Kansas City Council to reconsider McGonigle’s expansion following sale to Iowa chain
City Council members will reconsider their unanimous vote to allow McGonigle’s Market to expand in south Kansas City after learning the family-owned store will sell to an out-of-town chain.
Last month, the council approved a rezoning request and development plan that would allow the grocery store to tear down five homes and its current market to build a new, larger store and a structure for the McGonigle’s to-go and catering businesses.
But at Thursday’s full council meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McManus, 6th District, introduced legislation to reconsider the move. It was referred to committee for further discussion.
In an interview, McManus said he wanted to see the new owner, Iowa-based Fareway Stores Inc., get buy-in from the community before it benefits from the redevelopment plan intended for McGonigle’s. He said the proposal could still get neighborhood support and pass the council.
“When you’re doing something to amend an area plan that the community approved, it’s very important to have community approval of that decision,” McManus said. “… For me it wasn’t so much that it was a family-owned business in and of itself — it was that that family-owned business met with the community and the community embraced that concept.”
Earlier this week, Mike McGonigle told The Star that Fareway had approached him last fall. The sale didn’t come up as he pursued approval of the expansion plan at City Hall.
Asked whether he thought McGonigle had been certain he would sell his market, McManus declined to speculate.
“I will say the timing between the approval and the announcement was very short,” he said.
McGonigle told The Star earlier this week that he didn’t believe he “misled the council in any way.”
“Fareway is going to continue our legacy in the same manner.”
McGonigle’s great-grandfather opened a wholesale meat company in the West Bottoms in 1882. His father, Bill, founded the market at its current site — Ward Parkway and 79th Street — in 1951.
The store is set to close around Feb. 21, and McGonigle has already started liquidation. It is scheduled to reopen in early March as Fareway Meat Market.
McGonigle did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.
