Destination Northland | KC's Prime Expansion Destination

The completion of an $80 million flood control levee—a half-century in the making—has created an unprecedented “greenfield” development opportunity for an inner-ring suburb only 10 minutes from the new Sprint Center arena in downtown Kansas City and the burgeoning residential loft community at the heart of the urban core.

Officials in Riverside recently celebrated the completion of the levee project by the Army Corps of Engineers. The levee protects the city’s residents and businesses from a 500-year flood while opening up a brand-new 900-acre tract for commercial and retail development.

Dubbed the “Horizons Project,” the former floodplain now offers a large, flat, easy-to-develop site with rail and Interstate highway access only 10 minutes from Downtown and less than 20 minutes from Kansas City International Airport.

The levee was substantially financed through the long-term infrastructure-investment policy city leaders developed to make the best possible use of revenue derived from the Argosy Casino. It was the disastrous flood of 1993 that convinced Riverside leaders to pursue and obtain Missouri’s first riverboat casino, so the completion of the levee represents the closing of a circle that started with despair and now ends in triumph.

“The largest and best close-in suburban-development opportunity in decades is open for business,” declared Mayor Betty Burch at the construction celebration.

The city’s vision for Horizons is a mixed-use development that would be approximately 33 percent retail, 33 percent commercial and 33 percent light industrial. Adding to the appeal of Horizons are the benefits of casino income now enjoyed by Riverside’s current residents and businesses: a long-term infrastructure improvement program combined with no real estate tax, no earnings tax and no personal property tax.

While the site will have a master plan, officials stressed that their vision is for a unique development that will do more than replicate the “cookie-cutter” shopping centers and business parks that dominate most American suburbs. Entrepreneurs will have extensive freedom to mesh their own vision with that of the city in Horizons.

The Horizons project represents not so much the start of bulldozer activity in Riverside, but the continuation of a long-term trend. This year alone, the city has invested more than $10 million in projects including:

• Development of the $400,000 Line Creek Trail connecting E.H. Young Park to Renner-Brenner Park;

• Overhauling major transportation thoroughfares, an $8.6 million project broken into three separate corridors located throughout the city; and

• Reconstructing Vivion Road by City Hall. The $650,000 project will raise the road to complete the levee system.

Over the past five years, Riverside’s business com-munity has committed $100 million to expansion, adding more than 400 new jobs. Some of the projects this year include:

• A $75 million, 256-room luxury hotel and parking garage for the Argosy Casino;

• Development of 20 single-family homes by pro-minent Northland developer Charles Garney, valued at $600,000 to $800,000 each;

• An additional 56 single-family homes valued at $190,000 to $250,000 are being built in the first of a two-phase plan that includes a total of 101 homes; and

City leaders knew that bold steps were needed to come back from the devastating 1993 flood. The first step was attracting the Argosy Casino. It continued with the city’s infrastructure investments in new sidewalks, street lighting and landscaping; a new City Hall, public safety building and community center with pool and gymnasium; and road, bridge, park and other overall improvements.

Now, with the levee and the Horizons project the levee made possible, Riverside is taking the boldest step of all.

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.