The North Loop presents a great many difficulties in terms of how it might be redeveloped. The highway trench varies in depth at different intervals. The burms that flank it also vary, not only in depth but in length. Were they to be turned into blocks, they would be obscenely short, probably only long enough to contain one building until reaching the highway right of way. Another issue is found in the connections to the east and west, where the new development would connect to the remaining highway. Most optimistically, however, this project presents several opportunities to increase the scope from just redeveloping the trench to reconnecting several disparate communities and spurring growth downtown at large.

Firstly, to tackle the problem of short blocks and uneven terrain in the trench, I resigned myself to capping the highway. While this would require considerable earth-moving and would probably count as the highest expense for this project, I believe it is the only way to maximize use of this space.

Larger blocks will allow for greater development and better connection between the communities of the River Market and the CBD. It would also help encourage developers to repurpose the vacant or underutilized sites adjacent to the loop, such as the parking lots near 7th and Main Streets.

The North Loop not only steals value from the land to the north and south, but to the east and west. To the east, to accommodate several diverging directions of traffic, more and more blocks had to be torn asunder over the years. The gash that remains creates a canyon even more massive than the difference in distance between 6th street and Independence Avenue. This radical destruction of a junction of historic neighborhoods requires a radical solution to repair it, and that means continuing the cap.

Proposing not only to cap the North Loop, but to continue the cap across to the Paseo West neighborhood is not an easy ask, but ultimately if we are to revive these once-cherished places, we have to heal the wound that brought them low. The proposed cap on the east side would go as far North as Independence Avenue and far south as 10th Street, producing between fifteen and twenty new blocks of housing, commercial development, parks, light industry, office space, and small business incubators. While the upfront cost to build this infrastructure would indeed be staggering, the long-term return on investment could be massive.

However, this cap has the potential to interrupt highway traffic, so how might it handle that? To the north, where Independence meets Troost, a rotary could be installed that allows southbound traffic to exit into downtown. This rotary could also allow for downtown traffic to use the freeway by building a flyover across it that connects going northbound. A tight half-diamond interchange at 10th street would allow northbound highway traffic to exit into downtown, and for downtown traffic to enter going south.

To the west, connecting to I-70, another rotary could be placed beneath the existing flyovers. Some realignment of highway exits would be necessary to accomplish this redesign, but ultimately traffic would be able to freely flow in all directions but into the tunnel underneath the new highway cap.

This right of way would be restricted to buses and truck traffic to accommodate the necessary flow of bus rapid transit system, which would have a station underneath the former Delaware street bridge.

In addition to these major changes to the loop, others could include: realigning Oak Street as it approaches the former Heart of America Bridge, bringing MO-9 Highway to grade (and reusing the earth for part of the infill of the loop), and adding two connections to the west bottoms via the streetcar and a funicular.

The trends and momentum of the South Loop project, the KC Streetcar, and the Bi-State Sustainable Redevelopment Corridor support this development. The success of the streetcar alone has shown the immense power of infrastructure and transit investments to spur economic growth downtown.

In the past twenty years, combined land and improvement values (measured in constant dollars) has skyrocketed in the south part of the loop. The “streetcar tax” that patrons of downtown businesses pay, has resulted in the service being free to use for everyone. Cordish has also made waves building luxury apartment properties in the form of One, Two, and Three Light. Clearly there is money to be made downtown for those willing to invest in it.

Among the new blocks produced by capping the North Loop and those vacant or underutilized parcels nearby, I envision primarily mixed-use housing, commercial, and office space, with housing taking priority. These could take the form of the contemporary platform development (five-over-ones) or they could be high-rises. As new development approaches the river market, however, massing should gradually diminish to match the scale of those buildings. The uses can still be mixed, but buildings should be no more than four or five floors tall.

Towards the east the same should be true. Closer to the government district and the east village buildings should take a greater size, but as they fan out in the directions of the Paseo West and Columbus Park neighborhoods, they should become smaller while remaining densely packed. Those neighborhoods could also see some greater separation of uses, particularly in terms of residential development. Single family detached homes, townhouses, small apartments such as four and sixplexes should dominate those neighborhoods, with compliment from neighborhood commercial.

These would give residents several different options for housing accommodations, while still all being within a few miles of the amenities provided by downtown. With luck, this would create a snowball effect of further and further development, funded by further and further habitation downtown, but in order to begin that trend, we must first make the North Loop someplace people want to live.