Wizards Stadium at Bannister Mall

[briantsmith25]

Good deal, Briantsmith25. The season begins in march. They can't play at Arrowhead. Give us your solution. Or would you rather just bitch and moan? If you can't give a f*ck, then why are you posting? I know sitting on the sidelines and being judgemental is a lot of fun, but try to come up with a viable solution for once.  Just a suggestion.

And yea, Bannister is not a great place now. Something needs to be done to turn the area around. Its location gives it tremendous potential. For those who condem the idea of a soccer stadium there, what are your suggestions for improving the area? 

Geez.. Somebody's sure does have your pink panties in a bunch today... Dude, You, nor I, nor anyone else on this forum makes any decsions for the city. This forum is for people to sit on the sidelines and bitch!!!! No matter how good anyone's solution is it will never matter. I wish people's solutions on this forum did matter.... I think that there are some very intelligent people on here.....But they don't. So calm down. Nice suggestion though.

[LenexatoKCMO]

I know what I am about to post may be a bit of a hijack and certainly controversial, with a lot of racial baggage but here goes - is it really such a bad thing that Banister Mall and SE KC in general have become the center of economic and social depression in the city?  Barring a revolutionary change allowing the city to become a socialist paradise, one could say that it is inevitable that there will always be a concentration(s) with major economic challenges and the accompanying social problems.  Over the last 10-20 years a lot of the poor, ghettoized urban population has migrated towards the bannister and SE area in KC from places closer to the urban core.  An idealist would look at the situation and say that those folks should be lifted up from poverty and integrated with the rest of society but the realist in me knows better than to think that is ever going to happen in my lifetime.  So if it is a given that we are going to have a ghetto of a large, poor, disafected minority group in KC, is the SE really such a bad place?  From a practical perspective - it is far from the core.  If we try and force development on the area, is that going to do anything other than cause gentrification and push further migration?  

[kcmetro]

I know what I am about to post may be a bit of a hijack and certainly controversial, with a lot of racial baggage but here goes - is it really such a bad thing that Banister Mall and SE KC in general have become the center of economic and social depression in the city?  Barring a revolutionary change allowing the city to become a socialist paradise, one could say that it is inevitable that there will always be a concentration(s) with major economic challenges and the accompanying social problems.  Over the last 10-20 years a lot of the poor, ghettoized urban population has migrated towards the bannister and SE area in KC from places closer to the urban core.  An idealist would look at the situation and say that those folks should be lifted up from poverty and integrated with the rest of society but the realist in me knows better than to think that is ever going to happen in my lifetime.  So if it is a given that we are going to have a ghetto of a large, poor, disafected minority group in KC, is the SE really such a bad place?  From a practical perspective - it is far from the core.  If we try and force development on the area, is that going to do anything other than cause gentrification and push further migration?  

That's along the lines of what I was going to post. We should just leave that area alone because there's no reason to put a soccer stadium in the middle of the "ghetto". Who goes to Wizards games? Rich white folks from JOCO, not Deandre and Lonzell from Raytown. So there's no need to push that crap on an area that isn't going to support it. North KC, fine, Joco, fine, VW, fine, but Bannister Mall??? You think developers would be jumping at the opportunity to invest in that? Nope.

[briantsmith25]

I know what I am about to post may be a bit of a hijack and certainly controversial, with a lot of racial baggage but here goes - is it really such a bad thing that Banister Mall and SE KC in general have become the center of economic and social depression in the city?  Barring a revolutionary change allowing the city to become a socialist paradise, one could say that it is inevitable that there will always be a concentration(s) with major economic challenges and the accompanying social problems.  Over the last 10-20 years a lot of the poor, ghettoized urban population has migrated towards the bannister and SE area in KC from places closer to the urban core.  An idealist would look at the situation and say that those folks should be lifted up from poverty and integrated with the rest of society but the realist in me knows better than to think that is ever going to happen in my lifetime.  So if it is a given that we are going to have a ghetto of a large, poor, disafected minority group in KC, is the SE really such a bad place?  From a practical perspective - it is far from the core.  If we try and force development on the area, is that going to do anything other than cause gentrification and push further migration?  

I don't find that offensive at all, nor do I find it contraversial. You are stating the facts. Why do you think Bannister failed??? Its a shitty area. Building a stadium there will not make it a safer area. I think you are right in every way in that post and it is not racial at all.

[briantsmith25]

. Who goes to Wizards games? Rich white folks from JOCO, not Deandre and Lonzell from Raytown.

[shinatoo]

DO NOT tear down Bannister Mall. Tear down the strip mall that Hyper-mart used to be in. Build the stadium there.

There is no reason that the 4 Big box retail spaces couldn't be saved and the adjoining "indoor mall" space converted into outdoor/walkable mall space, a la Zona Rosa or Branson landing. You are looking a huge swath of land that could be converted into wonderful high density suburban development.

Branson landing was really my inspiration for this idea. It has a Bass pro at one end, we could have too. Thank you very little John Q. Hammonds.  

[kard]

Branson landing was really my inspiration for this idea. It has a Bass pro at one end, we could have too. Thank you very little John Q. Hammonds.  

(Johnny Morris is Bass Pro.  JQH is hotels.)

[shinatoo]

(Johnny Morris is Bass Pro.  JQH is hotels.)

John Q. testified at a Olathe Council meeting, where he was presenting his arena plan, that he had talked Johnny Morris out of locating at Bannister. That was about a week before Bass Pro dropped Bannister.

[KCMax]

When I was in college, I was a pretty doe-eyed Johnson Countian, but I had a summer job by Bannister Mall and never had the impression it was ghetto. Guess that's just me.

[dangerboy]

The Bannister area is not ghetto.  It's a working-class white neighborhood that has begun to change as the black working class and to some extent the black middle class have moved in.

Bannister Mall failed because of perception, not reality.  Because it was on several bus lines from the "real" ghetto it had a higher percentage of black customers than most suburban malls.  The clientale was still mostly white, but it gained a reputation as the "black mall"  and whites immediately abandoned it.

[GRID]

That's along the lines of what I was going to post. We should just leave that area alone because there's no reason to put a soccer stadium in the middle of the "ghetto". Who goes to Wizards games? Rich white folks from JOCO, not Deandre and Lonzell from Raytown. So there's no need to push that crap on an area that isn't going to support it. North KC, fine, Joco, fine, VW, fine, but Bannister Mall??? You think developers would be jumping at the opportunity to invest in that? Nope.

First off.

Johnson County doesn't want a soccer stadium.  The residents of JoCo have been ripping the new owners of the wizards a new one since the day they bought the team.  They couldn't wait to tell a big time big league team to go to hell, they are not building a palace for them to play in.  It's a suburban, conservative county that is more than willing to let poor old jackson county build palaces so they have a place to be entertained but by god, they are against the idea themselves and they took that out on the little old wizards and their new owners who wanted nothing more than to keep the team in KC.  And the people that do want a stadium, will vote for it as long as it's not within 10 miles of their homes.  NIMBYS...

Second.

Why not banister mall?  It's right on the freeway in a very high profile location, the area around the mall is getting a ton of infrastructure upgrades.  All those ramps modot built as part of the triangle project for those massive shopping crowds they had in the 80's could very well serve a soccer complex and other new mixed use development.  Plus 87th is being widened into a parkway from 435 to 71 and the stretch from 435 to Blue Ridge is being rebuilt.

Third.

The area around Bannister Mall was far from "ghetto" when the area went down the tubes.  It was a very nice, working class, even middle class area.  They don't just throw 3 million sq ft of retail up in five years anywhere.  KCMO did screw the area up by putting way to many HUD houses in the areas of Hickman Mills and Ruskin and that scared off white people in droves, brought a home building boom to a screeching halt (you can still see that around James A Read and Bannister where the building just stopped) and gave Raytown and Grandview a horrible and undeserved reputation at the same time because people associated those areas with bannister mall.  The press had a freaking heyday over car thefts that were no more common than Oak Park Mall etc and bannister mall overeacted by installing "security towers".  This is another issue that KCMO faces.  Where do they put all the HUD and section 8 housing?  There is even a lot of it in the northland and far east KCMO as they were forced to spread out the housing throughout the city.  These kinds of issues are not even imagined in most of the suburbs, especially the JoCo suburbs.

Fourth.

Why not rebuild Bannister.  It's still not "ghetto" and the area around it still has a ton of potential, especially now that those inner city bus lines will be taking people to the next shopping area that will soon face similar urban problems that simply don't exist in JoCo...The Blue Ridge Mall.

The Bannister Mall area should be a top priority now for KCMO and Missouri.  Screw all the "City Walk" crap in Lee's Summit and use those supertiffs and modeasa incentives to rebuild this area.

This area still has a ton of

[chrizow]

We should just leave that area alone because there's no reason to put a soccer stadium in the middle of the "ghetto". Who goes to Wizards games? Rich white folks from JOCO, not Deandre and Lonzell from Raytown.

(a) i guarantee you there are wizards fans in south KC, raytown, and grandview.
(b) the Bannister location has great proximity to JoCo (maybe not West JoCo) as well as the fast-growing, relatively affluent MO burbs like Lee's Summit, Blue Springs, Raymore, etc.  the only people that would be screwed by a Bannister location might be Northland folks.

[GRID]

(a) i guarantee you there are wizards fans in south KC, raytown, and grandview.
(b) the Bannister location has great proximity to JoCo (maybe not West JoCo) as well as the fast-growing, relatively affluent MO burbs like Lee's Summit, Blue Springs, Raymore, etc.  the only people that would be screwed by a Bannister location might be Northland folks.

Not really, most of the northland is within 20 minutes from the northland, a straight shot down 435.  Now if the stadium were at 159th and 69 then yea, the northland get screwed.

[NDTeve]

Northland would be nice. But I like the Bass Pro comparison...give people a reason to go to the area..not that people did when the Wizards played at Arrowhead...

[Sportster]

I'm kind of doing a mental inventory ( I know - short list, huh!) of some of the more centrally located "stadium" complexes currently used by, say, Rockhurst Univ or UMKC. Any chance of those being re-fitted (for lack of a better term) for MLS use?
Also semi-wondering if they'll play down where their original "spring training" fields were in Swope Park, possible striking a deal w/ KCMO Parks & Rec.

Given their season starts the 3rd week of March, I'd say they've pretty much got to go with something already established, with ample parking for 2-3,000 cars. Given that - what are the choices - cuz I KNOW Kansas City (the city bureaucracy) DAMN sure isn't capable of putting anything together on this scale  in 90 days!

Sportster
...genuinely curious

[KCMax]

I'm kind of doing a mental inventory ( I know - short list, huh!) of some of the more centrally located "stadium" complexes currently used by, say, Rockhurst Univ or UMKC. Any chance of those being re-fitted (for lack of a better term) for MLS use?

Rockhurst HS football stadium is awfully big and could probably accomodate quite a few fans.

[im2kull]

Who goes to Wizards games? Rich white folks from JOCO, not Deandre and Lonzell from Raytown.

I love it when people quit trying to make sense of nonsense and throw all thier over analyzing bullshi* out the window.  I love seeing the results of good old plain common sense...

Thanks KCmetro

[KCFutbol]

I'm kind of doing a mental inventory ( I know - short list, huh!) of some of the more centrally located "stadium" complexes currently used by, say, Rockhurst Univ or UMKC. Any chance of those being re-fitted (for lack of a better term) for MLS use?


Also semi-wondering if they'll play down where their original "spring training" fields were in Swope Park, possible striking a deal w/ KCMO Parks & Rec.

The old training site will once again be the Wizards permanent training site. The team will be investing over $1 million upgrading it.

Given their season starts the 3rd week of March, I'd say they've pretty much got to go with something already established, with ample parking for 2-3,000 cars. Given that - what are the choices - cuz I KNOW Kansas City (the city bureaucracy) DAMN sure isn't capable of putting anything together on this scale  in 90 days!


Sportster
...genuinely curious

The first home match is May 5th and the final decision on a temporary site should be announced in 7 to 10 days.

[aknowledgeableperson]

The Bannister Mall area should be a top priority now for KCMO and Missouri.  Screw all the "City Walk" crap in Lee's Summit and use those supertiffs and modeasa incentives to rebuild this area.

Sorry, just couldn't pass this up.  The new GSA building would be a good start.  And the parking is already there - and public transportation - and highways.

[GRID]

Sorry, just couldn't pass this up.  The new GSA building would be a good start.  And the parking is already there - and public transportation - and highways.

I would be all for them building a new office complex at bannister mall, especially over the riverfront.  That, along with Cerner moving in would do wonders for the area and would probably be enough to spark a massive mixed use project (like east village) on the site of bannister mall/benjamen plaza.