But more recently, Jackson County and Kansas City officials had "prodded" the building's current owners to demolish it and free up a new development opportunity, Kansas City Magazine reported in 2022.
When reporting claims like this, please identify or back up the claims with actual quotes by city or county officials, or make the Copaken/Dean identify who asked them to do this.
I call bullshit on this too. Unless the property owner is willing to tell us who was pressuring them to demolish, I believe they are making it up.
I also blame the Kansas City Magazine reporter for not investigating this original claim. The Business Journal also failed to follow up on it and repeated it. No attempt was made to get someone at the city or county level on the record about this.
https://kansascitymag.com/news/only-in ... king-ball/
The reason I find it such utter bullshit is that there are hundreds of vacant structures in the city and county sitting underutilized and I seriously doubt that city and county officials are contacting the owners and pressuring them to demolish or improve the structures.
Look how long the former Federal Reserve Bank has sat empty and I don't see anyone breathing down that property owner's neck.
Copaken and Dean are just using these reporters to do their work for them.