First Fridays in the Crossroads Arts District should amazing considering the beautiful weather and thousands of people already Downtown for the Irish Festival at Crown Center.

Irish Festival at Crown Center – Friday-Sunday with lots of live music, food, beer, shopping, art, etc.

Santa-Cali-Gon Days on the Independence Square – Friday-Sunday with lots of pioneer-themed live music, food, drink, shopping, etc.

The Renaissance Festival in Bonner Springs has lots of medieval-themed music, food, drink, shopping, etc.

The Royals host Detroit Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Take Transit to KC’s Fall Festivals
The KCATA has a nice guide to taking transit to fall festivals.  Use it to avoid parking and traffic hassles.  It covers everything but the RenFest and the Royals, both of which are in locations without transit service.

The upshot is that the building in an existing TIF district (Baltimore Place) and Rick Powell is at least two years behind his promised timeline for redeveloping it.  These two things mean that the City already has the authority to seize the building and give it to another developer like Adam Jones.  It’s just a matter of the City Council having the political will to do it.

Seizing the building would not only save an historic structure, it would send a message that developers who get big tax breaks are expected to be good stewards of the public money.

This is KC’s third showing on a Guy Fieri show this summer.  Earlier shows feature KC BBQ and Swagger in Waldo.

Photograph by Chris Murphy

The Star reports that Rick Powell is set to demolish the historic Cosby Hotel building within a week, despite a City offer to stabilize the structure and attempts to buy it by the Historic Kansas City Foundation and local preservationist/developer Adam Jones.

Powell’s actions continue to confirm widespread rumors that Powell has always intended to tear down the building at 9th and Baltimore in order to pave a surface parking lot for his adjacent condos in the Union Carbide and Kansas City Club Buildings.  It looks we’ll see if the Historic Kansas City Foundation can still save a structure in the post-Jane Flynn era.

What do you think?  Leave a comment with your two cents.

BlogKC’s previous coverage of the Cosby Hotel.

National Universities
92. University of Missouri-Columbia
148. University of Kansas
188. Kansas State University
205. University of Missouri-Kansas City
213. University of Missouri-Science and Technology, Rolla
239. University of Missouri-St. Louis
256. Wichita State University

Masters Universities
6. Truman State University

Liberal Arts Colleges
89. William Jewel College

Baccalaureate College
20. College of the Ozarks, MO
22. Culver-Stockon College, MO

Community Colleges
2. Heston, KS College
33.  Seward County, KS Community College
50. Barton County, KS Community College

Drop-Out Factories (Worst drop-out rates)
9. Haskell Indian Nations University, Lawrence, KS

The building on the left is Valencia Place at 47th and Pennsylvania. It’s better known as the home of the Lockton insurance company and retail tenants like The Gap, McCormick and Schmick’s and Scooter’s Coffee.   The building on the right is the proposed Polsinelli Shughart law offices a block east at 47th and Broadway.

Valencia Place opened in 2000 as the last big project before the J.C. Nichols Co. sold out to Highwoods.   It’s a pretty decent example of how to fit a new office building into the Plaza’s retail core. The site features two stories of retail along 47th Street with the high rise at the rear closer to 48th. This preserve’s the Plaza Urban Design Plan (PDF) its idea of the “Plaza Bowl” – a ring of high rises surrounding the preserved low-rise core of the Plaza retail district.

The exterior uses a mixture of brick, tile, plaster, and glass to provide a contemporary twist on the Plaza’s Spanish/Moorish architecture.  The development even added a couple of unique touches with the blue tile steps and the new tower. Valencia Place shows that a little bit of creativity and some attention detail can provide modern office space without killing the goose that laid Kansas City’s golden egg.

Hopefully between now and the October 5th Planning & Zoning hearing Highwoods and their architects will get busy with the real design and retract the suburban office park template they through out in a press release.  They could even hire local firm 360 Architects, who designed Valencia Place.

All eight venues are adjacent to the MAX route, so forget the pricey/douchey KC Strip brolley and get a $3.00 day pass on the Metro for a beer nerd pilgrimage.