Kansas City’s Power & Light District An Open-Air Food Court
Kansas City’s Power & Light District was developed by The Cordish Companies, the same developer selected by the Cardinals in 2006 for Ballpark Village. Â I’ve over simplified in the headline — it is more than a food court.
There are streets that continue the existing downtown street grid but the main area is a self contained central area. Â As with an indoor mall, this is private –not public, space. Unlike the public square, don’t plan to organize any government protests here. Â It has the generic feel of an indoor mall, without the air conditioning or heating.
Granted it is dressed in the latest style — lots of metal internally and brick facing the streets.
I visited on a very cold Saturday morning so both the sidewalks and the central Main Stage area were largely vacant. Â I will visit again in the Spring on a weekday and weekend night.
The evening after my morning visit three friends picked me up at my midtown hotel for dinner downtown. Â Did we go to a place at the Power & Light? Â Uh, no. Â We went to a locally owned restaurant in the nearby River Market District. Like St. Louis, Kansas City has a great restaurant scene but projects like Power & Light and Ballpark Village are more about formula restaurants than local places. Â The question I have is if both can co-exist? Â Will the influx of a concentration of tax subsidized new eateries make it difficult for existing places to compete? Â Or will downtown see an increase in the number of diners so existing & new survive?
Call me a snob, but I don’t see myself patronizing restaurants at Ballpark Village.
– Steve Patterson
If you're ever in Louisville, check out 4th Street Live. It's another, older Cordish project, and similar in execution and feel. And I agree, it's a proven formula that's not that much different from a suburban mall. As for coexistence, yes, it seems to be working, since they appeal to and attract different people. The Cordish projects seem to attract suburbanites and out-of-towners, those who want some predictability in their adventure, while the local establishments seem to attract both locals and “more-adventurous” non-locals looking for less predictability.
I agree…It's likely BPV will attract a different crowd that wouldnt have hit downtown, Soulard or Benton Park to eat anyway…
I, unlike Steve, will likely frequent BPV…I love Mango, Copia and the Dubliner, personally, but I go to TGIFridays and Hooter's downtown as well…
There is much fun to be had at Cordish entertainment districts, but I love unique, home-grown even better…
The place looks like Union Station…
I wish they would just build towers near Busch and let Cordish play with some money in Union Station…
The 10 blocks of Clark Ave between Busch & Union Station needs some serious attention to improve the connection. With Scottrade and MetroLink near the mid point this could be a key street in the city.
I think that their cost of new construction development has the lease prices out of reach for most local eatery owners. I was told long ago by my KC relatives that they wanted Gates or Arthur Bryant's BBQ in there, but they were priced out.
I've been to the Louisville development, which is called 4th Street Live, same name Cordish uses everywhere. It is very heavy on chain bars… only a few that I would really consider a restaurant, and very little real retail (a Borders books and one other apparel store, a CVS, and rest is bars). They re-did a 1980's mall that basically enclosed an existing street, by taking the ends off, so from the start it has a “mall” feel.
The street is open during the day, but blocked off in the evenings. To top off the mall feel, they have mall like security people that stamp your hand as you walk in… no joke. A friend in KC told me that some Westport bars are suffering due to people going to Power & Light, so it will be interesting to see if the same thing happens here with the Landing… if BPV ever really gets built.
Excellent points Paul, BPV may be more a threat to the Landing than to Washington Ave restaurants.
Local dining definitely co-exists with Power & Light, which serves a very different audience than our main local dining districts in the Crossroads, River Market, Westport, West 39th Street, and Brookside.
Don't count on significant local presence in Ballpark Village. P&L rents are very high, so restaurants tend to be large national chains or or Cordish subsidiaries. A couple of locally-owned restaurants with good financing have done OK in P&L, but Cordish's efforts to reach out to other local restaurants have failed.