As much as downtown KC has done, similar cities have done more

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Yet our peer cities haven’t exactly been sitting still. Quite the contrary. Other downtowns have made some of the same strides as Kansas City — and sometimes significantly more. Consider:

•Charlotte: opened a new arena and entertainment district — and built light rail.

•Cincinnati: expanded its convention center — and constructed new football and baseball stadiums.

•Denver: added a slew of office towers — and lured a Hyatt convention hotel.

•St. Louis: converted historic buildings into lofts — and added a casino to its riverfront.

Some of these downtown transformations, such as in Denver, actually began more than a decade ago and continued into this decade. Because of the differing timetables, Kay Barnes, Kansas City’s mayor for most of this decade, said it was unfair to compare our downtown progress to what had happened elsewhere since 2000.

“In a way it negates the positive nature of the change in Kansas City,” said Barnes, who received a national planning award for spearheading several big projects, such as the Sprint Center. “Each city did not start at the same time, so comparisons are premature.”

Other local leaders, though, think it’s important to know what other cities are doing and how Kansas City stacks up. After all, Kansas City must compete for companies, workers and tourists with Denver, which doubled its convention center, or Indianapolis, where $1 billion has been invested in life science research downtown, or Oklahoma City, which is getting a pro basketball team.

“That’s the competition,” said Bill Lucas, president of Crown Center and this year’s chairman of the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association.

“What we’ve done, it’s a job well done. But we have not surged ahead. We are still playing catch-up.”

Taking count

The Star’s analysis certainly bears that out:

•Restaurants and bars. Downtown Kansas City is dotted with new places to go, from restaurants like Succotash to nightclubs like Bar Natasha. But plenty of other establishments haven’t survived. So from 2000 to 2005, downtown added a net total of four bars and restaurants, according to U.S. Census estimates. Meanwhile, Denver’s downtown added 79, Milwaukee’s 34 and St. Louis’ 28.

Of course, Kansas City is now adding the Power & Light District, but as momentous as that is here, it wouldn’t necessarily propel Kansas City above many of its peers.

•Tourists. Since 2000, most peer downtowns saw double-digit percentage gains in total hotel-room stays. They jumped 28 percent in Memphis, 30 percent in Nashville and 42 percent in Oklahoma City, based on data from Smith Travel Research. Meanwhile, downtown Kansas City had a 3 percent decline, reflecting a huge drop-off in convention business.

Local officials are counting on the combination of the Sprint Center, Power & Light and Bartle Hall’s latest expansion to reverse downtown’s tourism trend. But first-quarter 2008 data show hotel-room stays and hotel occupancy rates are down from the same period last year.

•Office market. Private-sector activity is considered a good gauge of market demand for a location. In terms of office space, peer downtowns added 1 million square feet on average this decade, while Kansas City added just one-quarter of that, according to Integra Realty Resources.

It terms of private-sector jobs, Kansas City’s performance was worse. During the first half of this decade, downtown lost more than 9,400 such jobs, census figures showed. That was the fifth-worst job loss among the peer downtowns.

Mayor Mark Funkhouser realizes what Kansas City is up against. He doesn’t travel a lot, but he has visited Pittsburgh because his daughter attended college there downtown. So he has walked its streets, eaten in new restaurants and seen construction cranes erecting office towers.

“Pittsburgh’s a winner,” Funkhouser said. “We’re not close to Pittsburgh. It’s got a vibrant street life.

“It’s what I hope we’ll be like.”

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