KC Live’s Theater-Size Video Screen Debuts for Big 12 Tournament
It’s become harder to leave the pre-game partying in the Kansas City Live! courtyard to walk over to the actual event at Sprint Center. The Power & Light District has replaced its previous low-def screen with a theater-size panel that offers a much sharper image. If Thursday was any indication, the fans downtown for the…
Novel Restaurant Opening New Chapter in East Crossroads
By Kevin Collison Novel KC restaurant will be packing up the house soon–literally–and moving from the Westside neighborhood to the East Crossroads. After operating five years in a cozy house at 815 W. 17t St., the fine-dining restaurant, it’s actually about “Novel American cuisine” not books, is relocating to 1927 McGee St. and plans to…
Police to ‘Educate’ Downtown Motorists Before Parking Crackdown
Updated with message from City Manager: Starting Monday, April 9, @kcpolice will increase downtown parking enforcement. Warning tickets will be issued for a short period, however, if the parking violation is a safety concern, or impedes the natural flow of traffic, a citation could be issued. More details here. Downtown motorists will have an “education”…
Tribe Bringing World Street Food to River Market
By Kevin Collison The new Tribe street kitchen opening next month in the River Market wants to be to your appetite what world music is to your ears. “All of us have experienced cultures throughout the world,” said co-founder Sam Hagan. “We came to the conclusion that different cultures are brought together by food and…
Sympathetic Vibrations | The Death of the Album
Could shifting industry trends lead to the death of the traditional format? The ground beneath the music industry has not stopped shifting since Napster peer-shared its way across college dorm rooms with broadband speed in the late 90s. And as we have seen before, the value of music may have permanently changed as a result….
Snake Saturday & Other Weekend Possibilities
Jeff Stehney has long maintained that he won’t open another Joe’s Kansas City, but that doesn’t mean he’s done experimenting with smoked meats and barbecue. In the past several years, he’s gone back on the competitive barbecue circuit and now has a new concept featuring his barbecue. County Road Ice House (100 E. 14th St.) opened last…
Final Local Push Underway to Extend Streetcar from Downtown to UMKC
By Kevin Collison The complex process required to extend the streetcar from downtown to the University of Missouri-Kansas City is nearing the end of the line, at least locally, with voters along the route now eligible to apply for ballots for the upcoming mail-in election. Beginning this week, registered voters within the Transportation Development District…
Gentrification: The Westside
In the historic Westside neighborhood, “gentrification” has become a hotly contested word. From long-term residents to real estate developers, a neighborhood meeting shows there’s the pull between old and new, and a question of the right way to evolve a neighborhood. This video is part of a larger project from Kansas City PBS and Flatland…
River Market Rallies Against Deportation of Blue Line Manager
By Kim Mueller Patrons poured out of The Blue Line Hockey Bar in the River Market and marched Monday in support of bar manager Leticia Stegall who was deported Friday as part of an immigration enforcement operation. “Look at all these people who are here for you,” Jennifer told her mom, Leticia Stegall, as the…
Strange Days Arrive in the River Market
By Kevin Collison Strange Days’ day has finally arrived in the River Market. Nathan Howard opened his international-theme microbrewery last weekend at 316 Oak St. after a couple of months delay awaiting city approvals. “We started brewing in early December and anticipated an opening in mid-to late January,” he said. “We hit a little delay…
Tap List | City Barrel Brewing Company Announces Crossroads Location
The Crossroads will have a sixth brewery by the end of the year. Co-founders James Stutsman, Grant Waner and Joe Giammonco recently announced plans to build City Barrel Brewing Company (1916 Grand St.), a 15-barrel brewery with a 2,500 square-foot taproom that seats 150 people. A 1,000 square-foot patio with an additional 75 seats will face…
Dream of Reconnecting Downtown to Crossroads with Park Over South Loop Costs Much Less
By Kevin Collison A longtime dream to reconnect downtown with the Crossroads by decking the 1960s era South Loop trench may be closer to reality under a new plan that slices more than $60 million from earlier cost estimates. The study done by HNTB at the request of the Downtown Council and partly funded by…
Can You Improve an Area Without Gentrifying It?
By Anne Kniggendorf As a traffic engineer, Jay Aber worries that some of the improvements he designs have the exact opposite effect of what he had hoped. “We try to improve the street for the people who live there,” Aber said. “Then, the people who live there end up getting pushed out in favor of…
The Inside Job
The Marlborough Community Coalition’s Facebook page recently featured a newspaper story documenting the surprising luxury housing and commercial development boom taking place a few miles north in Kansas City’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. The story was accompanied by a message: “Change can happen!” In fact, a different kind of change already is happening in Marlborough, the…
Ceremony Salutes Start of 24-Story Convention Hotel Project
By Kevin Collison Kansas City’s long quest to build a downtown convention hotel culminated Thursday on a sparkling morning at a formal groundbreaking by the construction site at 17th and Baltimore. More than 200 people celebrated the construction start of the 800-room Loews Kansas City Convention Center Hotel, a $322.7 million project that’s expected to…