SvobodaKC: Kansas City Greyfields Part II

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Kansas City Greyfields Part II

Don't Tell My Wife I was in a Mall.....

Greyfields

Since my past visits to some (now) dead malls in the Kansas City area, some people thanked me for a rather sad look back on their childhood haunting grounds. I never really had a great love affair for malls. I prefer the open air authentic experience of a pedestrian enclave of local shops in a eclectic village setting of old and modern structures. The mall tried to take over the downtown and move it all indoors. Then the discount and big box stores took away the malls business. Now many new malls seek to mimic the old town square only with new and, usually, corporate attitudes. Still, like many who came of age in and around a shopping mall, it is sad to see them go under the tracks of the bull dozer. Blue Ridge was the first to go, becoming a mega Wal*Mart. Bannister, the newest mall, turned into a huge ugly crater after city leaders believed the promises of a developer. Then, Mission Mall became an empty, ugly dusty field when the developers destroyed it with hopes of turning the area into something new and corporate -- Wal*Mart is what they wanted. So with fascination spurred on by websites like www.deadmalls.com and www.labelscar.com, I revisit some areas I have visited in the past to see how they have progressed, or not.

Here is a blog I called Christmas Ghosts...
http://svobodakc.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-ghosts.html
Here is a blog post I did on the subject on January 2011
http://svobodakc.blogspot.com/2011_01_14_archive.html

Antioch Center, Kansas City, Missouri
The first was Antioch Center, which was the oldest shopping Mall in the Kansas City area. It sat mostly vacant for years with promises of demolition for something new to come. The demolition has finally half happened, as half of the mall still stands, and the rest has been "bannisterized" into an ugly crater surrounded by a weed grown parking lot. Here is the wiki on it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch_Center
I shot dashcam vid and some pix...

Tit's hot!

Downtown KC from I-70

Not as hot, but still broiling

What is left of Antioch Center

Truncated mall

Bannisterized!

KC is anchored in the north and the south with anchor holes...

I wonder how permanent that temporary fence will be?

Sliced at the Burlington Coat Factory

Maybe they'll move a half price books next door

Sears is still OPEN!

Here to Stay!

Boarded up Antioch Center

Antioch Center the way it looked from the inside on October 2007

Chouteau Trafficway, Kansas City, Missouri

http://www.architizer.com/en_us/projects/view/chouteau-parkway/11622/

I first visited here after learning the demise of my favorite 1950's commercial strip was being flattened to make way for cars and bicycles.

Since I posted this in July 2011, which is exactly one year ago, this has become my most read blog entry...
http://svobodakc.blogspot.com/2011/07/ghost-town-in-kansas-city.html

So what progress has a year made?

Everything is torn down

Flattened

Work has begun on the expansion of the parkway

One of the houses sat abandoned for so long waiting on the city to demolish it, that it was being used as a hideout for vagrants. It was even suspected of being the place where the missing baby Lisa Irwin was brought.

Cranes replace neon signs

Local traffic only

Dead end as the expansion of the road due to increased traffic has been cut off thereby denying the increased traffic its access.

Extra large culvert pipes

Cranes and weeds.

Metcalf South Center, Overland Park, Kansas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_South_Shopping_Center

It may be surprising to know that Metcalf South Shopping Center in Overland Park seems to be doing a little better these days with the help of some wholesale stores. They don't seem to be open to the general public though. Macy's and Sears are still there of course, and both stores seem to be doing ok. Glenwood theatre is there, as well, which was moved there from its original googie location in the early 90's to make way for a strip mall, which is, ironically, also dying. The old Glenwood was doing ok when it was demolished. It was only built in 1967.