Midwestern meat market chain is expanding its Kansas City footprint. Here’s where

Fareway, the growing Iowa-based grocery store chain, has proposed expanding its footprint in Kansas City, city documents show.

Fareway currently has a smaller-sized, butcher counter-focused store at 1307 W. 79th St., just off Ward Parkway, in what was once the locally-owned McGonigle’s Market. Fareway bought the Waldo-area McGonigle’s in early 2020 and later rebranded the store as Fareway Meat Market & McGonigle’s KC BBQ.

Plans submitted to the city in March show a proposal to demolish the current Meat Market building, build a larger one to the south, and add another commercial building. The redevelopment would include tearing down a few homes off Mercier Street currently owned by Fareway.

The plans are similar to a development plan from 2020, when the Fareway was still McGonigle’s, that the City Council approved in January 2020. Fareway’s purchase of the property was announced days later, and surprised elected officials considered a pause to get neighborhood buy-in before ultimately sticking with their decision and paving the way for Fareway’s debut in Kansas City.

Fareway’s newly filed plans show an 11,000 square-foot building for a Meat Market to the south, labeled as “phase 1,” and a 10,000 square-foot building with room for multiple tenants, labeled as “phase 2” on the intersection corner, replacing the old McGonigle’s location.

Further information about the plans was not immediately available. Fareway spokesperson Elias Johnson told The Star there would be an update in the “near future.”

First full-sized Fareway begins construction near KCK

The first Fareway store opened in 1938 in Boone, Iowa. The grocery chain has been rapidly expanding in recent years and now boasts roughly 140 stores across seven states in the Midwest, including Missouri and Kansas.

While there are three smaller-scale Fareway Meat Market locations in the Kansas City area — one in the Northland, one in the Waldo area and one in Olathe — there are currently no full-sized stores.

Construction has begun on a full-sized Fareway in Basehor, Kansas, which is about seven miles west of the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas in Leavenworth County.

Basehor’s population has more than tripled since 2000, and residents will no longer have to drive to Bonner Springs or KCK after the Fareway opens.

The bulk of Fareway stores are in Iowa. The Des Moines Register reported that Fareway is eyeing 200 stores by 2030 and scoping out more states.