Kansas City Power & Light District and American Red Cross–Kansas City Team Up For Donation Drive

The American Red Cross–Kansas City and the Kansas City

Power & Light District will host a donation drive on Thursday, May 30th and Friday, May 31st, 2013 to help aid relief efforts for tornado victims in both Oklahoma and Kansas. The drive will coincide with the kickoff of the annual Hot Country Nights and Friday Night Live!

summer concert series at KC Live!

The American Red Cross will accept donations at KC Live! during the following times:

Thursday, May 30

10:45 AM – 1:30 PM

5:00 PM – 8:30 PM (Hot Country Nights concert)

Friday, May 31

10:45 AM – 1:30 PM

7:00 PM – 9:30 PM (Friday Night Live! concert)

All proceeds will aid relief for tornado victims in the Midwest.

Comets Host Galaxy Girls Finals In The Power & Light District

The Missouri Comets will host the Finals for the Galaxy Girls Dance Team on Saturday, September 15th from 4 - 5:30pm on stage at KC Live! in the Power & Light District. All finalists have advanced through multi-week prep classes, preliminary and semi-final rounds. The event is free and open to the public. The final Galaxy Girls squad will be announced on Monday, September 17th via the Comets web site and social media outlets.
A selected panel of local judges will help determine who will make the final squad for the 2012-2013 season, and the event will be moderated by current Comets P.A. announcer, Ed Bishop.
Judges include:
Kim Roentved – Head Coach for Comets
Brian Harris and Coady Andrews – current Comets players
Eddie Kennison – former KC Chiefs wide receiver
Jay Binkley – 610 Sports
Steve Serrano – Mix 93.3
Mick Shaffer – Metro Sports
Katye Baker – All About Dance
Lisa and Linda Luft – Bolero Salon and Spa
Randy Baker – Citizens Bank & Trust
Tina Budzinski – Pembroke Hill Dance coach
Charleen Keller – Galaxy Girls Director
The Galaxy Girls have been a tradition with the Comets for many years, and continue to build the relationship between the team and fans on game day, as well as strong connections with the community through multiple public service events during the season. The Galaxy Girls work closely with Blair’s Foster Socks, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing socks to foster and homeless children.
For more information about the Comets, visit http://www.cometsindoorsoccer.com/ or email Christa Patrick at chpatrick@kcarenasports.com. Also follow the Comets on Facebook and Twitter.

Food Tour Business Set For KC Launch In August

If you are a fan of Kansas City’s different neighborhoods and the food selections they offer then you are in luck starting next month.
KC’s Best Food Tours, which launch Aug. 3, will start by offering three different walking tours at a time, rotating through featured neighborhoods such as the Country Club Plaza, Kansas City Power & Light District, River Market, West 39th Street, Westport, Brookside and possibly 17th & Summit streets.
All tours will be three hours long and visit five restaurants.
Co-founder Jessica Burke said she’s working on hiring tour guides, but the tours will launch with herself and her partner, Carl Werner, as guides.
“We’re both passionate about food and especially locally owned restaurants,” she said.
KC Best also will offer a trolley tour of Kansas City barbecue restaurants. Burke said restaurants have been interested, and some have called her about being featured on the tours.
Tours will cost $50.
A separate food tour effort is launching in Kansas City’s Crossroads Arts District. Rebekah Dykstra will offer walking tours that visit six spots in the district.

Kansas City Council approves $5M subsidy for Cordish apartment project

The Kansas City Council has approved a $5 million subsidy to The Cordish Co. for its planned downtown residential project.
The full council passed the measure Thursday after a committee had recommended its approval the day before.
The $5 million brings to $8 million the city’s total cash contribution to Cordish’s project. The $70 million project is expected to bring 316 new residential units to the Kansas City Power & Light District.
Cordish drew down an initial $3 million from the city to construct footings at the corner of 13th and Walnut streets, where the 250-unit high-rise apartment project will be built on a surface lot.
The city also expects to approve a 25-year, 50 percent tax abatement for Cordish, most likely through the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority.
The project, which also includes renovating the Midland office building into 63 residential units, makes good on Cordish’s promise to build apartments in the Power & Light District.
Cordish’s residential plans don’t stop there.
It envisions building an additional 750 units at three different locations in the Power & Light District during the next eight to 10 years.
A surface lot adjacent to Alamo Mainstreet theater, one behind the Bristol restaurant and one behind Bar Louie are slated for future residential development.

Cordish plans $70M in downtown Kansas City rental apartment projects

I know that this doesn’t deal with an indoor sport, but since the P&L District is so identifiable with the Sprint Center I felt it is relevant.
The Cordish Co. plans a pair of residential projects in the Kansas City Power & Light District that represents a $70 million investment.
A new high-rise building at Walnut and 13th streets, just east of Cosentino’s Market, would have 250 units in a long-awaited ground-up residential construction project.
Many of Downtown’s residential projects have been fix-ups to existing, typically historic buildings.
And that’s the second component of Cordish’s plans in the downtown district.
A renovation to the Midland office building, west of Cosentino’s, would yield 68 additional residential units.
Both projects would offer market-rate rental units.
Nick Benjamin, executive director of the Power & Light District, said the Midland renovation is expected to end in late 2013 or early 2014. Construction of the high-rise at Walnut and 13th will take 24 months.
The Kansas City Council will take up a development agreement, probably within two weeks, to subsidize the project with $8 million in cash from a recent bond issuance.
The Kansas City Business Journal reported in April that Kansas City had passed a $63.5 million bond issuance with little public discussion, which included an earmark for as much as $10 million for a “downtown residential project account,” most of which was to finance a contractual obligation with Cordish-affiliate Kansas City Live LLC.
The development agreement between Kansas City and Cordish would include a 25-year, 50 percent property tax abatement.
That’s lower than the standard Planned Industrial Expansion Authority tax abatement, which normally goes for 10 years at 100 percent abatement and then 15 years at 50 percent abatement.
The residential development was part of the original proposal for the Power & Light District. The 2004 master development agreement called for as many as 350 residential units.
But the protracted redevelopment of the Power & Light District portion of Downtown and its opening of retail, restaurant and entertainment locations at the onset of the recession shelved further plans for new residential construction.
The inclusion of a residential component to downtown redevelopment was driven by an oft-cited rationale: The dearth of people living in Downtown bears some responsibility for the slow redevelopment and less-than-projected revenue at the Power & Light District.
City officials have said the city needs 35,000 residents living in Downtown, about double the number living there now.