtown revitalization plan. The Freighthouse District and the River Market are coming along with significant successes. But Downtown - the area within the freeway loop - still looks like a bomb went off.

In their 13 January 2002 article in the Kansas City Star, Curtis Johnson and Neal Peirce make some unequivocal statements, to which we and our City Council should pay close attention: "Full revival of downtown Kansas City and Kansas City, Kan., of troubled areas of Independence, may never be possible until approval of tax breaks is confined to truly blighted areas." They go on to recommend a regional policy for limiting tax breaks, an aspiration ardently to be sought, but first things first…get the City Council of Kansas City, Missouri on board with focusing tax breaks on blighted areas.

What do we Kansas Citians want? Were we serious about the kinds of objectives set out in the FOCUS plan? We voted to back the Power & Light District to the tune of nearly $200,000,000. We'll be asked to contribute a similar amount to the Performing Arts Center, and I expect the answer to be "yes". Bartle Hall expansion will be next; or will it be an arena; another run at public transit? Or do we just not "get it" yet…do we not recognize that in order to have the kind of Central Business Corridor we've envisioned - River-Crown-Plaza - we've got to concentrate our effort, our imagination and our TIF revenue on remedying the disinvestment pattern that has destroyed so much of our central city?

Talk about "touristy frou-frou"! The market that the Plaza serves can well afford the ½ cent sales tax they pay for their parking garages. There is no need for further subsidy there. We do need to connect them to Bartle Hall, not to help the Plaza, but so that our convention trade can begin to recover. When convention planners can sense the reality of River-Crown-Plaza with an attractive, high quality transit connection, Bartle will have ready access to thousands more hotel rooms and restaurants, and will begin to flourish. And with those conventioneers walking to the transit stops instead of filing onto charter busses, Downtown will have an enormous boost.

So let's not subsidize another parking garage, to be followed by more and more congestion. And let's not subsidize the demolition of another historic building, another tooth knocked out of the urban fabric that makes Kansas City unique and memorable. And let's not subsidize another development in the most affluent district in our city. They can afford it; Downtown cannot.

Under current conditions of disinvestment especially, Downtown offers an unparalleled development opportunity. If we can focus our attention on Downtown, if we can turn that corner, attract a Blackwell or an American Century or a Federal Reserve Bank; if we can build an arena or Bartle expansion; if we can connect the new Performing Arts Center with The Music Hall, The Folly, The Lyric, The Midland, into a Performing Arts District, we can make our visions of Downtown real. But we've got to focus our limited resources on this as our highest priority, not on Highwoods.

Kite Singleton
24 January 2002