Kansas City will spend $1.5M to ‘Band-Aid’ Barney Allis garage, City Council decides
Kansas City will spend more than $1.5 million repairing downtown’s Barney Allis parking garage after consultants found a “magnitude of code violations” and deemed the garage a safety threat.
The garage is 65 years old, and city officials have been discussing for years how to replace it and the little-seen plaza atop it. Crews have already had to make structural repairs to keep debris from falling onto cars, and parts of the garage are closed.
Engineers from TranSystems toured the garage in late March and found that, among other hazards, it had no ventilation, meaning as hundreds of drivers idle in the garage after leaving an event downtown, carbon monoxide could build up.
Right now, the coronavirus pandemic means conventions and large events aren’t using the garage. But when those gatherings resume, Kansas City needs somewhere for them — along with commuters and other visitors to downtown — to park. The City Council voted 10-2 Thursday to spend more than $1.5 million on repairs to make the garage usable, but those won’t last long.
And even with the repairs, only 595 of the garage’s 970 spaces will be operational.
For now, City Council members aren’t making a decision on what comes next.
The council’s Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee has been weighing an ordinance authorizing the city to seek design proposals from four firms interested in leading the rebuild of the garage, which would cost around $61 million. But members on Wednesday decided once again to hold the legislation.
Officials have also discussed building a second garage two blocks west to offset the loss of spaces at Barney Allis during construction.
Councilwoman Katheryn Shields, 4th District at-large, chairs the committee and wants to move forward on the replacement, which lies in her district. She called the funding for garage fixes a “two-year Band-Aid.”
“We can spend $125 million rebuilding a bridge that we don’t own,” Shields said, referring to the Missouri-owned Buck O’Neil Bridge. “We’re building a $43 million soccer field (in the Northland) — or certainly heading down that path — and yet, an existing city facility, which is in the heart of our convention center, we’re not moving forward to rebuild.”
Council members Kevin O’Neill, Heather Hall, Teresa Loar, Dan Fowler, Melissa Robinson, Katheryn Shields, Ryana Parks-Shaw, Andrea Bough and Kevin McManus and Mayor Quinton Lucas voted to authorize the spending.
Councilmen Brandon Ellington and Eric Bunch voted against it.
Councilman Lee Barnes did not vote.
