urbanSTL

moorlander wrote: ↑

Apr 22, 2025

Kansas City earns a D on its financial grade card. Taxpayers are on the hook

Truth In Accounting analyzed Kansas City’s 2023 financial report and concluded the city needs $1.6 billion more than it has to meet all its obligations. Those obligations include its unfunded pension liabilities. That shortfall works out to $8,800 per resident.

https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/read ... 62806.html

I'm going to say that in reality, it's actually an "F". Population growth in areas with existing infrastructure, which would help balance things, is far too slow to non-existent. It might be a "D" right now, but give it a few years and it'll drop to "F". Anyone in KCMO saying the city's finances are "good" are lying (in particular, Mayor Lucas).

Weiss/Manfredi and SCAPE win Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art competition

https://www.archpaper.com/2025/04/weiss ... f+apartmen

Some recent project update photos...

Tower cranes are up for the first phase of KC Current's mixed-use Berkley Riverfront project. 












Core Phase 2 at Berkley is moving along steadily.



Two Birds One Stone at Berkley Park, a restaurant and beer garden, will open soon.









Berkley Riverfront from the Heart of America (Route 9) bridge.






The 3rd and Grand project continues to rise. Improvements on the Grand side of this building include a protected bike lane (which will lead to the future pedestrian bridge to the Riverfront) and a new Streetcar stop (which will serve northbound Streetcars heading to the Riverfront).


At 415 Delaware in the River Market, a building is being redeveloped into a 51-room boutique hotel (River Market Hotel) and Italian Restaurant (Con Amore).






303 Broadway on the west side of the River Market neighborhood (next to the Buck ONeil Bridge) is moving through the approval process once again. This time for a variance to the parking minimums. This is a 10-story apartment building with 88 apartments. PortKC recently awarded incentives to the development team.






The Muehlebach Hotel at 12th and Baltimore is set to be redeveloped into 152 apartments on the building's 5th-12th floors as well as a portion of the 4th floor. This one's complicated since the lower floors are still owned and maintained by the Marriott Hotel, but it is practically vacant. Redeveloping this will be Flint Development. The project also sees the Downtown vacant building stock tick downwards once again.


1818-1822 Main is slowly getting going. Utility work is ongoing at the site. this will be a 16-story apartment building with 147 units.


The "Via" apartment project at 22nd and Wyandotte is nearing completion.





The Weaver Townhouses at 19th and Locust are nearing completion.


ArriveKC at 31st and Baltimore is rising quickly.



At 39th and State Line, "Citizen" is basically completed save for a few cosmetic things to address.




Just across the border in Kansas, "The Hudson" on Rainbow Boulevard is nearing completion.




At 39th and Roanoke, Hickok Homes is proposing a 4-story apartment building with 73 apartments, 73 parking spaces, and 1233sf of retail space. Roanoke neighborhood NIMBYs are rallying to oppose this project because they feel it's too big and dense for their neighborhood and that corner. Hickok previously planned a 5-story apartment building on this site with 93 apartments, 101 parking spaces, and 1350sf of retail space. No incentives are to be requested.

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

May 07, 2025

https://fox4kc.com/news/downtown-kansas ... ety-issue/

It feels like our downtown is going in a much different direction than neighbors across the state

Downtown KC is in bad shape. I know you were there last month.

Power and Light has reached saturation point. The Crossroads, East Village, North Loop are all crammed with empty lots and vacant buildings. As long as KC's pro sports teams and business community remain outside of 435 nothing will change. Bus service in KC might be amongst the worst in the nation for metros over 1m people. 

Brutal for kc

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... d-max.html

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

May 08, 2025

Brutal for kc

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... d-max.html

The solution I have in mind for these guys is applicable to all cities, but not politically correct.

It really feels like STL and KC are going in opposite directions and I think a lot of it will become more focused this and next year. This trend started during Covid when average salary for metro KC and STL was about the same and now people here make $6,000 more a year than people in kc

dbInSouthCity wrote:It really feels like STL and KC are going in opposite directions and I think a lot of it will become more focused this and next year. This trend started during Covid when average salary for metro KC and STL was about the same and now people here make $6,000 more a year than people in kc

An important nuance is that Kansas City’s non farm employment growth % from 2019 to present is > 2.0x St. Louis. STL however is adding higher paying jobs while KC is heavy on logistics and manufacturing.

With manufacturing and data centers taking over from logistics as the hottest industries in KC, there will be a flip where fewer jobs but higher paying jobs are added.

STL has done a tremendous job of growing biotech and med center employment.

ldai_phs wrote:

dbInSouthCity wrote:It really feels like STL and KC are going in opposite directions and I think a lot of it will become more focused this and next year. This trend started during Covid when average salary for metro KC and STL was about the same and now people here make $6,000 more a year than people in kc

An important nuance is that Kansas City’s non farm employment growth % from 2019 to present is > 2.0x St. Louis. STL however is adding higher paying jobs while KC is heavy on logistics and manufacturing.

With manufacturing and data centers taking over from logistics as the hottest industries in KC, there will be a flip where fewer jobs but higher paying jobs are added.

STL has done a tremendous job of growing biotech and med center employment.

The employment growth rates of both regions are largely unimpressive compared though. For example, KCs growth rate resulted in it being passed by Indianapolis and Nashville in 2023.

KC benefits from KS being engaged in economic development (cause it’s all KS has). IL is generally poor at growth these days and that makes it very difficult for STL to have an impressive number as an MSA.

It seems pretty clear to me that the endless sea of Kansas suburbia is throttling the Missouri side in Kansas City. 

Pretty hard to compare KC and STL when both are different on multiple levels. Age, the way they were built, why they were built, history and more. The only thing they share is that they're in Missouri and both cities have tremendous problems.

I remain convinced that KC needs to de-annex everything they have north of the Missouri River and de-annex that small portion of the city in Cass County and just have city boundaries inside of Jackson County. That consolidation would see the city's population standing collapse, but would also open city leaders eyes to the problems that residents care about (crime, infrastructure, city services). My belief is, just like in St. Louis, focusing on those quality of life issues will take the city very far.

As for how I feel about present-day KC, I'm indifferent at this point. It's nice seeing the increase in construction in the Downtown area, but it falls off a cliff once you go outside of it. It's nice seeing two Streetcar extensions underway at once, but there's nothing clear yet about the next one. Parts of the City are "busy" some days and "dead" other days. Country Club Plaza's future is still being determined by the new owners, but I think there will be some positive changes on that front. Then you have the motorbike/ATV guys who terrorize people in KC. They've been allowed to get away with it for so long that it'll be hard to clean up the problem without taking drastic measures. The baseball stadium issue is one where everyone dropped the ball. The city firing Brian Platt could cost them any chance at the stadium going downtown, but Jackson County voters share some of the blame.

I live in Overland Park now, not because I dislike KCMO, but because I could no longer afford to live in Downtown KC or on the Plaza, but all the thoughts I shared above have been developed in the nearly 2 years that I've lived here full time.

RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

May 08, 2025

It seems pretty clear to me that the endless sea of Kansas suburbia is throttling the Missouri side in Kansas City. 

This is the major problem although Missouri only has themselves to blame as well. Just look at how lop sided the stadium vote was last year. And there's a ton of crappy sprawl both new and old on that side. The decision to build the Cerner campus at the old Bannister mall site a decade ago has turned out to be a complete failure. Missouri likes to lump all their problems on Kansas and the STAR bonds handouts but the path of development there is much the same as on the other side of the state line.

Yeah though, people here think Johnson County is the best thing since sliced bread, it's really, er, an okay place to live and that's it. I guess if you're from a small town in the rural Midwest it would be, because as said above all Kansas really has is JoCo.

$900 million expansions of Mercks De Soto facility

https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... 2025-05-08

I grew up in Overland Park and went to school in Lawrence at the University of Kansas, so I'm very familiar with that K-10 corridor. 

The fact that Kansas City sprawl is now heavily hitting the DeSoto, KS area is kind of gross and an indication of sprawl nowhere near hitting its limit in that metro. 

RockChalkSTL wrote:I grew up in Overland Park and went to school in Lawrence at the University of Kansas, so I'm very familiar with that K-10 corridor. 

The fact that Kansas City sprawl is now heavily hitting the DeSoto, KS area is kind of gross and an indication of sprawl nowhere near hitting its end in that metro. 

Expansion of an existing factory

It's the battery plant that I'm thinking about. 

RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

May 08, 2025

I grew up in Overland Park and went to school in Lawrence at the University of Kansas, so I'm very familiar with that K-10 corridor. 

The fact that Kansas City sprawl is now heavily hitting the DeSoto, KS area is kind of gross and an indication of sprawl nowhere near hitting its limit in that metro. 

Yeah I live in Lenexa. The sprawl is pretty gross. Theres sub divisions down past 180th in OP now and eventually that sprawl will make it to Miami County, theres the huge STAR bond funded development at Bluhawk which has now put a sizable retail and leisure offering into deep southern JoCo. DeSoto is now starting to get retail amenities too that it never had. Gardner is pretty built out at this point and not slowing down.

The older northern section of JoCo like Roeland Park and most of Wyandotte County is looking extremely blighted now, basically cannibalizing. It ain't just Missouri thats suffering from the approach to development, Kansas is eating itself.

KC is a real tough place to live if you want urban living, hopefully I'm out of here by next year. I hate the way things happen here. The little growth it has is all well outside of 435. A couple of 5 over 1s in the River Market going up or whatever just isn't fast enough growth for me, and I don't want to live in Nashville or Austin either so my expectations aren't that high.

Armed security guards are coming to the Country Club Plaza
https://fox4kc.com/news/armed-security-guards-heading-to-kcs-country-club-plaza-via-new-owners/

There seems to be a growing belief in Kansas City that the Royals may just stay at Kauffman Stadium.

From May 2, 2025: Inaction on stadium may mean Royals stay at Kauffman
https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... lease.html

I think Kansas will poach the Chiefs. Wouldn't surprise me if they get the Royals as well.  

It’ll end up passing. Although KC will end up receiving more than $100M in general revenue FOR ***** SPORTS, the crybabies over at KCRag will say they don’t get enough attention from the state.

My take on this is that this would've been much easier if you included the Cardinals and Blues in on this for properly renovating Busch and Enterprise.

Missouri Senate has ended the regular session without taking the stadium funding issue up. It’s dead unless Mike Kehoe calls a special session for that.

According to media, Kehoe previously said that he expects a Royals Kansas announcement as soon as next week if this didn’t get through.