The Next American Dream : Kansas City : A Documentary Film

May 14, 2007 | Kansas City Star

Downtown’s street-level remake begins
Sidewalks on 12th Street are getting a new look, and project will extend to other streets soon.
By Kevin Collison

After three years of research, a new downtown streetscaping plan has started along 12th Street, where blank sidewalks are being beautified with shady maple trees and stylish streetlights.

The first phase of what is expected to be the design prototype is being built on 12th between Wyandotte and Locust streets. The $3 million job is expected to be completed by October to coincide with the opening of the Sprint Center and Power & Light District.

“We want to establish the importance of creating a pedestrian-friendly environment within the downtown core,” Tim Duggan, a landscape architect with BNIM Architecture, said Monday.

Workers from Musselman & Hall Contractors of Kansas City are tearing up the sidewalk on the north side of 12th between Main and Baltimore. It’s a step toward implementing a process that began in early 2004 when the city hired Skidmore Owings & Merrill, a Chicago design firm, to come up with a plan for downtown streetscaping.

For decades, developers and city workers had installed a haphazard array of streetlights, benches and greenery downtown. Skidmore was commissioned to recommend a uniform approach that would bring harmony to the street environment and further the city’s goal of making it more hospitable to pedestrians.

The concept was completed in July 2005, and since then BNIM has been refining it to become a workable document. Some of the unique “neo art deco” streetlights and other fixtures already have gone up, however, around the new headquarters of H&R Block, the Sprint Center and entertainment district.

“We’re excited to see it moving forward,” said Bill Dietrich, president and CEO of the Downtown Council, a group of downtown businesses and property owners. “This is our prototype for what many parts of downtown will look like.”

And in another important step, the Downtown Community Improvement District run by the Downtown Council has reached an agreement to maintain all the new greenery with the city’s Parks & Recreation Department.

The plan calls for streetlights, benches, trash receptacles and elevated planters to be built beginning on the north side of 12th Street and then the south side beginning about August. Additional utility work is expected to be completed simultaneously to minimize disruptions in a downtown already weary of several years of construction.

“We need to keep the streets open,” Dietrich said. “It’s smart to do it a block face at a time.”

Duggan said the construction cost for the 12th Street project, about $428,600 per block, is expected to be the benchmark for future projects. In addition to the first phase, the Downtown Council would like to see the new streetscaping installed on Broadway, from Sixth to 12th streets; on 10th Street, from Wyandotte to Broadway; and on Main Street, from Sixth to 13th streets.