KCRag Forum

actually I hate Sunfresh..overpriced and bad selection....Price Chopper in Brookside is 100 times better....

The Kansas City Star, August 15, 1994

It's only one grocery store, but for older residents its closing illustrates: The Plaza problem

Author: ERIC ADLER

Until recently 69-year-old Kenneth Baker thought his life was rolling along pretty well living near the Country Club Plaza.

Because he has a bad leg, he doesn't drive. But then again he never had to. He enjoyed being independent. He took pride in it.

With a food store and drugstore right on the Plaza, he could remain self-sufficient, walking slowly from his apartment to the stores, placing delivery orders or pulling his milk, bread and other essentials home in a small metal cart.

"I don't like to depend on anybody. I'm just stubborn that way," he said.

Then in May, Baker's world changed dramatically as it did for hundreds of older Plaza area residents. Muehlbach's West - the tiny Jefferson Street grocery store, an institution for 62 years - closed for good, marking the first time ever that the Plaza proper has been without a general grocer.

Although the closing of a single store may seem relatively insignificant, and although it appears another grocer will eventually fill the void - Meiners Sun Fresh is now negotiating with J.C. Nichols Co. for the space - the closing of Muehlbach's West has become more than a temporary shopping inconvenience.

In many respects, it has also brought into sharp relief the fragile existences many older people now lead along Kansas City's most upscale shopping area and just how much, over the years, the neighborhood has changed for them.

"This area is just filled with people who are older or retired who moved here because everything was convenient," said Susann Rhodes, who has lived on the Plaza since 1958 and well remembers the days when the shopping area was home to at least two grocers and when older folks could find inexpensive meals or goods at places such as Putsch's cafeteria or Woolworth's. "But the Plaza has changed a lot. That's all gone. " Indeed, instead of cafeterias, the Plaza since the 1970s increasingly has become a place for couture and cappuccino, an upscale decision for the J.C. Nichols Co., the Plaza's developer.

But it also is a decision that some perceive as a step away from the original vision when J.C. Nichols announced the project in 1922.

Bill Worley, a historian at Sterling College in Sterling, Kan., and author of J.C. Nichols and the Shaping of Kansas City" , said that when the Plaza was built, Nichols had two markets in mind: shoppers who arrived by car and people who arrived by foot from the surrounding neighborhood, some of which he helped create.

"I think what it boils down to, looking at the company strategy, is that in the '70s and '80s, they went way upscale," Worley said.

"At this point they have completely discounted the idea that the Plaza is related to the people immediately around it. It is a destination center. " The J.C. Nichols Co. vigorously disputes that is has been less attentive to the neighborhood, pointing out that the shopping district offers numerous services and is actively trying to get a grocer in the old Muehlbach space.

"There are a lot of grocery stores in that area. They are just not located in the Plaza proper," said Kelly Sherman, J.C. Nichols vice president of communications and land development. "We still have a drugstore, a beauty salon and a place to mail packages and lots of services that are not in the limelight, but they are there and they are viable operations. " Nonetheless, some older Plaza residents still believe living on the Plaza is just not as easy as it once was.

"A lot of the older people can't even afford the meals around here anymore," said Florence Mills of Mission, who sat on the Plaza recently with her friend, Ruth Hawkins, a Plaza area resident since 1967.

Many older people, the women said, now eat at McDonald's, Mr. Good Cents or the food court in Seville Square because they are relatively affordable. Hawkins said many had come to depend on Muehlbach's.

"I have several friends who don't have wheels," she said. "They were very disappointed. Some said they might even be moving away from the Plaza. " Indeed, many older Plaza residents said that of all the changes on the Plaza, the closing of Muehlbach West was probably felt most keenly.

People without cars, such as Baker, said they now must depend on friends or relatives to help them gather items such as milk and bread.

Some walk to the Piggly Wiggly supermarket at 51st and Main streets, a few blocks south and east of the Plaza. But others fret about that same walk in the winter. Numerous residents on the west side of the Plaza already think it's too far. There are worries about traffic and what it will take to push or pull a grocery cart up Main Street's gradual uphill grade.

"I can't drive. And the Piggly Wiggly is too far up the hill.

It's quite a distance for me," Baker said.

Although the Plaza is viewed as an upscale, wealthy area, for many older people in the neighborhood that really is not true - a fact which can make relying on taxis or food delivery services, at $5 to $10 a trip, prohibitively expensive.

The 1990 U.S. Census shows that, depending on the block, between 20 and 40 percent of the homes or apartments are occupied by people 65 or older. That's about 830 households. The income in more than 45 percent of those households is less than $15,000 a year. In more than two-thirds of the homes, the individuals are at least 75 years old.

Ever since the Muehlbach closed, Bruce Smith Drugs on the Plaza has been carrying some staple foods to help some older people get by.

"We didn't carry any of this before," said drugstore worker Patty Collins standing in front of several shelves of soups, rice, breakfast cereal, flour coffee, sugar and other foods.

She said the drugstore has started ordering twice as much milk as it did before the grocer closed. The shipment that is delivered on Friday, she said, is usually gone by Monday morning. Many of the Plaza's older residents have the milk delivered.

"A lot of the older people are really complaining. They miss the Muehlbach badly. They wish there was another store," Collins said.

Apparently the Nichols Co. feels the same way.

Sherman said the Nichols Co. was disappointed when grocery owner Bob Muehlbach decided to close the store to concentrate on his other business, a pool company.

"We're attempting to find a grocer to take it over. That's our goal, although that doesn't mean there couldn't be another use," she said.

Although Sherman said she recognizes the hardship that the store's closing has caused - and hopes a new grocer will soon take over the space - she also said that in contemplating a replacement, the J.C. Nichols Co. must think about all the Plaza residents as well as those who travel to shop.

Sherman said that her demographics show that within a half-mile radius of the Plaza, people 65 and older make up 21 to 29 percent of the population, which is a minority. The average age of residents in the area is 43. She said it is important for the company to take into account all types of shoppers, not only the area residents, but also the many people who travel to the Plaza.

There also is some concern, she said, that the old Muehlbach space might be too small to attract a general grocery, that it might be too small to be profitable. The option for a more gourmet-centered store is still open, she said.

"The key is to come up with a concept that will be profitable.

And that is based on who you think the market is going to be," Sherman said. "It is our goal to make it a grocery. But we're not the ones who are going to run it. " Sam Balistreri, a manager of Meiners Sun Fresh in Brookside, said if all goes well, they hope it will be their company occupying the Muehlbach space.

"It's not 100 percent sure yet. They (the company) would have loved to already have been in there but we're hitting a lot of stumbling blocks," he said. "It will be groceries plus a full-line liquor department, plus a full-line deli with the ability to cater.

They really want to do it. " For Baker and others: The sooner, the better.

"It sure would be a blessing," he said.

"We're streamlining a little bit," Meiners said. "We felt the neighborhood needed it. We had people coming in here crying because we were leaving."