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Clay County, Missouri
Teamwork Underlies Clay County Progress
It may sound unusual, but when Clay County leaders gather to discuss the region’s record-setting growth, the conversation often deals more with cooperation and collaboration than concrete and construction.
A regional leader in residential development that exceeds 20 percent almost every year and a powerhouse for job-creating commercial expansion, Clay County’s success is driven to a large extent by the ability to form and maintain strategic partnerships. In Clay County, teamwork is a key tool to expand the area’s already dynamic growth.
The health of that expansion is due to a number of factors. Starting next to a revitalized downtown Kansas City, Clay County stretches north to unbroken farmland. Four-lane interstates and major highways connect this diversity, offering both businesses and residents an unprecedented choice in housing, education and employment.
Housing may be the best example. In the shadow of downtown Kansas City, North Kansas City is developing one of the most exciting projects in the metro area, the “new urbanism” of Northgate Village with town homes and apartments blended with neighborhood retail. Equally dramatic is Briarcliff West, which has transformed a former rock quarry into some of the most stunning—and valuable—property in the area.
Further north, Shoal Creek includes its own new urbanism, and another example of public and private collaboration. This area, which includes several major residential and retail projects, is expected to exceed easily a projection of 20,000 new residents, once considered impossible. Thanks to major state and local infrastructure, the area has become the single most dramatic single-family growth area in the metro region.
These choices continue into rural areas where large lot estate homes and rural subdivisions bring another lifestyle. Small towns, such as Excelsior Springs, Kearney or the rolling hills around Smithville Lake, are among the prime locations for this “country living.”
Outdoor amenities, such as Smithville Lake, play a major role in other ways. Clay County is home to four public and nearly two dozen private golf courses, including several national-level facilities. Smithville Lake is larger than nearly all of the area’s other lakes—combined.
Local education is another foundation. Local public schools are all ranked at the state’s top AAA category, and William Jewell consistently earns national honors.
Even with this, job creation and business development is the area’s strongest attribute. Last year, Clay County added 405 new companies and more than 2,500 new jobs.
One cause is the area’s workforce. Due to everything from the area’s belief in a “Midwestern work ethic” to outstanding education and training, the Clay County labor force is a strength that employers rely on. The Ford Motor Company plant, which lists more than 5,000 workers, is documented as the most efficient plant in Ford’s entire truck group. Cerner Corporation, which markets high-tech medical software technology worldwide, is another organization that has built success on the capabilities of thousands of Clay County workers.
Clay County also boasts an unusually high level of entrepreneurial success. Cerner is one company that began as a local small business, as did S&M NuTec, literally a Clay County basement business that almost overnight became a world leader in pet supplies.
All of this is enhanced through Clay County’s tradi-tion of cooperation. From Liberty’s construction of a new southern corridor, to Gladstone’s creation of a new downtown, collaboration is often a keystone for area efforts. As a result, Clay County is an area with many strengths and few weaknesses.
A final example involved an otherwise traditional “branding” effort. Clay County recently attempted to identify which element best represented the region, and how to best communicate that. Observers thought respon-dents would cite location, education, transportation, or quality of life and housing choices, or even the wide range of recreation. Instead, they said Clay County has more of everything or, as several put it, “simply more.”
Jackson County is the region's core. Cass County has almost unlimited space. Wyandotte is experiencing a real renaissance to match its annual Renaissance Festival. And Johnson County? What else can you say? It's Johnson County.
But the Northland may have finally drawn an inside straight in the area's economic development poker game. After years of underdevelopment, Clay and Platte counties are now seeing some of the most dynamic expansion in metropolitan Kansas City. Even during recent economic pessimism, new construction, plans and permits scarcely slowed in virtually every category.
One reason is a variation on the "location, location, location" theme. Because of its historic status as something of a metropolitan step-child, the Northland has huge tracts of land served by utilities and open for development--and only minutes from both downtown and KCI. It's a combination that is unique to the region and one that promises to make most developers' hearts skip.
Actually, several developers have already taken advantage of the situation. One of the most imaginative involved not open land but a former rock quarry where Charles Garney built Briarcliff West, now one of the city's finest collections of luxury homes and upscale commercial development. What is instructive about this still ongoing development is that Garney was able to find essentially unused space literally overlooking downtown Kansas City.
Similarly open tracts are owned by diverse organizations such as Hunt Midwest, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the city of Riverside. Already under construction are major developments such as Shoal Creek and Zona Rosa, mixed use projects that promise impact well beyond even Clay and Platte counties.
The Northland's progress involves more than just empty space. Enough development is now underway to create a momentum that in turn is generating more development. Projects that had been on hold are being taken off the shelf and updated because the growing population and commercial traffic now make them feasible.
Highway 152 from I-35 to I-29 appears largely empty except for recent housing growth and the dynamic commercial area near I-29. That will change rapidly as a cascade of projects take shape: retail centers, a major theater complex and upscale offices are currently under construction or have broken ground.
Near 152 and I-435 Hunt Midwest and others are building several mixed- use developments. Other significant projects include an upscale retail, office and residential project near Maple Woods Community College.
Some Northland development is hard to see. Many of the area's finest developments are tucked into green hills and out of sight. Riss Lake in Parkville, for example, is a nice residential areas but is virtually invisible from nearby I-29.
Far more visible is retail develop-ment along the I-29 corridor with Boardwalk Square, the Shops at Boardwalk and BarryWoods. Across I-29 to the west, Zona Rosa is expected to begin opening in 2004 and quickly become a premier regional shopping destination.
Commercial and industrial growth are equally dramatic, but less easy to categorize. The area's heaviest concentration of industrial develop-ment remains in North Kansas City. The original, 1929 district and the newer, Paseo Industrial District remain vital, with expansions and new tenants announced every year.
Another area is overlooked because it is not very visible: Hunt Midwest's SubTropolis is the world's largest underground business complex with more than 4.5 million square feet of leased space. It holds more than 50 local, national and inter- national businesses, including a foreign trade zone. Northland "recycling" may see its most elaborate chapter in Riverside where that city has used funds from one of the
Northland's three riverboat casinos for a dramatic, city-wide rebirth. The latest and largest project is a massive levee to protect 1,200 acres of potentially prime development. The city is designing an upscale mixed-use project designed to be a regional showcase.
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