By CHRISTINE OLIVA The Kansas City Star
Date: 05/02/00 22:15
Copyright © 2000 The Kansas City Star

The Blue Springs City Council on Monday moved to give Missouri 7 a makeover when it gave the OK for a planning consultant to conduct a corridor study.

HNTB Architects Engineers Planners, which earlier studied Adams Dairy Parkway, will present the council with a comprehensive plan to improve conditions on Missouri 7, Mayor Greg Grounds said.

"It's tough to build a house if you only design the basement and then decide what's going to be on it," Grounds said. "We'll know what the end product will look like, and then we'll take the steps to make it happen."

Grounds hopes to have a draft of the plan within six months. Improvements could include burying power lines, adding landscaping, limiting the number of openings on the highway and controlling the size and number of signs.

"My view is to forget what's there and look at what you would desire such a corridor to look like," Grounds said.

But that is just the ideal, Grounds said. Because the city will not be starting from scratch, it will have to consider what already is there.

"It truly is in the interest of merchants to make sure their customers don't decide they'll shop north or south or on 39th Street," Grounds said. "If that corridor were to continue to decline in quality issues -- traffic flow, appearance, ease of use -- then the customer base will decline. And that will financially impact every business that's on that road."

To reach Christine Oliva, Blue Springs reporter, call (816) 234-7802 or send e-mail to coliva@kcstar.com