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Kansas City Will Buy, Raze Royale Inn At 6th And Paseo

The Royale Inn at 6th and Paseo
Photo from Google Earth Street Views

Residents of the Northeast area of Kansas City have been trying for more than 15 years to get rid of the Royale Inn Motel. 

The now vacant motel was for years an eyesore, a trysting place, transient motel and the scene of numerous disturbances, drug deals and at least one murder.

“The Royale has been a thorn in the side of the Northeast,” is the way Northeast News Publisher Michael Bushnell put it when addressing a City Council committee on Thursday.

Later in the day the full Kansas City Council approved the expenditure of $2.7 million to buy the motel, tear it down and clean up the site.

It is part of a plan to reconfigure the intersection of Independence Avenue and Paseo to create a new “gateway” to the Northeast area and promote economic development.

As part of that project, the city has got a $30 million federal grant to raze the old Choauteau Court housing project and create improvements to the neighborhood around it.

Steve Bell is afternoon news anchor and business news reporter for KCUR.  He may be reached at 816-235-5173 or steveb@kcur.org

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