Costco’s plan to change KC midtown store is official. So is customers’ frustration
Allen Phillips’ disappointed reaction was swift Thursday as he and his wife, Christine, rolled their Costco shopping cart across the parking lot to their car.
“Don’t get me started,” Phillips said upon hearing that Costco’s plan — to turn its midtown site at 241 Linwood Blvd into a Costco Business Center, which has been the subject of six months of speculation — was finally official.
The corporation last week filed specific plans with the city, spelling out precisely what would remain: the gas pumps, produce, packaged meats, dairy products, eggs, frozen meals, paper towels, diapers, cleaning supplies, pet food and snacks.
And also what would not: the tire center, food court, optical center, bakery, the pharmacy.
No clothes or furniture.
Costco customer reaction
“It feels like they’ve abandoned us, the people of the city and the core, and are catering to the suburbs,” Christine Phillips said.
The company’s plan still requires approval by City Hall, which is scheduled to discuss it in June with a public hearing before the City Plan Commission on July 15.
Some customers on Thursday were not opposed to Costco’s plan, content that the warehouse would still carry food such as produce and meats.
“That’s the only reason we’re here, it doesn’t actually affect us at all,“ Sara Johnson, who bicycled to the store, said of the change.
“It sounds like the changes Costco is planning on fit with why we come here. They’re congruent. If I needed to order furniture, I could just get it online. They have a good shipping situation. Hopefully we’ll still get whatever meat we want.”
Customer Lake Hall felt similarly.
“So, absolutely, I had some concerns at first,” he said. He added that he still thinks that the removal of services such as the optical center will be a loss to the surrounding community and people who have come to rely upon it.
“At first my concerns was just, ‘Oh, I don’t have a business membership. I don’t expect to need whatever they sell at a business center.’ But as I looked further into it, it’s really just like the food court, and the pharmacy that get removed.”
Lake believes that early concerns that the transition from a regular wholesale warehouse to a business center would create a food desert in the city’s core were overblown.
“It’s still a grocery store,” he said. “I’m disappointed at the lack of a food court, but I understand that it is far more important that there is a grocery store here than another restaurant.”
Anger to acceptance
Other customers, meanwhile, expressed a range of emotions on the spectrum of grief, from anger to depression to reluctant acceptance.
“I’m sad about it because I get my meds here. That’s the major part,” said Teshia Trammel, who said the change will force her to switch to Walgreen’s or CVS and perhaps higher prices. “I’m not happy about that at all.”
Opened in January 2001, the midtown Costco was the first in the Kansas City area. In that time, it came to be seen by many midtown residents as not only a staple of the community but also an egalitarian resource that, in a still largely segregated city, regularly served a diverse clientele of Black, Asian, white, and Hispanic customers of various financial means.
Although the Costco, under the new plan, will still sell food, customers said they see the removal of the other services as a loss.
And an inconvenience.
Costco also runs warehouses in Overland Park, Independence, Lenexa,, Kansas City, North, with two others planned in Lee’s Summit and Lawrence.
All are at least 15 miles away from midtown.
Inconvenience store
“I’m not happy about it at all,” said Joel Barrett. “I’m here regularly. And I don’t really want to have to go all the way up north, or wherever. Everything else is far away.”
The Phillipses concur.
“The problem for us,” Allen Phillips said, “is that the next Costco is 15 miles away. The next Super Walmart is 15 miles away. And the food court is so busy that the best thing you can do is go away with it, right? I’m being sarcastic. I don’t understand.”
“It’s where we get our vaccinations,” Christine Phillips said.
Tricia Peters and her daughter, Geni Wier, 23, were heading into the store from where they work at Ability KC, the rehabilitation center for children and adults.
“It’s easy to just jog over here to get the stuff we need for home. So it’s going to be not good,” Peters said. “The main thing is eyeglasses, because this is where we come get our eyeglasses. So we’re going to have to find a new Costco to do that.”
“Yeah,” Wier said. “We do.”
City filings did not specify when the store would close, but employees in the past have shared with customers that it would likely close before the end of 2026, perhaps in November when new stores were set to open in Lee’s Summit and Lawrence.
Customers were told it would take several months to reopen as a Costco Business Center.
This story was originally published May 28, 2026 at 3:38 PM.
