Ingram's May 2024

1979 Kemper Arena roof collapses during thunderstorm. Three former employees of Arthur Andersen form a company called PGI & Associates. It’s known today as Cerner Corp.

1980 Royals win penant, lose to Phillies in World Series, 4-2. 17-day heat wave kills 148. George Brett flirts with .400 batting average (finishes at .390). Doubletree Hotel opens in Overland Park.

1981 Skywalks collapse at Hyatt Regency on July 17, eventually claim ing 114 lives. 260 local air traffic controllers walk off job. Ronald Reagan becomes the 40th U.S. president. Outlook Magazine is renamed Corporate Report Kansas City .

1982 Voters approve 911 emergency telephone system. Bess Wallace Truman and Joyce C. Hall die.

DECEMBER Piecing Together City Center Square

The rhetoric still rages and the de bates continue. The minimum wage bill (which took effect Jan. 1, 1978, raising the minimum wage to $2.30/hour) does raise some very difficult questions. How ever, because of reporting methods, it is too early to determine what the effects of the new minimum-wage bill will be on the nation, and more particularly on the Greater Kansas City trade areas. The Kansas City Chamber of Commerce has taken no stand on it to date. The national chamber is doing a survey on it, but only with the passage of more time will the real impact be felt. The new, big-boy development in town, Pershing Square, is due to start push- ing its weight around in about a year. And from the reputation of its developer, it should be a handsome complement to that other big boy in the neighborhood, Crown Center—the defending champion of Downtown Kansas City face-saving. Ground-breaking ceremonies for the first phase of the $500 million Pershing Square development were held in May just east of grand old Union Station, and construction was scheduled to begin in mid-June. Pershing, the largest proposed development in the history of Kansas City—expected to surpass even Crown Center in money spent—is only a block north on Main Street from Crown Center. The first Pershing building, due to open in August 1980, is a 160,000 square feet, eight-story office structure, with the redoubtable title of One Pershing Square. AUGUST / SEPTEMBER Ewing Kauffman and His Royals— The Business of Baseball “I don’t like to be a loser,” said Ewing Kauffman, owner of the Kansas City Roy JULY Pershing Square— Marching Down Main

als, in 1970. “Give us (Royals) six years and we’ll deliver the fans of Kansas City a pennant.” True to his promise, in 1976 and 1977, Mr. K (as he’s affectionately referred to by his friends and colleagues) brought successive American League Western Division Championship flags to the Harry S. Truman Sports Complex. “We’ve lost $11.2 million in a little more than seven years,” said Mike Her man, Kauffman’s financial adviser. Mr. K said, “It’s not an investment. We have $21 million in (the franchise), and the return is 2 percent after taxes. That’s no return and that’s only been in the last two years. Before, it was a loss.” When asked how a rational business man like himself gets involved in a losing proposition like that, Kauffman replied: “Stupidity.” OCTOBER Condominiums Come of Age in Kansas City What’s up to date in Kansas City? Condominiums. (If you can spell it right off, you can afford one.) And who’s got the biggest condo project in the city? Crown Center. (Natch.) But there have been some rumors underground that the Downtown developer’s giant condo, south of Crown Center Redevelopment Corp. (whose parent is Hallmark Cards), is foundering. The structure was up there all right—all 30 stories of it—but few were living there. There was the talk that Hallmark may have sent its very best once again, but that Kansas City—fool ishly—didn’t care enough to buy. Not so, oh cynics and would-be trust busters. Crown Center indeed suffered two very lean condo years—1977 and much of 1978—but now the 135-unit San Francisco Towers, completed in Decem ber 1976, is about 70 percent filled, and the Crown Center people already have their eyes on another high-rise condo de velopment for next year.

Until very recently, one of the tallest buildings in downtown Kansas City kept a remarkably low profile. By its location and sheer size—it covers one square city block—City Center Square has generated a great deal of speculation. Is the 30-story office tower/retail complex a white el ephant, or just a few years ahead of its time? Was it built to meet a demand or to generate one? How did it come about that one of the most ambitious projects in Downtown Kansas City in decades was developed and financed by out-of-town ers? And finally, just exactly who owns City Center Square? These are vital questions because City Center Square is more than just an inter esting building concept. It was the kick off project and the key project in a master plan to revitalize Downtown. 1980 JANUARY Capital Expenditures in a Softening Economy While the rest of the nation cools with recessionary anticipation, a number of Kansas City firms are gearing up. The nation’s businesses may not be barricad ing their doors against double-digit infla tion or an impending recession, but on a national basis, they appear to be more concerned with the changing economic conditions than do many of the Kansas City-area businesses. Kansas City, of course, is not immune to the hardships the economy may suffer on business in 1980, but those contacted by Outlook have a generally positive attitude about the new business year, and many will back that optimism with ambitious plans for increased capital expenditures. (Editor’s note in 2024: The economic stagnation of

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Kansas City’s Business Media

May 2024