‘Rare opportunity’: KCATA lists prime downtown real estate for sale

A piece of prime real estate in downtown Kansas City that could be ripe for development with a focus on transit is up for sale.

The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority has listed its property at 10th and Main streets, right on the streetcar line, for sale through real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. The listing, first reported by the Kansas City Business Journal, calls it a “rare opportunity to acquire a premier development site.”

The site once housed a KCATA downtown transit center before it moved to 12th and Charlotte streets in the East Village in 2020. Plans for a mixed-used high rise tower on the site fell through in 2023 in the face of funding gaps.

The listing comes with a price of $3.3 million and emphasizes the possibility of high-density development, including multi-family housing, hospitality or mixed-used projects.

The property would be eligible for financial incentives through a KCATA bond program for development sites along Kansas City’s streetcar and bus lines, including sales tax exemptions and property tax breaks and support for possible federal grants.

Work continues to extend the streetcar line down to the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus at 51st Street and Brookside Boulevard, expected to open this fall, and up to the Berkley Riverfront northeast of downtown, expected to open in 2026, and the 10th and Main property is steps away from an existing stop.

The site houses the William T. and Charlotte Crosby Kemper Memorial Fountain installed in 1999, and any offers would need to include a plan to keep the fountain, move it elsewhere on site or honor its history in some way, the Business Journal reported.