Momentum counts.
For decades civic leaders have pushed the notion that more investments in the tourist and business-visitor infrastructure would translate into more and bigger conventions. For decades those pleas fell somewhat flat as large annual meetings began leaving Kansas City and the city suffered the disinvestment doldrums and watched other peer cities build and grow.
But the taxpayer-supported revival of downtown has brought new enthusiasm, a new image an evolving new skyline and now a long-in-the-making proposal to build a convention hotel meant to bring Kansas City onto a newly expanded playing field.
The mayor’s big reveal on Monday took place in the sunny atrium outside the Convention Center’s Grand Ballroom, just across Wyandotte Street from the hotel site. In one direction, attendees could see the Sprint Center five blocks to the east. To the south stands the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts and the future site of UMKC’s proposed Conservatory of Music campus — just $16 million more in fund-raising to go, Burke noted. Read more.