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Comment about Gateway East (nothing official just observation and hear-say)
Underground drainage was dug up and rats went everywhere into Mission homes and businesses. Construction has stopped - no construction equipment on site at all and nothing done above ground - heard contractor has walked away? site has sat so long grass / weeds are growing on bare dirt construction area. Heard that this project has been VERY COSTLY for city of Mission. "almost bankrupting city" This is just hear-say from business in Mission. |
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The good news, Nelessen said, is that the many surface parking lots have the potential to be something more. The vision plan that emerged would focus more on residential structures for West Gateway, and the "East Gateway" -- the area that includes Mission Center mall -- would focus more on retail and office use. The buildings in West Gateway would range in size, with two-story buildings on the outer edge increasing in size to six- to eight-story buildings along the core fronting Metcalf Avenue. Retail would be small, so as not to compete with larger stores in East Gateway. Parking would be hidden, either underground or embedded in buildings. The plan calls for two signature parks to be added to the area. In addition, an interconnected rapid-transit plan would be necessary, Nelessen said, with lines connecting East Gateway and West Gateway, as well as other planned routes in the area. To be sure, there are challenges, said Martin Rivarola, community development director of Mission. Residents who attended the public forums were concerned with the effects on infrastructure, rents and traffic. They wondered how it would be implemented. Officials have not yet estimated the possible cost. The plan calls for private investment, and several developers attended the unveiling on Dec. 2, Rivarola said, including representatives of Zimmer Real Estate Services Inc., Hunt Midwest Enterprises, Gale Communities, RED Development LLC and Dial Realty Corp. of the Kansas City area and the Cameron Group LLC of East Syracuse, N.Y. Officials are weighing their options. A 90-day moratorium during which the city cannot accept any land-use applications for the area is in effect until Feb. 16. The plan still has to be approved by the planning commission before going to the City Council for a vote, probably in the first quarter of next year, Mission Mayor Laura McConwell said. If adopted, the plan would be implemented in phases. "The biggest obstacle is building consensus," said Scott A. Michie, vice president of community planning for Bucher Willis & Ratliff. "We've achieved that." T.M. Lapp | Lapp is a freelance writer in the Kansas City area. |
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Urban design consultant Tony Nelessen of Princeton, N.J., clearly remembers his first trip to Mission: It was August, and after he met during lunch with city officials to discuss plans for the district known as West Gateway, he asked for a couple of hours to roam the area on foot to get a feel for the area. "My first impression was that it was terribly pedestrian-unfriendly," he said. "It was hard to walk around. There were these great big parking lots, and cars were whizzing by, the drivers looking at me like I was crazy to be walking there." Furthermore, "it felt like 105 degrees," Nelessen said, with not so much as a tree to offer cover from the unforgiving sun. Nelessen, president of Nelessen Associates urban design firm and a professor at Rutgers University, returned Dec. 2 to help unveil Mission's "vision plan" for West Gateway, roughly bounded by Metcalf Avenue to the west, Shawnee Mission Parkway to the south, Lamar Avenue to the east and residential neighborhoods to the north. Nelessen's consulting firm worked with Bucher Willis & Ratliff Corp. of Kansas City, having three community meetings before drafting the final vision plan. The feedback that poured in at these public meetings supported redevelopment, with 83 percent of participants asserting that the city should encourage development that includes retail, mixed-use buildings and residential structures along with landscaping. Officials shared the results of their work in a presentation replete with many of the photographs that Nelessen took as part of his initial reconnaissance. "This is what you have," he said, showing a photo of a vast, sloping parking lot. "This is what people want," he said, replacing it with a photo showing a scene with tree-lined streets, green space, wide sidewalks, and -- what is currently missing from Mission -- pedestrians. He also showed photos of former houses off of Johnson Drive that have been converted to businesses, their former front yards now concrete parking lots. "Most people agreed that land in the West Gateway study is so valuable that parking lots, single-story buildings and underutilized parcels of land should be redeveloped at higher intensity," he said. |
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