Oh, the freedom

As seen from the Liberty lofts, still under construction, looking north at the tracks that run behind Union Station.

The view is free for now, as it was a week ago during a tour through the Urban Living Center, but if you would like to move your furniture into this dusty shell once the dust has settled, plan on spending $129,000 for 662 square feet of a place that was the last American destination for recruits off to wars during the 1950s through 1980s.

The primo units, which both are "two storys" (one of these is a half-floor, of course, with a second bathroom), are $369,000 for 1,454 sq. ft. and $489,000 for 1,942 sq. ft.

There are 25 units; the one that's $219,000 and 972 sq. ft. and lacks the "Hollywood bath" (meaning that all you get is a cheesy pre-fab tub/shower unit and no tile) is already sold.

Marketing information details "why" The Liberty was chosen to name this building's residential rebirth from its dull Armed Services Building past:

well, it's by Liberty Memorial, sure. We get that, even though most of what you can see from the windows is the giant IRS complex to the south.

The other two reasons, both sentence fragments, are stretching it a bit, I think:

Second, out of respect for its most recent previous use.

And Finally, because The Liberty allows homeowners a lifestyle of "personal liberty."

Ah, yes, the freedom to spend way more than something is worth "just because" you think it's a good deal and/or are just jazzed about Kansas City's loft and condo and luxury downtown "boom."

The folks along with me (who was doing this as a favor and for the wine and snacks) did not seem as skeptical as I; my favorite was a blonde 30-something woman (heck, maybe 20-something) who was so pleased with herself to tell her companion (perhaps mother) that she had picked up one of the "decorator's cards" from a piece of furniture in one of the lofts (tour included Metropolitan Condos on Eighth, 700 Broadway, The Coffee Lofts, Riverbend Lofts and Old Orchard at Fifth and Grand, too), "because I really like how they have done it and I want to have them do my place, too."

I don't know if she was talking about a loft in her future or some home she already occupied, but it made me laugh inside, mean as I am in front of others' spontaneous and private comments, that she was so "impressed" by a few sticks of mod-looking furniture and a non-white-walls paint job.

It made me ill, too, that at one of the locations, if one did not choose, for example, to pay the extra $1,000 for a kitchen upgrade (mind you, on a place that has already been occupied once at least), then you'd be stuck with cabinets that are so cheap that they have featured in a number of apartment renovations I've seen, the kind where you are only going to ask for $500 a month in rent, plus an electric "stove" and refrigerator from the 1980s.