Business View Magazine | July 2020

153 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2020 KANSAS C I TY , KANSAS with excellent accessibility from any place in the city. The core area has a genuine sense of authenticity – old, ethnic neighborhoods that still attract people to visit. “There are great opportunities to bring density to our downtown,” says Alvey. “In the older parts of our city, we have about 4000 vacated properties in our landbank and we’re trying to bring housing redevelopment to scale in that. It’s like a blank canvas; if we can build affordable housing and beautiful, quality neighborhoods we can repopulate the older parts of our city, which will further drive downtown development and help us generate the tax revenues we need to provide the services for quality of life, and create a good neighborhood experience.” A successful downtown core requires the presence of certain businesses, such as a supermarket. And KCK took a bold and creative move to make that happen. Cartarr admits, “After many years of working to get a grocery store to come into our downtown, voluntarily, the city Those were huge influences toward altering people’s perception of Kansas City, Kansas, especially in the metro area, which was seen as poor, crime-ridden, and blighted. Having a brand new, state-of-the-art development has been particularly beneficial on the revenue side. Property taxes before that development were about $200,000 a year and now it’s about $2.4 million a year. The city is also generating about $12 million a year in sales tax from that development. It’s the number one tourist destination for the state of Kansas, drawing 10 to 12 million visitors every year. In addition, there are extensive industrial areas that remain very strong. The Fairfax District was the first planned industrial district in the country. It was developed by Union Pacific to make money from their real estate along the railroad and continues doing well, as do other industrial and commercial districts. KCK has a plethora of advantages. It is in close proximity to downtown Kansas City, Missouri,