In this blog post, I would like to discuss my detailed study area in Hospital Hill. Hospital Hill is located in Kansas City, Missouri, and the location of focus encompasses the area between 22nd and 26th Street and Holmes Street to Harrison Street, Outlined in Red in the graphic. In this post, I will talk about how this area connects to the UMKC campus, what I think the assets are, what I believe are the planning and traffic circulation issues, and how a regional analysis conducted earlier this semester has brought up some questions.
My detailed study area has a connection to the UMKC Volker campus via the Troost MAX bus system if needed. Kansas City is a primarily car-dependent city with easy access through all the north-south roads. Therefore, we assume many students travel between Hospital Hill and Volker campuses using Troost.
Next, I would like to talk about the assets, and that would be parking lots. More specifically, parking lots owned by UMKC. Typically I wouldn’t put a parking lot as an asset. Still, because we have so many of them, it leaves room for development opportunities to densify the Hospital Hill area. That is what UMKC plans to do according to the 2021 UMKC Master Plan. I have listed some pictures that illustrate an Interprofessional Health Sciences Building as part of the first phase of a planned expansion that will take the space of one of the parking lots adjacent to Charlotte St. Another Picture I have also displayed from the UMKC Master Plan is the planned 2nd Phase of the Expansion. It accommodates the rest of the parking between E 24th Ter and 25th St with more Buildings for the University. The parking garage that UMKC owns has 825 permits available. According to UMKC, 809 spots are reserved with purchased passes from students. What does this mean? Does building more density while taking away parking cause an issue? Will the proposed parking garage that is in UMKC Plans be enough?
Some of the planning and traffic circulation issues are that recently, between 2020 and 2022, Charlotte was a one-way street and has now been changed to a two-way street. One-way streets are safer for pedestrians to cross, which takes away from this area’s walkability. I hope that these new proposed structures are mixed-used buildings with shops accessible to not only students but neighbors. Doing so will add more assets to this study area.
The regional analysis I conducted earlier this semester is configured with data from before Covid 19. The study showed that the average household size of people that are enrolled in college is 4 to 5 people. This research tells me that most students choose to live at home with their parents and drive to school. The question is, what is causing this? Is this because Kansas City is Car Dependent? Is it too expensive? Suppose the Campus bike, walk, and transit is upgraded while improving the community campus interface. Would that drive more students to want to stay on campus?
