Wichita

Want to talk about your favorite places besides Kansas City? Post any development news or questions about other cities here.
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GRID
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Re: Wichita

Post by GRID »

AlkaliAxel wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 3:14 pm
Critical_Mass wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 2:52 pm
AlkaliAxel wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 12:13 pm We’re letting little bitty Wichita beat us to making a ballpark district all because they’re scared of some suburban dads with 3 year olds in JoCo?
Who is 'we'? I didn't realize the Royals organization was in a race with the Wichita Wind Surge to build the next ballpark adjacent development in the midwest.
Looks nice, and good for Wichita. I don't think a hotel and some entertainment options surrounding a 12,000 capacity AA ballpark is going to compete much with the Royals so you can calm down.
Lol. The Royals main base is Kansas. It's essentially Kansas's team. The fact a far inferior team & city in Kansas is beating them to doing something so obvious is embarrassing, yes.
Why do people think this? The Royals and the Chiefs have more fans from MO than KS. I have been told this by people that work for the teams in the past when dealing with season tickets etc. And most people that live in KS live near KC, not Wichita.

The AA team in Wichita has no impact on the Royals. If anything, a stronger team down there will get more people interested in making the drive to see MLB in KC. (and it doesn't matter if they play at the TSC or Downtown). How they are playing matters a lot more.
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AlkaliAxel
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Re: Wichita

Post by AlkaliAxel »

GRID wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 3:51 pm
AlkaliAxel wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 3:14 pm
Critical_Mass wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 2:52 pm

Who is 'we'? I didn't realize the Royals organization was in a race with the Wichita Wind Surge to build the next ballpark adjacent development in the midwest.
Looks nice, and good for Wichita. I don't think a hotel and some entertainment options surrounding a 12,000 capacity AA ballpark is going to compete much with the Royals so you can calm down.
Lol. The Royals main base is Kansas. It's essentially Kansas's team. The fact a far inferior team & city in Kansas is beating them to doing something so obvious is embarrassing, yes.
Why do people think this? The Royals and the Chiefs have more fans from MO than KS. I have been told this by people that work for the teams in the past when dealing with season tickets etc. And most people that live in KS live near KC, not Wichita.

The AA team in Wichita has no impact on the Royals. If anything, a stronger team down there will get more people interested in making the drive to see MLB in KC. (and it doesn't matter if they play at the TSC or Downtown). How they are playing matters a lot more.
Again, I'm not saying it's gonna have an impact on the Royals. I'm saying it's embarrassing that we're the only city in our whole region that doesn't have a real sports district. Even Wichita has it.
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AlkaliAxel
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Re: Wichita

Post by AlkaliAxel »

dukuboy1 wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 1:30 pm
AlkaliAxel wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:57 pm
Critical_Mass wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 3:54 pm

Fixed it for you.
What is it, 1/3rd of Kansas' population is in metro KC? Are you worried about tourist dollars from Emporia, KS heading down to Wichita to catch second-tier minor league baseball instead of coming to KC for professional level? LOL, well, they opened the $75 million stadium in Wichita a year ago and have a record attendance of 7,908 (May 11, 2021). This will have minimal, if any, impact on Royals attendance. It's nice for the people who live in Wichita. And you do know that there are other midwestern cities that already have downtown baseball stadiums and adjacent development districts, right?
Nope Kansas is still its state. And no I'm not worried about Wichita taking money away but it just goes to show how far behind we are in this from literally every other city, even the puny ones.
This line of thinking seems to be a bit of a stretch as to the impact to KC. Good for them to build a ballpark downtown. KC is going to build a MLB stadium and district downtown, which will be awesome. What we do here with the Royals has no impact to Wichita. The stadium they are building is the same size & capacity as what is being built for the KC Current. Plus do you stay awake at night worrying about the impact of the Monarchs on the Royals?

Now I will say it stunk when the Royals left Wichita & moved jumped ship to Arkansas to be the AA affiliate. The old Wranglers had a lot o talent come through their on the way to the majors. But this development should not concern us in the least. Maybe reinforce the idea of people wanting to enjoy baseball in a vibrant downtown environment. Maybe that will get the "JOCO Dads" as you mentioned before more at ease with the concept. If people in suburbs of sleepy ol' Wichita can go downtown for a game I suspect KC will manage it as well. 8)
Idk why everyone is so triggered by this statement lol. I'm just saying we're way way behind on the concept of building a stadium district.
longviewmo
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Re: Wichita

Post by longviewmo »

A single hotel is a bit short of a stadium district. All they’ve done so far is move a street closer to the river and tear down like 4-5 whole blocks of old housing and retail for parking on gravel lots.

I’d also like to point out they did actually build this in 13 months from my post on the last page… and then it sat 13 more months because of the pandemic 😶
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Re: Wichita

Post by dukuboy1 »

Not triggered, just trying to understand the context of the comment. If the intent was to say that KC is behind on developing downtown baseball, then yes we all understand, and most of the board has been championing that idea for years. But the comparisons used were a bit "apples to oranges" in my opinion. But the point is valid, Wichita saw to invest in their downtown with baseball, much like Omaha to the north of us.

KC really needs to get after it and now we appear to have an owner (and ownership group) that is willing to make that happen and more importantly kick in their own money. The Glass family was not willing to kick in their own money to complete such a project. More all but 3-4 yrs of their ownership tenure they were absentee landlords who were going to make sure they turned a profit and could also cry poor to MLB to ensure they got the biggest handouts to fuel their profitability.
longviewmo
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Re: Wichita

Post by longviewmo »

And the Wichita stadium is on the same block as the old one, so it’s not like they had to start completely from scratch.
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Cratedigger
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Re: Wichita

Post by Cratedigger »

https://archive.ph/dGmeO

Kansas courting another billion dollar investment under the APEX incentive program.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and leadership from the Kansas Legislature will meet Thursday afternoon to consider approving a massive APEX state incentives package that could bring more than a billion dollars and thousands of jobs to Wichita, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the behind-the-scenes negotiations.
Rumor according to KC Star (or the Wichita Eagle) is that it is a semiconductor factory for Integra Technologies which is already headquartered in Wichita
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Anthony_Hugo98
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Re: Wichita

Post by Anthony_Hugo98 »

Cratedigger wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 5:39 pm https://archive.ph/dGmeO

Kansas courting another billion dollar investment under the APEX incentive program.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and leadership from the Kansas Legislature will meet Thursday afternoon to consider approving a massive APEX state incentives package that could bring more than a billion dollars and thousands of jobs to Wichita, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the behind-the-scenes negotiations.
Rumor according to KC Star (or the Wichita Eagle) is that it is a semiconductor factory for Integra Technologies which is already headquartered in Wichita
Good news for the state at least. I imagine Wichita could definitely start trending well for growth with something like this. Their core leaves a lot to be desired, but good opportunities for density for sure.
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normalthings
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Re: Wichita

Post by normalthings »

empires228
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Re: Wichita

Post by empires228 »

Good news for Wichita! If the plant gets to full capacity they are estimating that over 5,000 jobs (including jobs brought by ancillary companies) would be brought to the metro, which would be great for the anemic growth inside the city proper and the flat out negative job growth in previously stable Newton. Depending on where the plant is, this, it could be really good for some of the outlying towns like Augusta, Garden Plain, Wellington, or even Hutchinson.

Right now the geography of the metro has been pushing westwards where most middle class families are buying and building new homes while the east side, which has some barriers with Jabara Airport, the Beech factory/airport and the city limits of Bel Aire and Andover has been seeing the development of higher end homes and shops. The south side with the exception of Derby is largely an economic wasteland where little gets built or redeveloped. This has been good for Derby because it allows them to bat above their weight and land things like Kohls and Dillons Marketplace, but south of Kellogg was getting pretty rough even back in the early 80s when I had relatives living down near the old Wichita Mall.
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