After eight years of elections, planning, fundraising and construction, the Main Street streetcar extension is nearing completion.
The exact opening date has yet to be announced, but you might spot trains loaded with sandbags and water running up and down the track to make sure the completed rails are safe for passengers.
Soon, passengers will be able to take the streetcar from the University of Missouri-Kansas City to Union Station, River Market and beyond. Donna Mandelbaum, a spokesperson for the KC Streetcar Authority, said they’re aiming to get passengers on the streetcar by the third quarter of 2025.
For Kansas City’s development community, the new $351 million streetcar extension marks a milestone in the revitalization of midtown. Over the past few years, vacant lots and dilapidated historic buildings have slowly started to fill up with fresh apartments and retail.
In all, more than 1,400 new apartment units have been proposed and/or constructed along the streetcar extension since 2017.
Bob Mayer, a partner with Exact Architects, which is renovating some historic buildings along Main Street, expects development to pick up once the streetcar is fully operational.
He compared it to the downtown streetcar — once it opened, Main Street attracted a wave of development that’s still continuing today.
“I have no doubt in my mind that over the next five years,” Mayer said, “we’re going to see some great things emerge all the way from Union Station all the way to UMKC.”
Here’s a roundup of a dozen new and renovated development projects — or empty lots where proposals failed — that you’ll spot when you take your first streetcar ride down Main Street.
WWI Museum & Memorial
2700 Main Street
One of the first development proposals linked to the streetcar extension emerged in 2021 for a vacant lot at the corner of 27th and Main streets.
Fidelity Life Insurance proposed an 11-story office building on the piece of land near Crown Center and the National World War I Museum and Memorial.
The proposal also included 400 parking spaces, which drew criticism from Councilmember Eric Bunch at the time.
“There are literally thousands of parking spaces within two blocks of this project, and here we are, incentivizing a project with 400 parking spaces,” Bunch said, according to the Kansas City Business Journal.
The City Council approved a 15-year tax break, but the developer never submitted final plans. The incentives expired, Fidelity Life Insurance moved to an existing Crown Center building and the land remains undeveloped.
Union Hill
Streetcar Lofts
One block east of a future streetcar stop, parking lots and vacant land line the north side of 31st Street. This is the site of a proposed 240-unit apartment complex.
The Streetcar Lofts, proposed by Sunflower Development Group, will be a cluster of five residential buildings. The developer seeks a $9.4 million property tax break from the Port Authority of Kansas City, which gave its first round of approval (out of three) to the developer on Oct. 28.
The apartments will not contain any affordable housing units. Instead, the developer will contribute $750,000 to Kansas City’s housing trust fund. Port KC estimates that could fund 55 affordable units elsewhere in the city.
Construction of the $67 million project could begin this year and wrap up in 2027.
Arrive KC
Across Main Street from the future Streetcar Lofts, a massive apartment complex is under construction at 31st Street and Baltimore Avenue, replacing the former Trinity Lutheran Hospital, which blighted the neighborhood for two decades after it closed.
Once complete, the 500,000-square-foot building will include 373 apartment units, as well as a heated pool, a rock-climbing wall, a sports simulator room, a yoga studio — and no affordable housing.
The project received a 15-year property tax break from the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority through its short-lived development corporation.
RideKC Development Corp. was known for approving large tax breaks to developers outside of the city’s process, allowing them to dodge affordable-housing requirements and the required third-party “but-for” analysis.
All other development agencies in Kansas City award tax breaks to developers based on how much money they needed to break even. RideKC took a different approach, awarding tax breaks to developers as a reward for including transit-friendly features — like proximity to a transit stop, wide sidewalks, bike storage or mixed-use retail space.
That caused tension with taxing jurisdictions like Kansas City Public Schools, which loses potential revenue when developers are exempted from paying some of their property taxes.
Arrive KC broke ground in 2023 and the transit agency’s website lists a planned completion date of fall 2025.
Linwood and Main
Two different developments are in the pipeline for the intersection of Linwood Boulevard and Main Street, where transit planners have floated the idea of a second streetcar route that would run east-to-west connecting the University of Kansas Health System to Van Brunt Boulevard.
One of those developments, a restoration of the ABC Storage building and its neighboring Anderson Electric Car building, is already underway.
Exact Architects is overseeing this mixed-use project, which will convert the buildings into 57 apartment units with some retail space.
Because it’s a historic building renovation rather than entirely new construction, Exact Architects partner Bob Mayer said the apartments will be moderately affordable “workforce housing” — similar to Exact’s Monarch and Netherland apartments near 39th and Main streets.
Mayer said they’ve begun cleaning out the building, but construction likely won’t begin until after the Main Street streetcar extension is complete.
“We want the streetcar to be in, and then we can emerge with what we’re going to do,” Mayer said. “I think you’re going to see that on all these other properties.”
The other development would be a newly constructed set of 10 apartment buildings at 20 W. Linwood Blvd. Each building would have three floors and six apartment units, for a total of 60 units in the whole complex.
McGilley Midtown Chapel used to sit on that parcel of land, but it has been demolished since 2023. The land is now vacant except for a parking lot.
The developer, VanTrust Real Estate, first acquired the property in 2022.
Armour Road
3435 Main Street
A Mac Properties development at the corner of 34th Terrace and Main Street provides moderately affordable housing along the streetcar route.
The developer began filing permits related to this project in 2016, predating the streetcar extension, and it opened to tenants in 2023.
The building includes 80 apartment “pods” that were prefabricated in Nebraska, then stacked to form the grey and black modern building. The housing is moderately affordable, with rents ranging from $800 to $1,300 per month, according to The Kansas City Star.
Mac Properties received a large tax break from the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority (PIEA) for this project — a 95% property tax abatement lasting 19 years.
Main and Armour
Another Mac Properties proposal along the streetcar at Main Street and Armour Boulevard was approved for a property tax break in October 2024 after more than two years of controversy.
In January 2022, Mac Properties asked the City Council for a $10.5 million subsidy from a bucket of unused tax-increment financing dollars. The council balked at that proposal.
One of the ordinance’s sponsors, Councilmember Eric Bunch, stopped supporting the proposal when he received emails from constituents saying Mac Properties was slow to address life safety issues at its existing properties.
With opposition from KC Tenants, the citywide tenants union, the council turned Mac Properties down.
But a year later, Mac Properties came back.
The developer turned to RideKC Development Corp., effectively bypassing City Council approval. The new proposal also eliminated any affordable housing — taking advantage of a loophole in Kansas City’s affordable-housing requirements.
That angered KC Tenants and City Councilmember Melissa Robinson, who told The Beacon she found it “insulting” that RideKC would consider a proposal that had already been shot down by the council.
“It’s completely infuriating that we have these boards and commissions that are bypassing the democratic process,” she said. “We’ve said that this is not something that is good for our city, and I find it deeply troubling that (RideKC Development Corp.) would vote to (recommend) this.”
In the end, the transit agency rejected the proposal after an hour of testimony at a board meeting.
The new proposal, which was approved for a PIEA tax break in October, still does not include any affordable housing, instead making a $100,000 contribution to the city’s housing trust fund. The developer will be exempt from paying 95% of its property taxes on the project for the next 15 years.
Mac plans to develop 300 apartments, retail and restaurant space at the southwest corner of Main and Armour Boulevard. The developer will also build new spaces for amenities.
Kevin Klinkenberg, the executive director of Midtown KC Now, is thrilled that a development is moving forward on this block on Main Street.
“I know there was controversy associated with it,” he said, “but I told people, that’s the kind of project that Main Street advocates have been dreaming about for 20 years.”
3620 Main Street
The old National Guard Armory, located south of the intersection of 36th and Main streets, will get a renovation after the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority approved a 10-year, 70% property tax break in November.
This building served as an armory for the 110th Engineers Battalion of the Missouri National Guard for half a century before becoming a boxing venue, then an automotive museum. It now sits vacant.
Exact Architects had initially proposed a renovation of this building in 2020 to make it mixed-use, with a food hall and boutique hotel in the armory itself, as well as a new 80-unit apartment building next door.
But before those plans moved forward, Exact sold the building to another developer connected to Precision Roofing.
The new proposal is pared down from what Exact had envisioned. The building will be renovated as an event venue, with a transportation museum on the upper floors.
It could be complete as soon as 2026.
Westport
The Monarch and the Netherland
Eight years ago, a pair of historic buildings near the corner of 39th and Main streets were in danger of falling apart.
The Monarch, a former storage building, and the Netherland, a former hotel, opened in the 1920s. But by 1982, the Netherland had been deemed a dangerous building by Kansas City and vacated. It was briefly revived for a few years as the Hawthorne Plaza Apartments, but by 2005, it was vacant once again.
Exact, the same developer working on the ABC Storage building, took over in 2017 to rehabilitate and renovate both buildings. They reopened as apartment buildings in 2020, with a new rooftop bar. Together, there are a total of 134 apartment units.
The developer received a 25-year tax abatement through the PIEA.
Katz Apartments
Another historic building along the streetcar extension is getting a facelift from Lux Living, a controversial developer based in St. Louis.
The former Katz Drugstore first opened in 1934 at the corner of Westport Road and Main Street. It transferred hands a few times, and Lux Living’s latest development project at this site was approved in 2021.
The plan is to build a new apartment building behind the old drugstore, while preserving the curved storefront. When it opens, it will hold 192 apartment units. Lux Living has already started leasing the units, but the company has not said when they expect it to open.
The trouble is, there’s a line of contractors who claim that Lux Living has not yet paid them for their services. That includes family-owned Kansas City Brick and a Raytown-based steel company.
The Kansas City Star reported on Feb. 28 that those companies still have not been paid, although Kansas City Brick had signed a settlement agreement with Lux Living.
In addition, the company’s owners, as well as their chief accountant, have been indicted by the federal government. They’re charged with conspiring to defraud the city of St. Louis.
Lux Living is also developing the Wonderland Apartments in the Crossroads, which has also had contractors claim that they have not been paid for their work.
Art Museums
45th and Main Street
Kansas City developers once had plans for an empty lot blocks away from the city’s art museums.
In 2018, the City Council approved incentives for a proposed redevelopment of the former Holiday Inn at 45th and Main streets, which will be the new streetcar stop for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.
The project would have built a five-floor addition and turned the Holiday Inn into a new luxury Kimpton Hotel.
But two years later, the COVID-19 lockdown tanked the hospitality industry, and the Kimpton Hotel plans fell through.
In 2021, a new proposal popped up for the Museum Tower apartment project on that same piece of land. It would have included about 300 apartment units and 460 parking spaces.
The proposal was submitted shortly before Kansas City’s affordable-housing set-aside ordinance took effect, which would have required the developer to set 20% of its units at affordable rent prices in order to qualify for a tax break.
It was one of 31 proposals that were submitted during the four-month window between the time the set-aside ordinance was introduced and when it passed, according to the Kansas City Business Journal. In years past, that same time frame had seen only one to four proposals.
As a result, the Museum Tower proposal avoided the city’s affordability requirements. The average apartment would have cost around $2,500 per month, according to CityScene KC.
But the Museum Tower proposal would have needed final approval within three years of when its application was originally submitted. That deadline passed, and the proposal fell apart.
The former Holiday Inn at this corner has since been demolished, and the land now sits empty.
Country Club Plaza
Plaza tennis courts
Developers in the Country Club Plaza area have set their sights on redeveloping the city-owned tennis courts at the corner of 47th Street and Mill Creek Parkway.
The Plaza Tennis Center dates back to 1928, and it’s used by several nearby high schools and universities.
Kansas City published a request for proposals in September for redeveloping that lot as multifamily housing with ground-floor retail and minimal parking.
If the city decides to sell the land to a developer, that will require approval from City Council, the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners and Kansas City voters on a future ballot. Otherwise, the city could lease the land to the developer and dodge putting a ballot question to voters.
Out of all of the development sites along the streetcar extension, this is the one that most excites Dan Moye, the vice president of land development at the Economic Development Corp. of Kansas City.
“The area around the tennis courts has some really good potential,” Moye said. “Not only is it near the end of the streetcar, but it also corresponds with the new Plaza ownership and the opportunity to really reinvest in that area.”
University of Missouri-Kansas City
Brookside 51
When future passengers reach the end of the Main Street streetcar extension, they’ll be greeted by the Brookside 51 development.
The building includes 170 apartments and some office space on top of the only Whole Foods on the Missouri side of the state line in Kansas City.
This development kicked off in 2012, predating the streetcar extension by several years. The Whole Foods opened in May 2018.
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.