The county said it plans on initially spending $1.6 million to stabilize and preserve the strange-looking structure designed by architect Manny Morris. Next year, the county will begin exploring renovation possibilities and the costs of moving the museum from its site at 6305 Lackman Road in Shawnee.
In a press release announcing the news, Johnson County Museum officials made their current building sound like a real dump. "It is crowded and suffered flooding problems in recent years, making a portion of the building unsuitable for long-term operations. About 1,500 square feet of the 20,000-square-foot building was damaged by flooding in 2009, making it no longer acceptable for public use," the release said.
Possible plans for the King Louie space might fulfill the museum's desire to establish a National Museum of Suburbia and a Suburban Policy Forum. That seems very fitting for a defunct architectural shrine to 1960s Kansas kitsch. You can read all about that plan here.
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My favorite part of this debacle is that the original Suburbia display (the one that suddenly needs a new home, allegedly) was funded from JoCo's portion of the 1996 Bi-State tax.
So KC used the Bi-State tax and restored Union Station: a regional attraction and cornerstone of regional history. Meanwhile, JoCo used their portion to construct an alter to suburban white flight. Stay classy, JoCo.
Correction.....
School District I think get money from property taxes....maybe not sales tax.
So keeping the property values up.......help funds schools.
The Current owner maybe having trouble paying the property taxes on a vacant business. So, JoCo is helping the school district by shifting County taxes to District Taxes...maybe??? by being the property owner.
Come on people.....your hung up on the anti burb picture swiming in your heads.
The Metcalf redevelopment calls for a transit system. Give the County more credit for thinking ahead.
How about a transit station ........decorated with old JoCo stuff......maybe down the the line.........ahhh.... cue light bulb........Parts of the Iconic Architecture (Not Crap please).....would be saved and made a cheeky functionable decor .....hmmmm?
Bing!
The land and location are key...........for the price now.
P.S....Schools are paid for by sales tax .......and goes to the School Districts...not the county. A Target or a Walmart would be a great educational tax generator.........but good god man.......enough is enough. They sell Chinese (Now is a good time for the Word ...Crap) anyway.
How many county jobs are being left unfilled and how many employees have forgone even the most basic of pay raises in the last four years? How many elementary schools aren't able to take basic field trips due to budget cuts? And yet this--THIS--is what the county shells out millions for?
At a planning meeting at the inception of the Museum of Suburbia, the question was raised of how the county's exhibits regarding the older history (you know--everything pre-1950) fit into the "Museum of Suburbia." While the county's civil war history could potentially be preserved with new exhibits at the Lanesfield site, there wasn't a clear-cut plan for the Native American story. One museum official suggested that it was unimportant and that it be totally dropped.
We live in SHAWNEE, we drive on BLACK BOB, how on earth is the Native American part of the county's history unimportant? Is it because it's shameful and many would prefer to forget it? How could the museum possibly fathom cutting it out?
The official retorted: "Well, the dinosaurs were here before the Shawnee, and we don't have to dedicate a part of the exhibit to them either--do we!?"
That's right. This is the museum that would like to equate the Shawnee history of Johnson County to that of dinosaurs. Wow, I'm so proud to live here.
And for what it's worth, the other comments were correct--asbestos and black mold were (allegedly) mitigated directly underneath the childrens' exhibit *during public hours* with only flimsy plastic sheeting placed over the air vents that directly connected the exhibit to the HVAC system in the rooms being mitigated below. The museum allegedly refused to close the exhibit for even a day or two, afraid it would "send the wrong message" to the public. It just goes to show that this museum is run by people who don't give a crap about the public and will do anything for their own personal agendas.
It was a great place to take a date for ice skating before the crown center terrace opened. Prior to video games, there was a good pool hall.
Yet, I hadn't been in there since the early 1980's. I went back once to watch a friend son's hockey game in the early 1990's and then it smelt of old cigarette smoke and stinky bowling shoes and it was slightly sad and made me feel old.
I don't know what the answer is or what the development market will bring if it was left on it's previous path. There are alot of "For Sale/Lease" signs everywhere. I thought the Metcalf development/redevelopment program had/or has this in mind? But, with budget cuts getting deeper. I am afraid that is not going to happen soon. 1.2 million is like Austin Powers.......One million dollars.......So it is a relatively small investment or a wait an see.
A lot of people have been hurt, forced out, outright fired and manipulated for this Museum of Suburbia to happen, and in such a small county agency, that is a very sad thing. Few people realize that the successful exhibits and popular children's attractions owe their inception and visitor success to staff who were crushed and swept aside in a vendetta of personal dislike and ambition.
It's true that the current museum building contained black mold and asbestos, continually flooded, and was one time repaired with rags, but it's also true that little to no concern was expressed about this until it was decided that the Museum needed a new building.
While the other county agencies are drifting in a state of bland benignity, the (soon to be) Museum of Suburbia is furiously pursuing its own vision of suburban life, whether or not its narrative matches up with reality and whether or not such an entity even needs to exist. Johnson County has a varied history before and beyond J. C. Nichols, and the new incarnation of the Museum will glide over this or omit it completely.
Such a combination of masturbating bureaucracy and selfish ambition will further make Johnson County a joke in the Metro.
it's about time the county moves the museum from its black mold, bird shit vents, and asbestos infested location... oh wait...they removed those things without closing or disclosing it to staff or visitors- and kept the vents open while hundreds of kids played upstairs.
Ok ...I am sorry. Your right.
Educated by the Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae student loan program. Everything you type is owned by the Chinese anyway. ooooo.......
Bad 1960's...bad 1970's. At least it was paid for.
Any architecture good or bad in the past 10 years...also owned by the Chinese. Thanks sub prime loan program.
I know...lets all work for Sprint...concrete beam boxes. Out source me please.
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I'm not sure what a concrete beam box is. Perhaps it's not best to combine random architectural terms to make it sound like you know what you're talking about.
Make no mistake, King Louie is a crap hole. Hard to believe anyone would purchase this property after setting one foot in the building. 2 million to buy it + 1.6 million to "stabilize" it, and then your going to try to figure out how to renovate it? This will end up being a 5 million dollar project. The county is trading one dump for another.
This is a relic alright, a relic of ugly 1960s architecture. Not to mention the parking lot is so unusable that it isn't even close to meeting modern design standards.
Grrrrrreat, just what we needed our tax dollars to go to. A new location to replace a location no one gave a shi t about in the first place. Something for the community, sure. But something the community would care about. This isn't it.
The retail developements of the past are all hurting and going vacant. Crown Center, The Plaza, West Port, Ward Parkway, Banister, you name it. Even the new centers I am sure a hurting....including the Sprint Center, River Market, and Power and Light.
I like that old rendering, at least it is not a concrete beam box with a flat greek revival facade curtain wall.
As far as a Museum, well......not great but.... at least its not blighted vacant for now.
Tear it down???? Hard call......would you like another Target or Walmart???
From a guy with a DUI:
This is a cheap way of providing an area where DUI Checkpoints can be set up along Metcalf. When the county owns the property, they don't have to get an owner permission to set a checkpoint there, like they would if it was at the 95th Street mall by Macy's. This is particularly a bad place because it's over a hill on southbound Metcalf. You can't see it coming. ...
JACK HAS WARNED YOU!!!
FUTURE SITE OF MORE DUI CHECKPOINTS ...
by the JoCo Sheriff's Department in conjunction with OP police.
Would have been nice if they'd just knock it all down and build a park.
For the record Mindi Love (the Johnson county museum official) is a complete twit. Furthermore, the position she maintains is a complete waste of public money.
A museum dedicated to white flight? What a great idea, Mindi. Will you also include the techniques of successful suburban development: inner-city blockbusting, red-lining, and racial covenants? Pssh! Of course not! Suburbia is nothing but pure american dream, wrought straight from free market supply and demand, right? Of course. Steve Rose repeats this undeniable canon for us in his editorial every damn week.
Please Mindi, just go back to publishing your childish picture books on amazon. Sure, you weren't making any money, but you were not wasting our time, or our tax money either. To say nothing of pissing away any semblance this metro area might have had for being even slightly forward thinking.
Oh yeah: spending $3.6 Million on an abandoned, broken ass bowling alley is the stupidest thing I've read in months. God, I'd better stop now, or I'll have an aneurysm.
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