He's the Man!

Ray Braswell points to a pair of stunning early-twentieth-century brick apartment buildings just west of the Country Club Plaza and says, almost to himself, "Those are beautiful buildings there."

That observation from Kansas City's most popular developer, spoken with a collector's appreciation, is indisputable. Square patches of elaborate terra-cotta adorn all seven stories of these buildings, named for the writers Mark Twain and Robert Browning. All around, breathtaking residences with artistic namesakes line the 48th Street entryway to the Plaza -- the towering Washington Irving, the quaint Eugene Fields, the glamorous Rousseau Cézanne apartments. Together, they create perhaps the most scenic pedestrian neighborhood in Kansas City, resting between the high traffic on 47th Street to the north and Ward Parkway to the south, and separating the Plaza's onslaught of commerce ("California Pizza Kitchen Coming Soon") from the genteel homes stretching west to the state line.

Braswell looks toward the Plaza and marvels at the area's ambience. And yet when he turns around, Braswell suddenly faces an entire block of apartment buildings he doesn't find so beautiful. Buildings he wants torn down.

In the not-so-distant past, such an idea would have drawn protest the moment it left Braswell's lips. Just one year ago, on the opposite end of the Plaza, across from Mill Creek Park, Plaza owner Highwoods Properties announced a plan to replace the 78-year-old Park Lane apartment building with a skyscraper for a law firm, using more than $12 million in taxpayer money to do it. Within weeks, preservationists and neighborhood activists banded together, spewing venom at Highwoods and any politician who dared support the project. Within months, Highwoods had withdrawn the plan ("Truce or Consequences," March 7, 2002).

But this time, only quiet surrounds Braswell's proposal for the Plaza's "West Edge." And for all the glitz that Braswell promises -- "There is nothing in the United States like it," he says of its centerpiece boutique hotel -- the silence might be his most impressive development.

In fact, some of the same neighborhood leaders who held up signs protesting Highwoods Properties last year are holding Braswell's hand this year.

"I think he's made a valiant effort to keep everyone in the loop and move forward with consensus," says Sally Schwenk, a board member of the Historic Kansas City Foundation.

Then there's the endorsement of the city's most ardent preservationist, Jane Flynn. "Ray's name doesn't raise any red flags with me," she says.

This despite the fact that Braswell will knock down eight functioning Plaza apartment buildings, four of them decorated with ornate terra-cotta just like the buildings Braswell admires across the street.

And few people seem to be complaining that Braswell says his plan can't work without $25 million in public subsidies for its ten-story office building.

How has Braswell subdued Plaza dwellers conditioned to be cantankerous? What's his hypnotic secret?

"Don't hire high-powered lawyers to talk with neighbors," he says. "Don't hire someone to do that for you, because they're not received well. [Neighbors] are real people. They want real people to talk to them."

Shucking the high-towered, behind-the-scenes approach typical of Kansas City developers, Braswell pulled neighborhood leaders and preservationists into his planning process from the beginning. That decision, which Braswell says was dismissed by fellow developers as "crazy," cost him four months in delays.

But that's thinking in today's time. Ultimately, that decision may not only save Braswell months of delays and headaches caused by angry opponents, but also save the project.

Inside J.J.'s, the upscale 48th Street restaurant directly across from his project site, Braswell looks out a window and runs through his vision. Straight ahead, three plain red-brick buildings stand where he wants a stretch of boutique shops and eateries, small businesses unique to the chain-oriented Plaza -- "but not mom-and-pop stuff, some real professional managed groups," he says. Braswell wants a bistro where customers can stop off for a cup of coffee or a sit-down lunch or carry-out. He wants pedestrians to turn this intimate strip between Roanoke Parkway and Belleview Avenue into something found more often in Europe than in Middle America. Rising from behind the storefronts, he wants an office building that cascades downward as it moves to the west and blends into the fashionable hotel he's dreamed of building.

And the hotel does sound dreamy. Braswell won't divulge any details about what he's calling its "theatrical" element, the part he says will make it unlike any hotel in the world. Singing bellhops? Talking Bibles? Robot concierges that produce towels and pillow mints on demand? It's anybody's guess. But Braswell promises that it will be spectacular.

"The Today Show on TV will want to interview, not me, but the theatrical portion of this hotel," he says. "And that's why Kansas City is really lucky that we're doing this here, because it will get some national attention, this little hotel right there."

He wants a stylish, stand-alone restaurant to complement the hotel without being swallowed by it. The model, he says, is Asia de Cuba, culinary sidekick to the swanky Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. "People go to that restaurant without thinking they're in a hotel. How many times do you go to a hotel in this city and eat?"