Northeast News
January 27, 2016
Nell Peters is spinning in her grave. Last week, the city council voted 9-3 for the demolition of three Peters designed buildings on the western edge of the Country Club Plaza in the name of development.

The three dissenting voices, voting for preservation on this issue were Councilwoman Justus, Councilwoman Shields and Mayor Pro Tem Scott Wagner. The rest of the spineless nine council, however, decided that they’d cower to a developer’s threats of lawsuits rather than do the right thing and uphold the provisions in the Midtown/Plaza Area Plan that dictates (page 13, sub-point four under the Guiding Principles), “preservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings.”

The spineless nine council people who voted to destroy history basically just threw the newly approved Plaza Area Plan, as well as the entire planning process, out the window with the bathwater. The spineless nine just slapped every community stakeholder that dedicated their time, energy and sweat to the development of the Plaza Area Plan in the face, not to mention those community stakeholders, who as we speak, are volunteering their time on the development of a number of area plans across the city, including the Independence Avenue Overlay Plan. The spineless nine who voted to erase history last week on the Country Club Plaza have basically sent a message that the community’s voice and effort doesn’t mean a tinker’s damn in this city’s planning process. It certainly calls to question why anyone would, in their right mind, become involved in the planning process after this humiliating kick in the crotch message the spineless nine just sent with their willful destruction of Kansas City architectural history.

This preservation minded pooch has questions though. Where was Brad Wolf, the city’s Director of Historic Preservation? Part of his job description is the preservation of the city’s historic building stock. Why didn’t he take a lead role on this preservation fight? For that matter, where was the Mayoral appointed Landmarks Commission? Those appointed by the Mayor to hear and rule on historic preservation cases? Obviously cowering in the corner, still afraid of threatened protracted litigation against the city should an offensive to save the three buildings be mounted. Spineless and reprehensible in this dog’s eyes that those hired and appointed to preserve history were nowhere to be found. Sadly, now these buildings are now bound for the martyrdom through demolition instead of historic preservation and adaptive reuse.