Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Another Gem Renovated

There is finally a solid redevelopment plan for the Old Missouri Pacific Building downtown, and it involves new construction. The existing building will be renovated with retail space, 51,000 sq. ft. of office space and 108 condos. A new tower built with a modern design will rise 15 floors on Tucker and contain retail space and condos. A 750 car parking garage will be built in between with a pool and other resident facilities on the top level. Two adjacent parks will also be renovated to the west and south. The Lawrence Group is handling the work.

This is one of the landmark buildings downtown, and I'm glad it will be put to such a good mixed use. The new tower should make a drastic difference along the barren blocks of Tucker, and it will hide the boring back side of the Missouri Pacific Buildings. This will make a barren spot downtown lively once again. The parks certainly need some sprucing up, although I agree with others that the park to the west is a little bit too focused on the Park Pacific. I personally would like to see a high-rise along Tucker on part of the current park land, but I can only ask for so much at once.

Overall, I give the development a preliminary grade of A.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That looks pathetic your city is so lame

Anonymous said...

I walked over to look at the Park Pacific development area - specifically, at the two parcels of parkland on the so. and we. sides. The developer has promised to renovate these parks as part of the P.P. development.

The Hispanic festival was going on in the park space just to the so. of the proposed park to be developed, but in the park just east of the U.P. building were maybe 60 or 70 homeless people, sleeping in tents, passed-out, or wandering around mumbling or cursing.

I cannot believe that anyone would want to buy into a development where they had to run the gamut of panhandlers just to walk their dog, or dodge schizos just to enjoy the park. The homeless "own" these parks, and the city seems powerless to do anything about them.

I really hope this project is successful. But until they can get Mr. Rice (and others) to stop dumping these people on the street every day, I don't think it can succeed. I hope I'm wrong.