Metro Jacksonville

Jax Chamber Headed to Kansas City - A few Pointers

(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/661853212_mc6jn-M.jpg)

Next week, the Chamber of Commerce and city leaders will make their annual pilgrimage to a peer city to seek out innovative ideas and successes that Jacksonville could implement. In years past, without bringing back and implementing tangible results, this trip has come under fire by Jacksonville taxpayers.

To help make this trip worthwhile, Metro Jacksonville highlights five Kansas City projects that Jacksonville representatives should take a close look at.


Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2009-sep-jax-chamber-headed-to-kansas-city-a-few-pointers

Great stuff!  Not to sound like I'm overly happy, but I'm really glad you guys started this website and go through all of the hard work to put these together.  Hopefully, some of the right people working for the city start becoming regulars to the site and learn how to correct Jacksonville.  Thanks!

I agree with you!  I'm not sure why we can't have a decent rail system in Jacksonville and not have the Town Center Mall as the center of our town. (I don't think suburban malls should be the center of an urban city!)  We need to have downtown grow.... I hope the city representatives take a look at this as well.  We have the ability to become a big city we just have to do it. 

KC is my home town!  The Plaza is abosolutely gorgeous and is a day trip in itself.  I do hope that our leaders in Jacksonville take note of some of the offerings that KC has. 

Keep in mind boys and girls that KC is the city where the people mounted a movement that became a landslide initiative, which led to a vote to kill the fancy BRT plan and build LIGHT RAIL. The next thing they'll learn from KC is how the political machine was able to abort the will of the citizens and invalidate the vote and go right back to BRT.

JTA anyone? WHO'S ON THIS TRIP ROSTER?

I'll take a stab at this next one Lake!

QuotePrevious Chamber of Commerce Trips

What the Jacksonville delegation learned from these trips and how this information was applied locally is not clear to the general public.

2008 - Seattle, WA, Since this date Jacksonville has taken on a more grunge look.
2007 - Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong, China, Since this trip we have opened 3 new Panda Express locations.
2006 - New Orleans, LA, This trip was a housing boom in outlaying Duval, as we brought back 300 FEMA travel trailers.
2005 - Boston, Baked Beans went on the menu's of 4 local restaurants, sales of Sam Adams, soared.

OCKLAWAHA

Quote from: Metro Jacksonville on September 28, 2009, 05:31:55 AM
A few of Jacksonville's leaders have been quoted in the local media as believing that the St. Johns Town Center is an example of New Urbanism, when in reality, it is nothing but the latest version of a suburban regional mall.

Nice job nailing this assessment of the St. Johns Town Center.

STJTC was simple math, build it where the people ain't, and they will come. They could add another just above Nocatee and people would still flock to open air malls, they enjoy the lightening rod games with umbrellas during the summer time.

Good ol junkets, love the Chamber for their ...... vision? Must be why we dumped them a long time ago.

The train station in Kansas City is worth looking around.  I took the Amtrak to the KCMO area this past summer and hope that we can learn lessons from other cities and their passenger rail facilities.  Our Amtrak station is currently a shed.

Bring back some good ideas on BBQ. Lord knows we need some more here.  ;)

Travelling can be fun.

What is the real purpose of this trip?  To learn lessons for Jax or to recruit business via the KC corporate community?

While the agenda reflects some substantive meetings, no doubt, I would be most disappointed in that this trip lacks much in the way of getting out into the city, its neighborhoods, and fabric for a real taste of how urban planning is working or not working.  Also, conspicuous by its absence, are visits to parks, historic sites, and more cultural and educational institutions as well as conversations with "everyday people".

Two and half days on the ground in any major city is almost a waste of time and certainly not adequate to say you have truly "tasted" and learned from it.  I would find this to be more frustrating than satisfying.

To be honest, given the KC individuals invited to meet and greet with the Jax visitors, I believe the trip is cleverly designed more to make connections for Jax business leaders, raise Jax's profile in another part of the country, and maybe recruit some of their business expansions to Jax, as opposed to really learning what is right in KC that could be duplicated here.  I have no expectations that the average citizen in Jax will benefit from this trip unless its through the creation of a few more jobs because Hallmark Cards decided to expand here.   ;)

This is definitely a CHAMBER, not CITY oriented trip.  I am not trying to be critical, just demanding "truth in advertising".

Kansas City is a good city to partner with and make our name known. KC is a MAJOR transportation hub in all aspects, road, rail and air. They're a large logistics hub, jsut like us, so it makes some sense, IMO.

Maybe the mayor is trying to sell some tickets to the Nov. 8 game against the Chiefs.

LOL,,funny Traveller.

Btw, everyone wonders what will happen if the Jags one day leave Jacksonville.  Well Kansas City has lost NBA and NHL franchises.  Jax delegates may want to ask Kansas City's leaders about their experience.

QuoteKansas City used to have an NBA team. The team's original name was Kansas City-Omaha Kings because it played home games in both Kansas City and Omaha. However, after 1975 the team would exclusively play in Kansas City. After 1985, the Kansas City Kings would move to Sacramento to become today's Sacramento Kings. In 1974, the NHL ended its first expansion period by adding teams in Kansas City and Washington, D.C.  Although they were better than their expansion brethren the Washington Capitals (who won only eight games in their inaugural season), the Kansas City Scouts began to suffer from an economic downturn in the Midwest. For their second season, the Scouts sold just 2,000 of 8,000 season tickets and were almost $1 million in debt. Due to their various on- and off-ice disappointments, the franchise moved to Denver and was renamed the Colorado Rockies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City,_Missouri

Lost an NBA and NHL team?  What a second class city!  Not going to visit them anytime soon.  Surprise the City is still there after all their residents left for first class cities with pro basketball and hockey.  And, I bet most companies with all those jobs packed up and left.  What executive would settle for this?  No one survives losing top tier pro sports teams.  I bet the sun doesn't rise there anymore.  How could their residents hold their heads high knowing they didn't give up everything to keep these teams?  Where are their priorities?  Why would anyone from Jax want to visit this town?  Yuck.

OK, just some sarcasm. :D  Who will be the first to take it seriously? 1... 2... 3..........

That's a bit unfair, don't you think? Perhaps professional sports franchises weren't important to them. Maybe the city council could not justify capitulation to the insatiable desires of petulant franchises. I really think you should reconsider before bashing KC in such a manner.

Quote from: buckethead on October 01, 2009, 10:00:36 PM
That's a bit unfair, don't you think? Perhaps professional sports franchises weren't important to them. Maybe the city council could not justify capitulation to the insatiable desires of petulant franchises. I really think you should reconsider before bashing KC in such a manner.

Buckethead, you win the "I don't get it" prize!  I guess you didn't bother to read the rest of my post:

QuoteOK, just some sarcasm.   Who will be the first to take it seriously? 1... 2... 3..........

Where are we going on our first MJ trip?

With out a doubt, a waste of Tax money. How many trips have they been on? Only come back and implement nothing. Too bad I've been to KC before or otherwise I would ask them to bring me back a shot glass and refrigerator magnet.

San Diego? Baltimore?

Metro Jacksonville has visited 30 cities so far this year alone: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/learning-from/

Quote from: stjr on October 01, 2009, 10:55:27 PM

Quote from: buckethead on October 01, 2009, 10:00:36 PM
That's a bit unfair, don't you think? Perhaps professional sports franchises weren't important to them. Maybe the city council could not justify capitulation to the insatiable desires of petulant franchises. I really think you should reconsider before bashing KC in such a manner.

Buckethead, you win the "I don't get it" prize!  I guess you didn't bother to read the rest of my post:

QuoteOK, just some sarcasm.   Who will be the first to take it seriously? 1... 2... 3..........

I got it. I simply felt compelled to respond in this manner in the same manner as a mountain climber chooses a climbe: It was there. ;)

A decade ago, downtown Kansas City, Mo., was similar to many other large American cities č it had plenty of office buildings, but it had decayed over time and lacked life.

Nine years ago, the city’s business and political leadership devised a plan to make their downtown a shopping and entertainment destination. They also sought to coax businesses that had fled downtown to return and interest people to live there.

Today, Kansas City has the massive, nine-block, Kansas City Power and Light District, which is filled with restaurants and night clubs. It also has a downtown shopping district as well as loft apartments where 17,000 people live. It even houses an art museum that provides free admission.

All of that impressed about 100 Jacksonville professionals and business leaders who spent three days in Kansas City this week as part of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce’s annual leadership trip.

“They have been able to accomplish so much together in a relatively short period of time,” said  Penny Thompson, Shands Jacksonville Vice President of Public Affairs. “It was an amazing trip.”

The city’s philanthropic track record is also very impressive, she said. The city’s Stowers Institute for Medical Research was funded by $2 billion in investments from a city couple, for example.

Many came away with an appreciation of how Kansas City’s focus on its downtown could work in Jacksonville.

“I think that is very much needed here in downtown Jacksonville,” said city General Counsel Rick Mullaney.

An integral part of downtown planning in Kansas City was the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City, a CEO-led group that has worked since 1964 to focus on the city’s improvement, Mullaney said.

“I think they took a look at the dilapidated aspects of Kansas City, and they did undergo a very substantial investment,” he said.

That investment, all told, was about $4 billion č a mixture of private and public investment, including voter-approved bond issues, said Mayor John Peyton.

City Council Member Art Shad said Kansas City’s philanthropic firepower came from having large, wealthy corporations based in town č such as Hallmark and H&R Block. And that, he said, will lead to civic improvements in downtown Jacksonville.

“We need to do what we can to have corporate wealth in our town,” he said. “They really incentivized downtown development. There’s not a secret to it. I don’t know if our city has the desire to incentivize people to live downtown.”

Shad said Jacksonville has desires to improve, too, but those have to be followed by funds. The Kansas City Power and Light District, for example, cost $850 million, which was raised from hotel and rental car taxes, he said.

“We have great ideas. We don’t have $850 million,” he said. “They really put their money where their mouth is in Kansas City,” Shad said.

Peyton said Jacksonville may actually be closer to a renewed downtown than Kansas City was when their efforts began. Currently, about 3,000 people live in apartments and condominiums in downtown Jacksonville, and its river walks, library and City Hall are recently completed improvements, he said. And a new courthouse is under construction.

Peyton said the main concept that he came away with from the trip is Jacksonville’s need for an organization like the Kansas City’s influential Civic Council.

“The council studies and provides rationales for bold visions,” he said.

But members of the group stay in the background, doing all their work behind the scenes and shunning public attention, he said. And, he said, the civic council hired an architect who established the first vision for their city’s downtown transformation.

“Right now, they’re studying high-speed rail connectivity,” he said. “They’ve got long-term concerns about the water supply. They take on the very serious challenges. They act as a resource for elected officials.”

http://jacksonville.com/business/2009-10-09/story/kcs_downtown_provides_a_model_for_jacksonville_leadership_group

the article sounds positive

We could create a Civic Council, but the problem would be the same as every other advisory board in Jacksonville.  City leaders appoint their friends and buddies who think like they do and who won't have the guts to tell them their ideas suck.  We never make any progress that way.  A real Civic Council would include the founding fathers of MetroJacksonville, a few financial representatives from downtown banks, some small business owners and a number of people who already live downtown.  Yep.  That's right.  Real residents and taxpayers of the urban core.  Not the wealthy retired guys who live in Queen's Harbor or Ponte Vedra and certainly not career politicians. 
I also like the idea of having an architect, not a politician, create a vision for downtown.  Let the Civic Council tell the architect what they want, he works it into the plan for the urban core and then talk money.  If the plan is brilliant enough, the private investors and taxpayers will quickly jump on board.  Right now, there is no incentive and the vision sucks so we continue to build on cheap land in the suburbs.   

Quote from: brainstormer on October 11, 2009, 12:12:05 PM
We could create a Civic Council, but the problem would be the same as every other advisory board in Jacksonville.  City leaders appoint their friends and buddies who think like they do and who won't have the guts to tell them their ideas suck.  We never make any progress that way.  A real Civic Council would include the founding fathers of MetroJacksonville, a few financial representatives from downtown banks, some small business owners and a number of people who already live downtown.  Yep.  That's right.  Real residents and taxpayers of the urban core.  Not the wealthy retired guys who live in Queen's Harbor or Ponte Vedra and certainly not career politicians. 

I think we agree on this Brainstormer.  Let the USERS be involved in the solution, not just be hand-tied bystanders.  Experts are seldom USERS, they are just facilitators working for who signs their paychecks.  We know politicians and developers are motivated by their own interests over those of the USERS.  Government employees may be well meaning, but they are controlled by overriding interests.  So, no help there.  Time to put the inmates in charge of the insane asylum!  ;D

Did I miss the part where they learned about how these projects actually go together and promote walkability through urban pedestrian scale design?  You can form all the civic councils you want, but your success will be limited if you can't embrace and understand the concept of urbanism.

Did anyone have the opportunity to ride the BRT line?  After all, its a carbon copy of what JTA wants to bring to town.

Quote from: thelakelander on October 11, 2009, 07:59:36 PM
Did I miss the part where they learned about how these projects actually go together and promote walkability through urban pedestrian scale design?  You can form all the civic councils you want, but your success will be limited if you can't embrace and understand the concept of urbanism.

Lake, my favorite "planners" project was hearing, upon visiting one our newer Florida universities, that the initial campus was built without sidewalks.  After a year or two, they came in and poured sidewalks wherever the students had worn a path in the grass.  Now that is USER driven!

QuoteKansas City proves worthy trip

10/16/2009
by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer

Mike Hightower has now been on 22 Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce Leadership Trips, but he’d never been to Kansas City.

Former City Council President Kevin Hyde spent three weeks there last summer working on a case for his employer, Foley & Lardner.

Both came back from last week’s Leadership Trip impressed with the Midwestern city that looks and feels a lot like Jacksonville. Obviously, there isn’t an ocean in Missouri, but both Jacksonville and Kansas City are centered on rivers, have similar populations and an NFL team and are facing many of the same issues â€" how to revitalize its downtown and lure new businesses.

“It was extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary,” said Hightower, who’s chair of the Chamber until the end of the calendar year. “It’s in the top two or three of the places I have been.”

Full Article: http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=529332

Any idea of if the city suffered when they lost two professional sports franchises?  With the Jags situation the way it is, Jax might want to take a closer look at KC.

No word on KC's BRT.  Is it safe to assume the Jax delegation did not take a ride on it?  Must not be that impressive......

MJ story idea;

call attendees and ask them the 2-3 ideas or concepts, that they took from KC. 

Come on guys you know this was just a vacation at taxpayers expense. How many other trips they've been on. Look downtown see any ideas they brought back?

Quote from: Keith-N-Jax on October 16, 2009, 06:32:00 PM
Come on guys you know this was just a vacation at taxpayers expense. How many other trips they've been on. Look downtown see any ideas they brought back?

If that is the case, then that would be obvious in their answers would it not?   

Yep!

 This effort should include interviewing Kansas City persons/current effort participants who have actually been to and engaged with "Jacksonville";specifically Duval county and Downtown.
Then ask;to both this participant audience and a broader Kansas City project participant audience:
How would you deal with a horrific episode like the loss of King Holzendorf IV and all that such an illuminating event implies??

I'm currently in Kansas City to do some urban exploring for Metro Jacksonville.  We'll visually answer the questions and concerns raised here that our Chamber did not. At this point, I can tell you that the KC Max BRT is a joke. My hotel is right on the line near Crown Center and even I didn't realize it.  Other than an occasional modern bus shelter every half mile or so, you can't tell BRT runs on the street, so forget about this thing spurring TOD like rail. Unfortunately, the KC BRT model is what JTA wants to force on Jax's residents.

Btw, comparing DTs isn't fair to KC. While this place is no South Beach, it's not DT Jax either.  There is life and density here. Walking the streets in KC gives me an eery feeling of what DT Jax once felt like before the buildings came tumbling down.

Lake
Be sure to stop by Arthur Bryants if you have a chance.

I'm at Union Station right now. So far I've checked out DT, Crossroads Art District, Union Hill, City Market and the West Bottom loft district. What is Arthur Bryants?

http://www.arthurbryantsbbq.com/ (http://www.arthurbryantsbbq.com/)

IMHO, best BBQ in KC.

1727 Brooklyn Avenue, K.C., MO,  816-231-1123

They have 2 other locations now.

Legends at the Kansas Speedway
1702 Village West Parkway, K.C., KS, 913-788-7500

Ameristar Casino
3200 N. Ameristar Dr., K.C., MO, 816-414-7474

thanks. I'll try them out for dinner.

Good stuff. Those guys run that bbq joint like an assembly line.  Btw, it appears that KC is trying to revitalize the old jazz district nearby. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to visit the Negro League musuem that anchors it.

Quote from: thelakelander on August 08, 2010, 09:17:35 AM
Btw, comparing DTs isn't fair to KC. While this place is no South Beach, it's not DT Jax either.  There is life and density here. Walking the streets in KC gives me an eery feeling of what DT Jax once felt like before the buildings came tumbling down.

Check out the Plaza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Club_Plaza) area. It is a bit more toward the Kansas side. Wornall street. Higher end shopping, dining and such. The Raphael (http://www.raphaelkc.com/) is a nice boutique hotel with some good eats. It is very quaint and picturesque. ( The plaza as well as the hotel) The surrounding neighborhood is absolutely stunning. Riverside and San Marco have nothing on it.

Take camera (I did not)

I took tons of shots of that area. Quite impressive indeed.

Arthur Bryants is the best place in KC for Ribs.  Glad you enjoyed it.  The Negro Leauge Museum is worth a stop.  shame you didn't have time.