What’s up with the ‘streetlight graveyard’ at 33rd Street and Southwest Trafficway?
If you’ve driven down Southwest Trafficway in Midtown, you’ve probably noticed the grassy lot filled with large metal parts like streetlights, metal poles, signage and traffic lights where the road crosses 33rd Street.
Reader Charlie H. drives by the intersection often, and wanted to know what’s being stored on this lot. He described the site as a “streetlight graveyard,” and wondered what the pieces will eventually be used for.
“At first I assumed it was a prep site for a project, but it seems just to be accumulating spare parts,” he said.
The site started filling with building materials in June 2022. Now, several hundred metal poles line the grassy lot — some have been there so long that weeds are sprouting up in between them.
But for most of the parts on-site, the lot is less of a “graveyard” and more of a “waiting room.”
The site is a staging area for part of the city’s streetcar expansion project, said Katie Meyer, a spokesperson for the coalition of construction and engineering firms working on extending the streetcar’s route. Capital Electric, one of the city’s subcontractors, plans to use it through the end of the expansion in 2025.
The company is tasked with electrical components of the expansion, like removing and replacing streetlights, upgrading traffic signals and installing the catenary system, which will hold up the wires that supply electricity to the streetcar.
The majority of the metal poles currently lining the lot have yet to be installed. Eventually, they will stand along the length of Main Street to extend the streetcar’s route from Union Station all the way to the Plaza.
Also stored on the lot are a handful of streetlights, traffic signs and structures that have been temporarily removed from Main Street as crews repave sidewalks and install tracks.
City property records list the lot as “vacant non-residential” land owned by the Kansas City Life Insurance Company, which is headquartered just a few blocks away on Broadway Boulevard.
Once the streetcar project is complete, contractors will clear the site for potential future tenants.
Do you have more questions about development in Kansas City? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.
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