Zip line, riverboat tours may join plan for bars, restaurants on Kansas City bridge
In cities like Nashville and Cincinnati, the rivers are natural meeting places, hubs of both recreation and entertainment, says Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, who has lived in those river cities and others.
But when he and his family moved to Kansas City 11 years ago, they were surprised to find a metro that mostly ignored the two major rivers that snake through it.
“I always assumed all river cities would have that kind of setting as part of their daily lives. But that was not the case. Kansas City was the outlier,” he said. “I just assumed that’s the way it’s going to be and that I’ll have to live with it.”
But he thinks that may be changing as developers push ahead with plans to transform a rusty old locomotive bridge into a unique entertainment destination over the Kansas River. While the work on the bridge is noteworthy on its own, city officials hope it will spark a wider revitalization of the riverfront:
That could include a new zip line from the top of Hy-Vee Arena across the Kansas River. And a riverboat that could offer tours or floating dinner events.
The Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas recently approved plans by Flying Truss LLC to build a public crossing over the 1905-era Rock Island Bridge. Once redeveloped, the long-closed bridge will include an events venue, bars, coffee shops and two restaurants.
Alvarado, the executive director of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, can already envision a vibrant riverfront, where he could again participate in activities like rowing. He’s one of the investors backing the new riverboat venture.
For him, the idea crystallized on a recent tour of the bridge and a boat ride on the water. At the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, he was struck by the view of downtown Kansas City.
“I have not seen the city from the water. In a river city, it took me 11 years to see that,” he said. “I’m smitten by the idea of being able to revive some sort of river activities.”
Flying Truss plans to begin work on the 1905-era bridge as early as this winter and open it by St. Patrick’s Day 2023. In addition to new dining and drinking options over the water, the bridge will provide a pedestrian connection to trails on both sides of the state line.
Zip lines, river boat tours could be next
Steve Foutch, the developer behind the transformation of Kemper Arena into Hy-Vee Arena, hopes to soon ink a deal with a local zip line operator. He plans lines running from high atop the arena’s roof and landing on the west side of the Kaw in Armourdale. From there, riders could walk back to the West Bottoms across the bridge.
Hy-Vee Arena had a tough time getting off the ground as a mixed use venue with a dozen playing courts and restaurant and retail space. The pandemic didn’t help, either.
But Foutch sees a resurgence of momentum in the West Bottoms, where hundreds of new apartments have opened and more are under construction.
“That is going to reignite momentum,” he said. “There’s still a lot of blight to clean up and a lot of just city TLC that will help accelerate the reopening of some of this. But the West Bottoms has so much land, so much opportunity. And everything like this bridge going in is just one more cog in the wheel that’s going to make this place tick.”
“More makes more,” added Michael Zeller, a partner at Flying Truss and the frontman for the bridge project.
Zeller is also involved in a separate entity looking to bring some sort of riverboat to the Kaw. Though those plans are still in the works, renderings presented to city leaders are similar to those used on tourist destinations like Table Rock Lake near Branson.
Tying into the Rock Island Bridge would be “an obvious win-win,” Mike Pearce, managing partner of Kaw Boatmen LLC, said in a statement. Pearce is a co-founder of Slap’s BBQ, the uber-popular joint in KCK’s Strawberry Hill that also plans a new outpost on the bridge.
“We’ll never have a mountain or an ocean in Kansas City, but we’ve got two big rivers,” Pearce’s statement said. “We are investing in this riverboat venture because it’s high time we had some fun on them!”
A quiet oasis in the city
The Rock Island Bridge spans the Kansas River, beginning in Armourdale in the west and landing on the far eastern edge of Kansas near State Line Road in the West Bottoms.
Though it sits solely in Kansas, it’s currently owned by Kansas City, Missouri, a remnant of a long-ago city purchase from the railroad to acquire parking near Kemper Arena.
The city is expected to soon finalize a $1 sale of the structure to the Unified Government, which will lease the bridge back to Flying Truss over the course of two 33-year agreements. The UG will also invest $2 million in the project upfront, an amount that’s expected to be repaid through property tax collections and a special sales tax charged on the bridge.
“When the Unified Government is putting an investment into the bridge, it really makes sense that we are the owners,” said Katherine Carttar, the UG’s director of economic development, “so it’s kind of a long-term play to make sure that this is a success.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will soon begin work on raising and rebuilding levees around the river. That’s expected to improve the trail experience and make the riverfront more accessible.
Carttar and others imagine the Kaw becoming a more popular kayaking destination as adventurers discover that it’s glassy top is much calmer than the swiftly moving Missouri River.
“Right now it’s just tough,” she said. “It is a great kayaking river, but there are very few places to go in.”
The 700-foot bridge stands high above the river. But Zeller said the experience on the muddy water is much different, protected from the bustle of the West Bottoms, Armourdale and surrounding areas.
“It’s quiet down there,” he said. “You can’t hear the city.”
From nuisance to destination
The bridge was originally built by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway in 1905 to move cattle in and out of the stockyards in Kansas City’s West Bottoms.
But the railroad long ago stopped using the bridge, and it has been idled since the early 1970s.
Though it’s chained up, it’s remained somewhat of an underground favorite, a place where many were known to illicitly throw back a few beers under cover of night.
The rusty patina of the bridge is dotted with graffiti — some of the artistic nature, others simply vulgarities.
“It has that kind of inherent attractiveness,” said David Alvey, mayor of Kansas City, Kansas. “We want to move it from an attractive nuisance to an attraction.”
Alvey said generations of locals have collected stories about their treks to the abandoned bridge.
“They’re going to have different stories to tell now,” he said. “They’ll be safer. … Maybe as much alcohol involved, I don’t know.”
Two major logistics operations sit just off the west river bank in the industrialized Armourdale neighborhood of KCK. With the owner of those two properties investing in the bridge, Alvey foresees the possibility of a wider river redevelopment on both sides of the state line.
“The fact that they see potential here is a good sign,” he said.
The mayor envisions a parade of boats on Independence Day and a vibrant riverside trail that connects pedestrians and cyclists with the city’s eclectic restaurant scene on Central Avenue north of the Rock Island Bridge.
The bridge could be a focal point.
And while revelers will have plenty of ways to spend money there, he said it should connect people of all economic backgrounds. Some may rent the venue space for big events, but others might just come for a free stroll across the river or stand on the bank and listen to a concert overhead.
“So it’s really going to be a bridge I think between different classes, if you will,” he said. “It will bring us back to nature, it will bring us back to our history and yet it’s looking forward to the future.”
This story was originally published July 26, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
