City leaders, new grocer, KC community want prosperity on Prospect Avenue | Opinion

Let’s start with a new Kansas City buzz phrase, “prosperity on Prospect,” because that’s the way 3rd District City Councilwoman Melissa Robinson refers to efforts underway to clean up the portion of that corridor on and around 31st Street where a new grocery store opened this week.

Hundreds of people, many from surrounding East Side neighborhoods, showed up on Wednesday to celebrate the opening of the new United Market, now anchoring the Linwood Shopping Center plaza at 31st Street and Prospect Avenue.

They came to see the store’s clean interior, stocked shelves and new offers like its salad bar, deli, floral department and state-of-the-art shopping carts. But they also wanted to hear some assurance that security measures are in place, and that city officials have not forgotten their promise to also address the needs of the troubled people on the streets around the shopping plaza.

The first issue gets a check mark. Cameras keep watch throughout the store and across the parking lot. A security kiosk is in the store and another outside. Shoppers will need to acquire a free membership card to get in and to pay for groceries — like at Costco. And residents have said when they see something, they intend say something.

As for the second issue, well, not so much. But city leaders say they’re working on it. I believe that. And plan to keep checking on it too.

Indeed, this grocery store is lovely and has all the bells and whistles provided at major grocery markets elsewhere in the Kansas City metro area. It’s what city officials and the new operator of the store, Anthony Estrada, promised to bring to residents who deserve a clean and safe place to grocery shop in an area that otherwise would be a food desert.

There’s no shortage of kudos for city officials, civic leaders, residents, volunteers, and Estrada for doing exactly what they said they would to deliver a store where community members and others — me included — are excited to shop.

I call that Step 1.

Sun Fresh problems, closure

The Sun Fresh, which used to anchor the shopping center, closed last August amid community and store management complaints of loitering, violence, theft and public intoxication in the parking lot and surrounding area. It was clear long before the closing that, while those problems hampered the store’s success, they were just symptoms of broader concerns that needed to be addressed in our city.

In September 2024, city officials and Mayor Quinton Lucas acknowledged that not only to protect the survival of the grocery store, but to help it thrive, the city needed to tend to the mental health, substance abuse and homelessness problems plaguing some of the people who have taken to congregating on the streets around the shopping center.

Immediately they poured more police on the problem.

Yes, security in the area, including community policing, is important in any community, and it’s a good thing for the Linwood Shopping Center area. But criminalizing illness — substance abuse and mental illness — is not a sustainable solution.

“We need to do more. … There are people that need help for real that are showing up” in the area around the shopping plaza, Lucas said nearly two years ago.

When I talked to Robinson this week she said she’s well aware that for a grocery store, or a business anywhere, to be successful, “people can’t be afraid to show up and go shopping.” She said council members for some time now have been working with groups like the Urban Summit, the health department, Kansas City police, the Housing Trust Fund, Transportation Authority, neighborhood councils and other grassroots organizations and non-profits to develop a comprehensive plan “to make sure this economic corridor is sustainable.”

Bus stops, job training

One of the big collaborators in the effort, she said, is KC REACH, which stands for Responding with Empathetic Alternatives & Community Health, a non-law enforcement approach to helping those in mental health crisis and experiencing poverty, homelessness or suffering from substance abuse.

Together, these groups are securing mental health and substance abuse assistance, making adjustments related to the design and placement of bus stops, looking at ways to add affordable housing and discussing opportunities for job training that will give residents access to better-paying jobs, and more.

Robinson said plans are already set to walk the area soon with landscaping architects looking for opportunities on both sides of 31st and Prospect to enhance space around the shopping plaza — maybe adding shrubs or flowering plants — in ways that communicate to those who would congregate that this is not a place for us to hang out, pitch a tent or use drugs or alcohol.

The city owns the grocery store’s building. United Market is a tenant and the grocery operator, but the place is subsidized using taxpayer dollars, so the city is vested in making sure it’s as successful two years from now as it was on grand opening day.

I’m not saying that what happens on the streets along the Prospect corridor will determine the success of the new grocery store. The community loves it and have vowed to continue shopping in it.

What I am saying is that I believe, and so does Robinson, that having the grocery store thrive in this space works as a great motivator for city officials, civic leaders, and others to also address many of the problems that have hindered the potential for prosperity for too many of the residents in this community of proud and hardworking Kansas Citians.