Kansas City metro adds 3,200 jobs in the third quarter
Two sectors added 4,100 jobs. Everything else lost 900. That is the whole story of the quarter.
Business & Economy Reporter
Danny Okafor
Danny writes about jobs, small business and the regional economy. He spent six years covering commercial real estate before joining the newsroom.
Twenty-two restaurants opened in the metro this autumn. Nine closed.
Openings are up. Closures are up too. Both numbers are telling the truth.
Plaza retail vacancy falls below 8 percent for the first time since 2019
The recovery is real. It is also mostly service businesses moving into space that used to hold apparel.
Olathe enters phase two of downtown renewal with 180 housing units
The first phase proved the demand. The second phase tests whether the street grid can absorb it.
Kansas City startups raised $74 million in the third quarter
Three deals account for 81 percent of the quarter. That is not a healthy distribution.
Housing trust fund breaks ground on 312 units across four sites
Four sites, four developers, one financing structure that took three years to get right.
The Northland is absorbing warehouse space faster than it can build it
Vacancy at 3.1 percent is not a healthy market. It is a market that is out of room.
Overland Park adopts design guidelines for its downtown core
The guidelines are voluntary for existing buildings and binding for anything filed after January.
Olathe issued more small-business permits this year than any year on record
Trades businesses are the fastest-growing category, and most of them do not have a website.
A metro food bank doubles its cold storage and cuts a distribution step
The old constraint was not supply. It was that fresh food spoils faster than a truck can move it.
The city market closes its best season on record, with 41 new vendors
Forty-one new vendors, a median customer age eight years younger, and one very long queue for tomatoes.