QuikTrip management finally came to its senses: The company’s proposal of late last year to build a store adjacent to the northwest corner of 39th and Southwest Trafficway is officially dead.
I had not heard anything about the project in months, after writing two posts about the proposal last December. The company had gone silent, as had its local attorney, Patricia Jensen.
But when I noticed recently that a “for sale or rent” sign was up, I knew something was afoot because QT had had an option to buy the vacant building on the site.
Last Friday, I sent an email to Aisha Jefferson, a QT spokesperson, asking, “Has QT abandoned plans to build a store at the location?”
The answer came this morning: “Yes we have.”
This was not surprising news because nobody other than QuikTrip was in favor. Opponents included the surrounding neighborhood associations; 4th District City Council representatives Katheryn Shields and Eric Bunch; and Historic Kansas City Foundation, which is now strongly advocating a tax-incentive plan to redevelop the former Katz drugstore at Westport Road and Main Street. (The Council is expected to vote Thursday on a 10-year, 75-percent tax-abatement ordinance.)
Nevertheless, news of QT pulling the plug was a welcome relief to area residents.
Tosha Lathrom, immediate past president of the Roanoke Homes Association, told me today she had learned weeks ago about QT’s capitulation from Jackson County Legislator Scott Burnett, who lives in the area.
“We are all very happy about it,” Lathrom said. “We hope they (QT) move on farther east where there are no QuikTrips.”
That’s a nice wish but not likely to happen. QT seems to studiously avoid East Side locations. I know of at least one East Side (not very far east) location they abandoned many years ago: 75th and Holmes, which became a Conoco store and which, I believe, is now a Phillips 66.
It’s hard to argue with QT’s philosophy, however, because their formula has made them arguably the best and unarguably one of the most successful convenience-store chains in the country.
As of last year, the privately owned company was taking in more than $11 billion a year, with 850 stores in 11 states. Its strategy, stated on it website, explains why it steers clear of potentially problematic locations: It strives to be the dominant convenience/gasoline retailer in each market and to reach that level not through sheer numbers of stores but through key, high-volume locations.
And that’s precisely why it wanted to develop a big store at 39th and the Trafficway, even though it has two other locations — one on Westport Road and one on Main Street — within a few miles of the Trafficway.
Talk about high volume…According to the Kansas City Public Works Department, the average daily traffic volume at 39th and Southwest Trafficway was 72,818 vehicles a day in 2017. That made it the busiest intersection in all of Kansas City, running about 1,500 vehicles a day ahead of the second-busiest intersection, 31st and Southwest Trafficway.
In the end, I think, it was smart of QuikTrip to back down. Had it kept pushing, it would have incurred a lot more bad publicity, and it would have sapped some of the goodwill it has enjoyed throughout much of the city, despite battles over store expansions here and there, including both the Main Street and Westport Road locations.
It’s good to know the tenor of that wonderful midtown neighborhood will now be preserved, at least for the time being, and that Missie B’s — “Kansas City’s premier gay bar” — will remain the liveliest spot in the immediate area..
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 