Loft in Name Only
Apr 5th, 2008 by mark
Downtown Kansas City is experiencing a bit of a renaissance culturally and otherwise. The city has poured a lot of money into the new Power and Light district, with the new Sprint Center as the centerpiece. New restaurants are opening, and all the old buildings, seemingly, are being converted into lofts.
Quick, what’s the image that comes to mind when you hear “lofts?” The place where Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze lived in Ghost, right? One large space with no partitions or walls. Me too. The problem is that isn’t what loft appears to mean in KC. Here, loft means “condominium where the walls don’t reach the ceiling and there’s brick, exposed duct work, and massively expensive parking.
Sibylle and I have toured two downtown lofts recently, and while we liked the first somewhat (didn’t care for the second at all), neither of us is ready to give up living in suburbia for a tony downtown address. Today’s example was, in a word, ugly. Except for reasonably close access to the new Power and Light district, it had nothing to make it appealing. When I asked the real estate agent, on the elevator up to the models, if these were lofts or condos, she insisted they were lofts. ”The walls don’t go to the ceilings.”
I’m probably splitting hairs about this, but walls that don’t reach the ceiling do not a loft make.
Kinda like “German chocolate cake” and eggs from “free-range” chickens and 2WD SUVs, isn’t it. Wanna bet that, over time, the real estate market’s redefinition of “loft” will seep into people’s consciousness as what it’s supposed to be?