News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
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…
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…
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…
County Line Ice House Smokin’ Downtown for Big 12 Tournament
By Kevin Collison The much-anticipated County Line Ice House, a tasty collaboration between Joe’s Kansas City and Back Napkin, is scheduled to open tonight in the Power & Light District, just in time for next week’s Big 12 Basketball Tournament. Jeff Stehney, founder of the nationally-renowned Joe’s, said the new 9,500 square-foot restaurant that’s taking…