Big Ideas: April 2021

The Charming Weirdness of Dixon’s Chili / Tolls Coming to U.S. 69?

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In This Issue APRIL 2021

S WAY

T H E LO O P

19

TA S T E

35

April Showers

87

36

Split Hairs

88

Club Setting

90

Open House

91

Local florist makes same-day deliveries.

A handful of local landmarks have gotten a facelift during the pandemic lull. Here’s a handy guide.

Hair trends and cut ideas from local stylists.

Meet the founder of the Crossroads’ new city club.

An airy custom home in south Johnson County.

22

24

E V E RY I S S U E

Green Envy

Take a Toll

14 Editor’s Letter

What the U.S. 69 expansion means for tolls.

Missouri’s updated list of spreading invasive plants.

29 Calendar 96 Backstory SPECIAL SECTION

The Charming Weirdness of Dixon’s Chili / Tolls Coming to U.S. 69?

53 Top Agents Profiles

04.2021

11 IDEAS

AERIAL

EYES

BIG IDEAS | OUTDOOR LIVING GUIDE

THAT COULD CHANGE KC FOREVER CELLULAR

MEAT VACCINATION PASSPORT

O N TH E C OVE R

| TOP AGE NT S

This month’s cover was illustrated by Katie Sloan.

FLIGHT

PORTABLE SHELTERS

kansascitymag.com

12

KANSAS CITY APRIL 2021

Chill Out

A detailed guide to Dixon’s Famous Chili.

Perfect Day

Get to know the leader of the Midwest Innocence Project.

Newsfeed

The latest in KC food news.

92

Gut Reaction

94

Taco Town Redux

Hard kombucha in North KC.

Is KCK America’s one true taco capital? We report, you decide.

HAIR TRENDS PHOTO MODELED AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY MICHELLE NORRIS @MICHELLENORRISPHOTO ON IG

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FROM THE EDITOR

he phrase “uncertain times” makes me squirm.

That could be partly personal. I turned twenty-one a few days after 9/11 and I turned forty in the middle of a pandemic. In both cases, a world I was just starting to figure out got flipped and shaken at a most inconvenient time.

But, of course, uncertainty also comes with opportunity. When everybody stops rowing all at once and gazes out in wonder at the sea, you can change the ship’s course in a way that’s otherwise not possible.

There’s a really refreshing sense of freedom and possibility that’s born of collective confusion.

I normally like to share a few personal anecdotes about these things in this space, but if I started typing on those now, we’d be at the history page at the back of the book before I was done. Like everyone else, after the last year, I’m wondering a lot about what happens next.

This month’s cover story is about what could happen—if we dare.

The eleven topics* explored in our Big Ideas cover package tend toward the ambitious. These are ideas that could shape life in our city for decades to come. Some might say a few are pipe dreams—self-piloted air taxis powered by a local company’s technology (page 64) and a local billionaire rescuing the Star from hedge fund jackals (page 72) may seem outlandish until you read up on them.

Other ideas, I’d dare say, are such obvious winners that it’s surprising no one has done them already—why is there no marina on the Missouri River between Omaha and Columbia (page 74)?

The unifying theme of the proposals in this package is their ability to inspire as we finally emerge from a long, dark slog where it was sometimes harder to dream any bigger than getting dinner on the table and vacuuming the baseboards in the same evening.

Now, the future is coming on fast. And what it looks like is—well, it’s still a little fuzzy. I got much more excited about that uncertainty while working on this Martin Cizmar issue, and I hope you’ll feel the same EDITOR IN CHIEF after reading it.

MARTIN@KANSASCITYMAG.COM

Amijah Jackson WRITER

Amijah Jackson, a Kansas City, Kansas, native, wrote about the tiny home project in Lawrence for this month’s Big Ideas feature. She also wrote about the U.S. Route 69 expansion project.

Megan Folmsbee WRITER

Lover of all things lifestyle, UMKC student Megan Folmsbee wrote a piece on her favorite hairstyle trends and inquired about a new social club in the Crossroads for this issue.

Samantha Levi PHOTOGRAPHER

The photos for the profile of the founder of The Nelle were shot by Samantha Levi, a veteran local photographer who has shot everything from hamburgers to rappers.

14

KANSAS CITY APRIL 2021

¹It’s actually twelve—aim your phone’s camera at the QR codes.

MARTIN CIZMAR ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID BABCOCK CONTRIBUTOR ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOANNA GORHAM

T

C O N T R I B U TO R S

PEOPLE LOVE MAGAZIN ES.

COURTIER

S H O U T- O U T

NUMBERS FROM THIS ISSUE

90

Percent of Johnson County residents who say they want to see U.S. Route 69 expanded.

TAC O TOW N , A S TO L D

Our March issue, Taco Town, included the results of the broadest survey of KC tacos ever conducted. The story drew thousands of comments and fifty thousand page views in just a few days. A week later, Forbes published a piece by a freelance travel writer that declared KCK America’s taco capital.

While working on our outdoor living mini feature, associate editor Nicole Bradley spent some time checking in on work by her former colleagues at Better Homes & Gardens.

PA GE 7 8

PA GE 24

60

Number of games the Royals got to play last year.

PA GE 2 9

2024

The year a company is aiming to launch air taxi service in vertical takeoff vehicles.

PA GE 6 4

16

KANSAS CITY APRIL 2021

“I think if you grew up eating these, you might have that kind of maniacal allegiance to In-A-Tub. I grew up in Independence and feel that way about HiBoy and Fun House Pizza. I think part of it is the familiarity of eating something that has remained unchanged for fifty or sixty years, a constant in a world constantly in flux.”

—Roy L. Fuchs “Been here on the Kansas side most of my life. Tacos are my most favorite and I’ve never been there— can’t believe it! It’s on my immediate bucket list now.”

—Kristi McClanahan Young “Since In-A-Tub closes every night at 10 pm, your ‘midnight runs’ must have ended in bitter disappointment. Wait a minute, this is Kansas City magazine, facts are not relevant.”

—James Marinovich

“

BEHIND THE SCENES

“‘Midnight run’ may not literally mean ‘midnight.’ Just means ‘middle of the night.’

Which is at any point at night. If you don’t see that, you need to expand your literal mind a bit.”

—Jessica Lee “I think my browser isn’t loading the entire article.

Can someone forward me the review of the delicious tacos from Crave of KC Food Truck? I’m sure they had to be on the list.”

—David Hall “I wondered if Margarita’s and Ponak’s would make the list and they did. My real surprise was California Taco Shop. They have good food as well.”

—Jess Duffey “I cry from happiness when I eat [Los Altos Jalisco’s] tacos. So, so affordable and all the sides!” —Lisa Cook

Our team has two things to celebrate this spring, as our art director Katie Sloan and associate editor Nicole Bradley are getting married just a few weeks apart.

We threw a bridal shower for them in the middle of working on this issue.

CONTACT US

Kansas City

P.O. Box 26823 Overland Park, KS 66225-6823 (913) 469-6700 EMAIL: editor@kansascitymag.com

They said the way we cook our chili—the meat and beans separate and the do-it-yourself method—that’s the way they do it in the military.

That’s why Harry [Truman] liked it, because that’s the way he had it when he was in the army.”

—STEPHEN STEFFES, GENERAL MANAGER OF DIXON’S CHILI

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L E A D I N G T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N I N K A N S A S C I T Y

POST SPACED

Starlight Theatre

The pandemic gave several notable institutions time and space to conduct massive renovations. Here’s what will look a little different as we emerge into the After Times.

BY K AT H L E E N W I LC O C K

KANSASCITYMAG.COM APRIL 2021

19

TH E LO O P POST SPACED

life and legacy. A theater will replicate a bombed-out city to connect the audience with the understanding of how the Cold War began. The exhibits will explain how Truman helped rebuild post-WWII through the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, the founding of NATO and much more. A globe will show the stress and fractures of the world and how Truman responded to all the issues to strengthen and rebuild the world.

Starlight Theatre

After having to cancel its season due to Covid, the outdoor theater is set to reopen with updates to comply with ADA requirements. Rich Baker, Starlight’s president and CEO, says the state allocated $3.5 million to level walkways, increase ADA companion seats and raise terraces. The work is set to be completed mid-April. The facility also got new water fountains and mobile ordering of concessions to alleviate crowding.

F

OR THE LAST YEAR,

much of the city has been shut down.

Mostly, that’s been painful. But there was one small silver lining: the clearing of a backlog of renovation projects around Kansas City. Without visitors to work around, some museums and parks have gotten a fast facelift. Here’s what to look for as you emerge from quarantine.

The Monarchs and their stadium

At the tail end of 2019, the T-Bones minor league baseball team in KCK went bankrupt and was sold. As the pandemic wanes, the team is emerging, well, a little like a butterfly—specifically a Monarch. The team’s new name is a tip of the cap to local history and establishes a prized partnership with the Negro Leagues Museum. The stadium itself has been extensively rehabbed during the downtime and will be unveiled for the team’s May 18 opening day. Mark McKee, the

20

KANSAS CITY APRIL 2021

Monarchs’ managing partner, says the team has completely renovated the club level suites, restrooms, lighting, sound and high-end seating. The stadium is also getting a craft beer garden and a home plate bar and adding barbecue, pizza and tacos to the restaurants at the stadium.

Truman Museum

Every past president since Herbert Hoover has gotten his own library and museum, and that includes Kansas City’s own Harry S. Truman, who is memorialized with a museum in Independence that’s perched to overlook the city skyline.

The Truman Museum got lucky on the timing of the pandemic, according to director Kurt Graham, as it was already slated to close for a $26 million renovation. “If Covid had to happen, it’s very fortunate because we were planning on being closed anyway and we had already budgeted to be without that revenue,” he says.

The Truman Museum will have exhibits on both levels detailing Truman’s

Kansas City Museum

The historic mansion-to-museum will be opening its doors back up this fall after closing for renovations in 2017.

All four levels of the mansion have been renovated, but director of programs and events Paul Gutiérrez says that that is merely phase one in the process. The first-floor rooms have been recreated and renovated, the billiards room has been restored, and the elements of the soda fountain, which were part of the original museum in 1940, have been brought back.

Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

The Negro National League celebrated its hundredth anniversary last year. Thanks to long-overdue updates, the museum was able to begin work on two new exhibits in March of 2020 and reopen last June—though with the pandemic going, fewer people have been able to see new changes. Ray Dowsell, the museum’s VP, helped contribute to the new exhibits, “Breaking Barriers” and “Changing Times,” which add a more extensive view and understanding of African American baseball players from 1939 to 1960. With more photos and artifacts displayed in backlit boxes, visitors will be more informed and inspired by the history than they might have previously been.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTS ATELIER

Rounding up renovation projects completed during the pandemic

KANSASCITYMAG.COM APRIL 2021

21

TH E LOOP NATURE

Missouri just released its list of mostexpanding invasive plants. Here’s why you should care.

BY N I C O L E B R A D L E Y

MOST WA N T E D

Here are the top five mostexpanding invasive species in Missouri.

1. Callery Pear:

The most popular cultivar of this tree, Bradford, is known for its funky-smelling yet attractive white flowers.

2. Garlic Mustard:

These green bushing plants grow tiny white flowers in their second year and give off a garlicky odor when the plant is crushed.

3. Sericea Lespedeza:

T

H E Y C O M E F L O W E R E D , full and green. Often, they’re somewhat attractive and at first glance might not seem problematic. They may not look like your typical weed, but invasive plants are a serious threat to the natural ecosystem.

That’s why Missouri established its own Invasive Plant Task Force, a networking and advocacy group made up of folks from fields of conservation, agriculture, botanical science, ecological services and more.

“We meet quarterly,” says Carol Davit, head of the Missouri Prairie Foundation. “One of our top goals is to make early detection and control of invasive plants a high priority in our state. Back

22

KANSAS CITY APRIL 2021

This slenderstemmed plant grows up to six feet tall and has thin leaves. It blossoms creamy white flowers with purple throats in late summer.

4. Invasive Privets:

Native to northern China, these semievergreen shrubs can mature to fifteen feet tall. The creamy flowers are known to have an unpleasant aroma.

5. Reed Canary Grass:

This plant looks like your typical prairie grass but with shorter and less clustered seed head spikelets.

in 2015, when we started, the highest priority was to create a ranked assessment of known and potential invasive plants in Missouri because there wasn’t any comprehensive updated list.”

Recently, the Missouri Invasive Plant Task Force released a list of the twenty-five most-expanding invasive plants in Missouri, assessed by the abundance of plants compiled and reviewed by twenty-six Missouri field biologists.

If invasive plants are left to their own devices, they will rapidly multiply and their ranges will expand. Invasive species aren’t just costly to eradicate; they can take up resources from people who make a living off their land.

“They’re competing for space, they’re competing for soil resources, they’re competing for water, they’re competing for sun,” Davit says, adding that invasive plants taking over can disrupt the ecological function of existing habitats. “In an area you might have thirty to fifty different kinds of plants. All of those plants might have specific relationships to native insects or other other creatures.”

If you find what you think is an invasive species in your area, you can report it using the EDDMapS app, which can help track invasive plants across the nation. Davit quotes Dr. Quinn Long, the head of Shaw Nature Reserve near St. Louis: “His analogy is if you live in an apartment building and three doors down another apartment is on fire, do you wait until the fire gets to your apartment before you leave?”

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TH E LO O P TR A NSPORTATION

$300

Million

The proposed cost of the highway expansion. “The near-term improvements cost approximately $300 million and would fix current and near-term safety and congestion problems and reconstruct aging bridges and pavement,” Douglas says.

TOLL FOR THEE Will the expansion of U.S. Route 69 in Overland Park come with a toll?

BY A M I JA H JAC K S O N

of U.S Route 69 through Overland Park is set to grow soon, with the highway growing from four to six lanes between 103rd Street and 179th Street.

But exactly what that expansion looks like is still up for debate, with proposals for adding tolls or a tolled express lane on the table.

“At eighty thousand vehicles per day, the existing four-lane highway is not sufficient to carry this much traffic, which is what leads to congestion and higher crash rates,” says Lindsey Douglas, spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Transportation. “The expansion to six lanes will accommodate today’s traffic as well as the increased traffic projected as the city’s population increases.”

THE BUSY SECTION

Here are the key numbers to know about the project.

24

KANSAS CITY APRIL 2021

01 6.5 02

In Kansas there is currently one toll road, the Kansas Turnpike, which covers two hundred thirtysix miles.

The first phase of the work would potentially be from 151st to 103rd streets, approximately six and a half miles, Douglas says.

Two lanes would be added.

The project would expand the existing four-lane road to a six-lane road by adding a twelve-foot lane and the narrow shoulders with wider shoulders on both sides, Douglas says.

80,000

Number of vehicles that travel U.S. Route 69 each day. It’s the state’s busiest four-lane highway, Douglas says.

53%

The current crash rate on this highway is fifty-three percent above the statewide average.

90% Nine in ten Johnson County residents favor doing something to improve U.S. 69.

Sixty-two percent were concerned about travel safety while fifty-nine percent were concerned about travel time predictability.

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WHERE YOU WANT TO BE IN APRIL

PHOTOGRAPHY PROVIDED BY THE K ANSAS CITY ROYALS

April

01

GO: Opening Day at the K is April 1 against the Texas Rangers. The game starts at 3:10 pm.

Limited tickets are available.

BACK, WAY BACK

Opening Day is always special, but perhaps never more than this year. The abrupt cancelation of the first half of last year’s baseball season led to a shortened run of just sixty games, all without fans. “Last year was unlike anything a grizzled veteran like myself has experienced,“ says Mike Swanson, vice president of commu-

nications for the Royals. “We were on edge for the better part of three months, following all of the protocols, testing regularly and just trying to keep the game going for fans to at least have a rooting interest despite not being allowed in the ballpark.” Having endured all that, the fresh start of this season is “that much more exciting,” Swanson says. On April 1, baseball’s back—way back—and we couldn’t be happier.

KANSASCITYMAG.COM APRIL 2021

29

T H E B E AT C A L EN DA R

April

24

2

Mavericks vs. Wichita Thunder

Men of Men at Lemonade Park April 2, 6–11 pm.

April 22, 23 and 24, 7:05 pm.

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The Freedom Affair April 10, 6–10 pm.

LEMONADE PARK, 1628 WYOMING ST., KCMO. $15 PER TICKET (BRING YOUR OWN CHAIR), $25 PER LAWN TICKET (FULL TABLE SERVICE WITH MULTIPLE SEATING OPTIONS).

The Freedom Affair is a soul group from KCMO celebrating their latest album release, Freedom Is Love, by performing two sets at Lemonade Park.

8

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The Covid-delayed minor league hockey season is just heating up, as is the Maverick’s rivalry with the Wichita Thunder. The Mavericks became the longest-tenured professional hockey team in Kansas City this season, surpassing the eleven-year run of the Blades. This contest is the start of a threematch homestand for the Mavericks.

Panic Film Fest April 8

SCREENLAND ARMOUR THEATRE, 408 ARMOUR ROAD, NORTH KC. $13 FOR INDIVIDUAL SCREENINGS. $150 FOR A HYBRID PASS, $135 FOR VIRTUALONLY PASS. PANICFILMFEST.COM

This local film festival focuses on horror, thriller and sci-fi flicks and has grown to include more than sixty movies, winning it national acclaim from cinema magazines. This year’s festival is a hybrid of sorts, offering both in-person screenings and a virtual program lineup.

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Spring Parade of Homes April 24–May 9 START YOUR TOUR AT ANY HOME LISTED ON KCPARADEOFHOMES.COM. BROCHURE DETAILING THE OTHER HOMES AVAILABLE AT EACH LOCATION.

The housing market is exploding right now, and you can start your search at the Spring Parade of Homes, which returns from April 24 to May 9. KC has the second largest such showcase in the country. This year’s version will feature hundreds of homes built by a variety of builders across the area and range from modestly priced new builds to opulent milliondollar-plus stunners.

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T H E B E AT A RT S

MURAL OF THE STORY Kit Landwehr’s art is popping up in some of KC’s coolest new spaces.

BY M E G A N F O L M S B E E

I T S E E M S L I K E artist Kit Landwehr has been popping up all over the city over the past few months. Her bold-colored, structurally modern murals and prints are all over Instagram, and her work is featured prominently at Sequence Climb climbing gym, the new social club The Nelle (see page 38) and new Crossroads mini-hotel No Vacancy. After graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2015 and working full time at the architectural metal-working firm Zahner, Landwehr has ventured into the new world of freelance.

A lot of times I’ll draw inspiration from photos or dreaming of places I want to go, but sometimes the landscapes are just completely made up in my head.

Why murals? Where does your inspiration come from? When I was in school, I always loved working large. But once you’re no longer a student, it’s hard to find space to do such big projects without the studio to work in. I am always making giant things that feel like they have no place to go, but painting murals was a way to work large while also allowing my pieces to have a permanent home.

I love being outside in the mountains or the desert—those landscapes are so appealing to me.

What is a recent project you’re proud of? I recently finished the mural at Sequence Climb, and I’m almost done with work for Oleo Coffee, an extension of Marcell Coffee.

I’ve designed the retail bags and am confident there will be more work with them in the future.

How has media affected your freelance business? The more you put yourself out there on Instagram, the more it snowballs. It’s so fun to see people’s photos in front of the No Vacancy courtyard mural, for example.

Even just on Google, I saw there was a full wedding out in front of it. I never thought that people would be getting married in front of my artwork.

Any Kansas City favorites? I love Westport Cafe and You Say Tomato!

GO: You can shop Landwehr’s prints and contact

her for commissioned mural work on her website kitlandwehr.format.com.

H OW S H E WO R K S KIT LANDWEHR SHARES THE BACKSTORY OF HER MOST RECENT PROJECT, RETAIL BAGS FOR OLEO COFFEE

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2

“I had the idea to use a kettle inspired by the popular graniteware coffee boilers of the nineteenth century as a center point of the design. Blue and white wares have a long worldly history that goes back thousands of years.”

3

“To make the blue of the kettle stand out, I surrounded it with a lighter complementary hue—a peachy pink. When selecting colors, I’m always thinking about how each color looks with every adjacent color. I often think of making a piece of art like creating and solving a puzzle.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CALEB CONDIT AND REBECCA NORDEN

1

“It was a fun challenge working with Oleo Coffee.

And I mean challenge in the best way. Owner Christopher Oppenhuis came to the table with general constraints for the overall look and feel, photographs from his travels to various coffee farms, and some retro coffee paraphernalia.”

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C U R AT I N G A B E A U T I F U L L I F E

The Bombshell, $75

A BUDDING BUSINESS

EverWild Florals is like the DoorDash of flowers: Their newspaper-wrapped custom bouquets can be in your hands on the same day you order them.

“I’ve always been the girl who had fresh flowers on the dining room table,” EverWild founder Sarah Jaeger says. “After a while, I was tired of the same four or five options and wanted something fresh and different that was a step above the grocery store options but wasn’t a pricey arrangement from a traditional florist shop.”

EverWild offers a small, curated collection of designed arrangements that are hand-delivered to KC customers on the same day or periodically on a subscription service. “We’ve cut the industry average waste of forty percent down to just two percent and used those savings to price the bouquets affordably,” Jaeger says.

The flower operation working on opening a new space and will offer walkin service and other goods like dried floral arrangements and houseplants.

Everwildflorals.com. Order by 2 pm to get same-day delivery. — M E G A N F O L M S B E E

KANSASCITYMAG.COM APRIL 2021

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S WAY T R EN D S

Kansas City hairstylists predict what hair trends are hot right now.

BY M E G A N F O L M S B E E

Acrylic Accessories Kinsey Males, hairstylist at The Hair Parlour (115 W. 18th St., KCMO) and Paisley & Stripe West (846 Illinois St., Lawrence), says she’s confident nineties-style acrylic hair pieces featuring bold color palettes and funky shapes will be this year’s hot hair trend.

“Everyone wants that effortlessly styled look, which clips, claws and pins help create,” Males says. A few of the stylist’s favorite vendors include Prelude & Dawn (preludeanddawn.com), MLE (madebymle.com) and CHUNKS (chunks.shop).

Long Locks and Natural Textures Usually, summer’s arrival means fresh chops for many—but this year, that might not be the case.

Marc Males, who has been a barber for ten years and is the co-owner at Herringbone (7337 W. 80th St., Overland Park), says that many are embracing the “long hair, don’t care” mentality and letting it grow on its own terms.

“Right now, people seem to still be sticking to their long quarantine looks,” he says of both men and women. “Long hair is in.”

Breanna Bell, co-owner at Prestige Hair Studio (3115 W. Sixth St., Lawrence) says “more people are wearing their own textures.” By laying off the hot tools and avoiding treatments and harmful products, she’s found that her clients are fully embracing their natural curls, waves and long length.

The Shag After a few-decades slumber, the shag haircut is back.

“The shag had been popular for decades but has returned heavily the last few years,” says Shelby Loos, stylist and shag-cut expert—check it out for yourself on her Instagram, @shelbyloos—at Helm Salon (122 W. Fifth St., KCMO). “The main qualities of a shag include heavy face framing layers and lots of hair pushed forward at the top. Think Stevie Nicks or Farrah Fawcett.”

Loos says one of her favorite qualities about a shag is how great and textured it looks pulled back in a clip or a messy bun. “I see this style sticking around for a while.”

Curtain Bangs A sixties and seventies trend making itself known, curtain bangs are like a non-committal try at regular bangs. Essentially, curtain bangs are a longer version of bangs that are split down the middle and cut to shape the face.

“If you want to dip your toes into a shag without full commitment, think about adding some curtain bangs to your normal trim,” Loos says.

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PHOTOGRAPHY PROVIDED BY CHUNKS, MODELED AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY CHAMPAGNE @CHAMPAGNEUNICORNS ON IG

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KANSASCITYMAG.COM APRIL 2021

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S WAY I N T ERV I E W

Get to know the woman behind the Crossroads’ new social club and her inspiration for it.

BY M E G A N F O L M S B E E

the early 1900s, Kansas City thrived off city clubs. Notable Kansas City elite like Tom Pendergast and presidents Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower were known members of the Kansas City Club, a gentlemen’s club that operated from 1882, allowed women in 1975 and ceased operations in 2015. The old-school River Club in Quality Hill still operates today.

Entrepreneur Lauren Merriman is building a women-focused city club concept called The Nelle, a club that offers various amenities and programs to its members. With help from local artists, creators and innovators, Merriman is transforming her Crossroads space into the perfect hangout, workout and vibe-out spot.

Amenities include a cafe and bar, screening room, gym—which will be run by The TUF Club and feature a standout boxing ring—and stylish co-working spaces. Learn more about the creative blueprint of The Nelle, and look out for their opening status on their Instagram (@_thenelle).

BACK IN

Where did the idea for The Nelle come from? Before living in Chicago, I lived in London for a while, as well as Los Angeles and Las Vegas, so this is one of the smallest cities I’ve lived in. I had grown accustomed to city clubs in those bigger cities, and I’m a member of several. When I moved here, I kind of wanted to have the same setup. We were living in the bus loop in Chicago and had the East Bank Club down the street, where you could literally get your hair cut, get a car wash, get a smoothie, have a meeting, whatever you want—and it really helps a busy person’s life function in a more efficient way. I didn’t really find that here. This is a country club town, which comes with its own amenities. But

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for someone who wants to just watch a movie with girlfriends, city clubs are a better fit. I was excited to bring that experience to Kansas City. I really feel like there is so much value in having people in cities who want to believe in others, invest in others and bring great amenities to them, and that was really what I felt empowered to do.

Who inspires you? Women like Nelle Peters, who was the architect of what was actually our original building and an inspiration to our name. Nelle built the building in a time when it was rare for a woman to get a college degree, let alone go into something like architecture—that was really impressive. She was quoted

somewhere saying, “I really feel inspired to do something that makes a fundamental difference and makes me satisfied.” We want to do the same thing with The Nelle.

What is an interesting fact about The Nelle? Twenty-five percent of the membership fees annually will go to artists.

Showcasing other businesses in Kansas City within a unique model is really important to us.

Plus, service workers, health care workers and nonprofit employees can reach out in regards to membership costs. We really want to be as inclusive as possible in that way.

GO: The Nelle, 1818 McGee St., KCMO.

thenelle.com

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S WAY HOM E

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CUSTOM ORDER This custom-built house is filled with colorful artwork and smart features.

BY N I C O L E B R A D L E Y P H OTO G R A P H Y BY N AT E S H E E T S

T

E D A N D K AT H E E K R A M M

have lived in Kansas City for the past thirty years.

When the couple built their home in Overland Park’s Farm at Garnet Hill, they were hands-on in every step of the process.

This home is as custom as custom gets—everything from the geothermal heating and cooling system to the pool was hand-picked and tailored by the Kramms themselves.

“Some of the inspiration came from our across-the-street neighbors at our old house who had built a contemporary house,” Ted says. “We just loved it and loved how unique it was and how open it was. We also wanted to build a home that was relatively maintenance-free on the outside. We didn’t want to have to spend our summers painting the outside of the house and doing a lot of work. So the materials we selected were very resilient to the weather.”

See how the couple decided to lay out and equip their dream home.

1 FIREPLACE Kathee dabbles in art, and she enjoyed picking out pieces that were specifically structurally interesting. Art in the house ranges from paintings and rugs to sculptures and exclusive furniture pieces. “Jacob Bermood did the sculpture on the fireplace out of sculpted aluminum,” Ted says. “At the time, we had three dogs, and that was kind of his vision of our three dogs.”

KANSASCITYMAG.COM APRIL 2021

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S WAY HOM E

2

ENTRYWAY The home takes “open concept” to a new level—the glass doors and windows and spaces between floating stairs make it so that there’s a lot of visibility inside the house.

“It was really designed so when you do you walk in, there’s this huge window that drops all the way down,” says real estate agent Kristin Malfer. “The stairs are not offensive at all—you can see straight through and see the background, where there’s the lake and the pool.”

2

3 RUGS There’s an artist in Kansas City named Brady Legler,” Ted says. “I had gone to New York to buy a piece of art that he had done at a gallery there.

When we got back, we had an opportunity to meet with his father. We didn’t know that he made rugs at the time, and we decided to order these two really cool, bright rugs that make a great contrast with the white floors and the white walls.”

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3

4 KITCHEN TABLE The custom kitchen table is underlit and can be changed to different colors. The inspiration for this came from when Ted was visiting the bar at the Delano Hotel in Miami Beach. “You can make it whatever color you want,” Malfer says. “So if you have a Chiefs party, you can make it red or blue for Royals.”

5 KITCHEN CABINETS AND COUNTERS

In Ted and Kathee’s old house, they had dark colors in the kitchen, so they decided to opt for the reverse in this house.

“With dark counters, you can’t really see if they’re clean,” Ted says. “Now, because everything’s white, we have the goal of keeping it clean and clutter-free.”

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S WAY HOM E

6

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6 OUTDOOR SPACE The Kramms have a house in the Virgin Islands, so a big part of their design inspiration came from the openair houses typical of the Islands. The back of the house is made up of glass sliding doors, and the infinity pool and pool deck were built into the foundation of the home, which looks over the lake. “With the pool, the outdoor bar, fireplace, barbecue, porch heaters—you’ve got a whole home outdoors in open air that opens to the pool,” builder Brett Standard says. “It’s a warm setting that can be used nine months out of the year.”

7

8

7 AUTOMATED AND ECO-CONSCIOUS Standard says that what made building this house unique from many others was the strong desire that the homeowners had to make it energy-efficient.

“It’s more sustainable, from the solar panels on the roof to the geothermal heating and cooling system to the radiant floors throughout the main level,” Standard says. “It uses a whole lot less energy than a normal house of that size.”

The home is also completely automated—everything from the shades to the lights can be controlled by the swipe of a finger on an iPad.

8 EXTERIOR Architects John Mackaman and Weston Carlson of Elswood Smith Carlson helped Ted and Kathee establish this distinct feature on the home, which they call the “fin.”

“The fact that we did it out of limestone, I think just adds that much to it,” Ted says. “We call it the fin because we are Jimmy Buffett fans.”

Ted says that another huge distinguisher of their home’s exterior are the giant purple planters that sit on either side of the entry—in the fall, the couple puts mums in them to mimic Patrick Mahomes’ hair, and at Christmastime they put Santa hats on them.

KANSASCITYMAG.COM APRIL 2021

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TOP REAL ESTATE producers KANSAS CITY’S 2021

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TOP AGENTS 2021

The coronavirus pandemic accelerated many trends.

At the top of the list is Kansas City real estate. The market was already hot, but the pandemic flipped on the turbochargers.

The average sale price in close-in KC in 2020 hit $220,000 according to Redfin, up more than twenty percent from the previous year. The current year is young, but the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors has the average sale price in the larger region at $240,000 while homes are only on the market for thirty-five days, a steep decrease from sixty-two days the previous year.

We are again recognizing the agents who make the market go. The majority of this list is based on sales figures provided by the agents or brokers. But because we know that the best agent is the one that helps you buy or sell your home, this year we also conducted a reader poll to identify agents who enjoy the strongest recommendations among the people they’ve worked with. Those agents are marked with . Agents that qualified for the Top Agents list based on both sales volume and reader recommendations are marked with .

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TOP AGENTS 2021

INDIVIDUAL AGENTS Aly Plunkett Ann Nixon Ashley Dwyer Bettina O’Brien Bill Newman Brian Courtney Cathy Maxwell Charlie Potchad Chris Grider Christi Clark Connie Barton David Slawson Dawn Stuntzman Debbie Carrier Debbie White Geina Birchfield Gina Dennis Gwen Plattner Heather Philip Janine Korgie Jason Spalitto Jeffrey Jensen Jessica Jasa Jodie Brethour Jonas Barrish Julie Gadwood Kana Steinmeyer Katie Heschmeyer

Krystal Espinoza

Rebekah Schaaf

Suzanne Golomski

Linda Martin

Rita Dickey

Tammy Duncan

Lisa Bunnell

Ryan Reed

Tiffany Allen

Lori Thomas

Sal Termini

Mary Fate

Sandy Murphy

Melissa Josenberger

Sara Bash Reda

Nicole Shipley

Sara Stucker

Nicole Westhoff

Sara Sweeney

Nikie Jo Glasbrenner

Shara Collins

Patty Hummel

Sharon Barry

Penny Borel

Sheri Dyer

Peter Colpitts

Sherry Westhues

Randi Pereira

Sirenna Beyer

Teams of 2 Anderson Dreiling Group Brimacombe & Cohen Budke & Budke Dana Benjamin Team George Medina Team KC Homes 365 Team

KANSASCITYMAG.COM APRIL 2021

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TOP AGENTS 2021

Lola Kelly Team

The Fay Team

Mac Homes

The Grieve Group

Malina Homes

The Greg Trester Team

The Haley Epps Team

Monte Boultinghouse Team

The Holmes Team

Macoubrie Zimmerman and Co.

Page Homes KC

The John Simone Team

Red Door Group

Vinny’s Realty Group

Roberts Team

Zimmerlin Caldwell Team

Shelia Hampton Team

Stelzer Goodman Team

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Teams of 3-5 Destination Home Team

TamraTrickeyTeam

Kathryn Thomas Team

Tarantino Properties

Kirk Home & Land

Team Fultz

KANSAS CITY APRIL 2021

Moore Homes Shanan Group Stacy Porto Real Estate

Sold By Colby Team Sonja Stoskopf and Associates

Michelle Cook Real Estate Group

Leading Edge Homes

Terri Marks Team The Allison Rank Team The Cone Team The Ellen Murphy Team The Gail G Dicus Group The Gamble Group

The Hendrix Group The Lyman Staton Group The Madden Myers Team The Rob Lacio Team The Shannon Lyon Group The Small Real Estate Team The Stephens Group The Transition Team The Van Noy Group Wehner Real Estate Group Wolfe~Sweeney & Courtney Yacos & Associates

TOP AGENTS 2021

What I Learned When Buying My First House

BY Nicole Bradley

Teams of 6-10 Andy Blake Group Austin Home Team Groves/Johnston Team Jennifer Harvey Team LOCATE KC Roger Deines Group The Collective The Donner Group The Gresham Group

After many years of living in an apartment, my fiance and I took the leap and bought a house in Kansas City in February. I have to say, house hunting wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be on HGTV. With the market the way it is now, we toured fifty houses and made five declined offers before finally getting our golden ticket. Despite thinking we had it all figured out, there were so many things I wish I knew before starting the search. Here are seven lessons I learned when buying a house.

Get a good realtor. A realtor is the captain steering your ship, and you want to make sure they’re the right fit, as you’ll be spending lots of time with them. I met my realtor for coffee before we went to our first showing. That way, she had an idea of where I was looking, what I was looking for and in what price range. During the house hunting process, she had our best interests in mind and didn’t push us into any decisions we weren’t ready to make. She was also happy to answer any and every question—there are no dumb questions—and explain any real estate lingo I didn’t understand.

Take your time in choosing a lender. When researching lenders, be sure to ask questions and read the fine print while comparing rates. Also check with your employer—they may make recommendations or offer incentives for lenders.

The Susan Fate Real Estate Group

Have documents ready. When getting pre-approved for a loan, odds are that you’ll need all the important financial documents. Round up your recent pay stubs and W-2 forms so they’re on hand when you need them.

Teams of 10+

Write a letter. Make your offer stand out by including a personalized letter for the seller.

State a few things you like about the house, keeping it short and sweet. Did you enjoy their garden beds? How about their kitchen fit for a home chef? Be sure not to go overboard with personal details.

Bash & Co. Edie Waters Team Eric Craig Real Estate Team Huff Group Lynch Real Estate Malfer & Associates The Koehler Bortnick Team The Rob Ellerman Team Tradition Home Group

Budget for everything. There are a lot of hidden costs when it comes to the home-buying process. Have your realtor help you map out all expenses including inspection fees, closing costs, insurance, appliances and more.

Don’t expect a perfect inspection. An inspector’s job is to tally every blemish in a home, down to loose screws and paint chips. A pretty sizable blip came up during my inspection, but I was sure to stay firm with the seller in what I wanted out of it, keeping budget a priority.

You may have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince. With lots of buyers and fewer homes on the market, I always had to be ready for a showing within a moment’s notice since most houses are only on the market for a day or two. We were told that some houses would have sixtyplus showings in just one day. For about a month, I had to put aside weekend plans to squeeze in last-minute showings.

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SPEC S PI EACLI A LA ADDVV EERRT ITS II SN GI NS GE C TSI OENC T I O N

KANSAS CIT Y MAGAZINE PRESENTS OUR 2021

Realtor Profiles

Looking to buy or sell a home? These Kansas City agents ready to help you get the best deal on a property you’ll love.

KANSASCITYMAG.COM APRIL 2021

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2021 TOP REAL ESTATE AGENTS/TOP PRODUCERS

ERIC CRAIG REAL ESTATE TEAM 106 W MAIN STREET | SMITHVILLE, MO 64089 816. 726.8565 | ERICCRAIGREALESTATETEAM.COM

T H E E RIC C RA IG REAL ESTATE TEAM specializes in the North-

land. Our real estate team helps people all over the Greater Kansas City area. We put our clients first to ensure a quality experience when selling your home or buying a new one! Whether you are looking for a specific type of home, location or school district to fit your needs, our team uses some of the most innovative and advanced technology to provide you with the best and most accurate information available.

Our office opened in Smithville, Missouri in February 2016 with only three employees Eric, Andrea and Jamie. We have since grown to a team of 22. As a team, we are very involved in the community. Every year since 2018, we have partnered with Harvesters to host an annual food drive benefiting the entire Kansas City Northland. We take pride in giving back to our local school district as well as hosting lots of client and community events.

Eric Craig is a top selling realtor in Missouri. In 2015, he earned Re/max’s distinguished Realtor of the Year Award. As a team, we were the #1 real estate team in total sales in the Northland for both 2018 and 2019. We were also featured as a #2 top producer in 2020 in Kansas City magazine.

Our philosophy is simple: Clients come first always. We maintain constant communication with our clients to keep them informed and to ensure they receive the highest level of service throughout the entire buying or selling process. We take great pride in the relationships we build and work relentlessly to help clients through the process of selling their current home or buying a new home for the best price.

Whether you are looking to buy or sell a home, you need a team that will put your needs first and represent you with honesty and integrity. Let our team of real estate experts help you find your new home.

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S P E C I A LS PAE D C IVA LE ARDTVIESR IT NI S GI N GS SEECC TTI OI ON N

SPEC S PI EACLI A LA ADDVV EERRT ITS II SN GI NS GE C TSI OENC T I O N

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2021 TOP REAL ESTATE AGENTS/TOP PRODUCERS

S P E C I A LS PAE D C IVA LE ARDTVIESR IT NI S GI N GS SEECC TTI OI ON N

MICQUELYN MALINA The Malina Real Estate Team

THE MALINA REAL ESTATE TEAM | 6850 COLLEGE BLVD OVERLAND PARK , KS | 913.645.5130 | MALINAHOMES.COM

T H E MA LINA R EAL ESTATE TEAM successfully navigated 2020 by help-

ing nearly 90 families safely handle their diverse real estate needs. In the process, these dedicated real estate pros became one of Kansas City’s top teams for 2020, an honor earned by their focus on exceptional service and clear communications. As the year unleashed its unpredictable ups and downs, the Malina Real Estate Team steadfastly helped clients protect their health and well-being—and their largest financial investment.

To best serve clients—in any year—the team takes a unique approach to business.

Malina Real Estate is comprised of several distinct divisions: suburban homes, homes on land, and land for development/investment properties.

Micquelyn Malina, team lead, grew up in the Johnson County area and showed horses competitively throughout her youth. While attending Rockhurst University, Micquelyn attained her real estate license to assist her parents, Gary and Joyce Pannell, in their real estate business. After graduating from Rockhurst with a degree in marketing, Micquelyn quickly found her passion in coaching clients through the real estate process and, 25+ years later, still loves it. A respected real estate leader, she helped establish the Keller Williams Realty International Land Division and continues to sit on their agent leadership board. She is also an accredited member of Keller Williams Luxury Division and frequently leads training courses for other realtors.

Looking to expand the business, Micquelyn brought on Kate Harness as Director of Operations in 2018. Kate draws on years of experience working closely with investors, developers, and other real estate professionals. Kate uses her keen eye for details to simplify success for all involved.

By 2019, the business had grown so much that Micquelyn hired Eric Thomas as an additional agent. Eric brings expertise in customer service to every interaction, helping the team’s buyers and sellers at the highest level. Every client the Malina Real Estate Team works with receives their promise of a five-star customer service experience through open and honest communication, and care and guidance for the large investment being made. To give back to our community, the team also has every client choose a local charity at closing and makes a donation on their behalf. They also host special client events and contests throughout the year.

In their spare time, Micquelyn, Kate, and Eric all enjoy traveling, family time, playing with their dogs, and of course, our beloved Kansas City sports teams!

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SPEC S PI EACLI A LA ADDVV EERRT ITS II SN GI NS GE C TSI OENC T I O N

KANSASCITYMAG.COM APRIL 2021

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S P E C I A LS PAE D C IVA LE ARDTVIESR IT NI S GI N GS SEECC TTI OI ON N

2021 TOP REAL ESTATE AGENTS/TOP PRODUCERS

SHARON BARRY ReeceNichols Real Estate

SHARON BARRY | 7455 MISSION ROAD, PRAIRIE VILLAGE, KS 913.424.0904 | SHARONBARRY.REECENICHOLS.COM

S H ARO N BARRY began her career in real estate in 2009 and is

currently licensed with Reece Nichols in Prairie Village. Her specialties include working with clients looking to buy and sell in this exciting seller’s market and to help them navigate the intricacies of buying in a time where inventory is low, and demand is high.

Sharon also has a vast knowledge of working in the new construction market and finds it especially rewarding to help clients build their dream homes. She is best known for her current role as co-community manager at the Twin Villas of Meadowbrook Park. Sharon calls Meadowbrook Park the “crown jewel” of our town and considers herself extremely fortunate to have been a part of the development since its inception. Sharon’s clients say that she really cares about their dreams and goals and that her communication, follow-through and attention to detail make navigating their real estate endeavors an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Sharon is knowledgeable and works extremely hard for her clients. Her ability to advise and negotiate makes her a trusted partner to all the people she works with.

SCOTT STREVELL | MICAH ROOS KC Homes 365 Team KELLER WILLIAMS PARTNERS, INC. | 6850 COLLEGE BLVD OVERLAND PARK, KS 66211 | 913.258.2000 TEAM@KCHOMES365.COM | KCHOMES365.COM T H E KC H O M ES 3 6 5 T EAM has extensive experience in

Kansas City real estate and has helped thousands of home buyers and sellers throughout the metro since 1982.

And with that experience comes knowledge. The knowledge to position sellers to get the most out of their sale through complimentary home staging, innovative marketing, and expert pricing, or to provide exhaustive research and smart strategies so that buyers find the right home at the best price in today’s competitive landscape.

Looking for the latest market updates, need a referral to a trusted home service or an introduction to a great agent for an upcoming move out of state? The team can be a valuable resource for that as well.

If you’d like smooth and easy to describe your next real estate endeavor, Scott Strevell and Micah Roos are ready to offer the guidance you need so you can buy or sell a home with confidence.

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THE HALEY EPPS TEAM THE HALEY EPPS TEAM | 15133 ROSEWOOD ST| LEAWOOD, KS | 913.905.7600 | HALEYEPPS.REECENICHOLS.COM

T H E H AL EY EP P S T EAM was one of the Top 2020

teams at Reece Nichols. One of the things that sets their team apart is that they are very focused on being a white glove/concierge real estate team, priding themselves on taking exceptional care of their clients and making sure that they have the most wonderful experience possible. It’s all of the little things that go along way, like turning lights on and off for showings, providing staging expertise, exceptional photography and marketing, as well as staying in really great contact throughout the process. They also want to be their clients’ ‘go-to person’ for anything and everything even after the sale. The Haley Epps Team works in Johnson County and throughout the Kansas City Metro Area, helping both buyers and sellers.

STELZER GOODMAN TEAM STELZER GOODMAN TEAM BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS PLAZA OFFICE 435 NICHOLS RD, STE 300 | KANSAS CITY, MO 816.410.5487 | STELZERGOODMAN.KANSASCITYHOMES.COM

EX P ECT BET T ER! Our unparalleled passion for cus-

tomer service is the key to our success. From our first introduction to the day of close, we bring energy and control to the home buying and selling process. We are proud of our sales performance, exceptional referral rate, and long history of satisfied clients. We would love to work with you!

“The Stelzer Goodman Team was knowledgeable, hardworking, and trustworthy. Beginning with our first meeting, it was clear they had my best interest in mind. Their integrity and focus on the client was unmatched. I could not have asked for a better partner to guide me through the sale process.”

KANSASCITYMAG.COM APRIL 2021

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Av i a t i o n

®

by >>

Nicole Bradley, Martin Cizmar, Natalie Gallagher, David Hudnall, Amijah Jackson, Kathleen Wilcock

illustrations by >> page 62

Katie Henrichs

11 AMBITIOUS AND OFFBEAT WAYS TO MAKE KANSAS CITY A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE

kansascitymag.com

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KANSAS CITY BECOMES THE DETROIT OF FLYING CARS? by >>

I

Martin Cizmar

F Y O U H A D A Garmin GPS unit back in

the brick-phone era, you probably remember it as revolutionary. Well, there’s another game-changing technology brewing in Olathe, one that could shape not only global transportation but also our regional economy.

Garmin Autoland is what it sounds like: technology that can safely land an airplane if the pilot is incapacitated. The technology debuted last year and in that short time has captured the imagination of the aviation world.

Once you’ve got a plane that can plot a clear path to an airport and safely land on its own if a pilot is incapacitated, it’s not a huge leap to—yes, Mr. Jetson, we’re going there—flying cars. Self-flying cars.

“I can’t say that we are currently working toward making this technology compatible with entirely autonomous aircraft operations,” says Conor McDougall, the media relations specialist for the company’s aviation segment. “But I will say we are always working on

innovating and helping our amazing technology reach other parts of the segment, with a proven history in doing so.”

Garmin recently inked a deal with Joby Aviation, which is making all-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Joby plans to operate commercial air taxi services as early as 2024.

The first iteration won’t use Autoland, but McDougall notes that “there is a lot of speculation that automation will be a key part of this market’s growth in the future.”

Being such an important piece of the future of transportation bodes well not just for a keystone KC company but for the entire regional economy.

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PORTABLE TINY HOMES COULD CHANGE HOMELESS SHELTERS FOR THE BETTER? by >>

JET SET The first plane to get FAA certification for Garmin's selfflying technology is the Cirrus Vision Jet, which is the smallest private jet in the world and, at $2 million, among the cheapest.

kansascitymag.com

Amijah Jackson

EVERYONE SEEMS TO CARE about the well-being of homeless people, but very few are eager to welcome them into their neighborhood—especially not in the form of a permanent shelter.

Dan Rockhill, a KU professor of architecture, thinks he has a compromise in the form of portable tiny homes, which he and his graduate students are already putting into practice with a project called the Lawrence Community Shelter.

“Everyone is concerned with the homeless, but the city doesn’t want them in their backyard or next door,” Rockhill says. “It’s very difficult for cities to find ways to help the homeless without people getting mad at them.”

Tiny homes offer a more private setting for homeless families as opposed to overcrowded shelters. They’re also safer, especially during the pandemic.

Each of Rockhill’s homes includes a bathroom and a small kitchen that offers a comfortable, homey feel.

Each can host four people, and they are building a dozen homes in Lawrence.

These unique homes are built from repurposed shipping containers with a wood-finish interior.

Another feature that makes these tiny homes stand out from other shelters is that they include furniture in each unit—bunk beds, a trundle bed as well as cabinets and countertops.

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AN EYE IN THE SKY COULD SLOW THE CITY’S HOMICIDE EPIDEMIC? by >>

K

Martin Cizmar

A N S A S C I T Y had a record

one hundred seventy-four homicides in 2020, and we weren’t alone. Cities across the country were hit with a spasm of gun violence: Chicago’s murder rate jumped fifty percent from 2019. Los Angeles was up thirty percent. New York was up forty percent. Nationally, the best estimate is a leap of thirty-six percent.

One notable outlier? Baltimore.

Almost unbelievabley, in one of the nation’s most notoriously violent cities, the murder rate actually dropped last year, despite the pandemic and cresting wave of social unrest. The city of Baltimore had three hundred thirty-five homicides in 2020, thirteen fewer than the year before, despite a surge in deadly domestic violence.

What accounts for the difference? Dr. Ross T. McNutt thinks his company, Persistent Surveillance Systems, played a role.

McNutt is an MIT-educated former Air Force officer who developed technology to use high-flying

NO SPYING The first round of aerial surveillance in Baltimore was conducted secretly, over what Ross McNutt insisted was his strong objection.

Baltimore's local alternative newspaper fact-checked his claims by digging up a trove of public records where, they learned, McNutt argued forcefully to make the program known.

His requests were ignored by cops.

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airplanes with super-powered cameras to track the militants who were devastating American forces with IEDs in Fallujah.

After a roadside bomb went off, analysts would reverse the tape, following the attackers back to their lairs.

“We would follow the dots,” McNutt says. “We’d go from the explosion backwards and forwards in time to try and find out who planted it. Which, by the way, is the exact same thing we do when we watch a murder. We follow people to and from the murder scene.”

High-flying surveillance is especially effective when combined with acoustic gunshot detection systems, which can pinpoint the time and general location that a shot is fired, and effective police access to private ground cameras.

“We caught a killer once who stopped for gas on the way to the murder, and we found him on camera handing a fivedollar bill to the clerk,”McNutt says.

“It’s ten times more important to deter than to catch.” kansascitymag.com

From April to October 2020, Baltimore was patrolled by a Cessna prop plane (a fraction of the cost of the cheapest drone) equipped with a 192-megapixel video camera. McNutt and his team spread the word through community meetings and presentations at schools. Far-left activists eventually derailed what they labeled the “spy plane” program, despite its success and popularity—polls found threequarters of Baltimorians approved, with Black residents favoring it most strongly. “‘Spy plane’ implies secretiveness—I want everyone in the city to know it’s there,” McNutt says. “I want some mom to be able to tell her kid, ‘Don’t you dare, you see that plane up there, it’s going to catch you.’ We want to deter people from committing the crime. It’s ten times more important to deter than to catch.”

In January of this year, St. Louis agreed to a deal with McNutt’s company, which brings the program closer to KC. Persistent Surveillance Systems ends up costing about four million dollars per year—the Department of Justice says each murder costs society about eight million dollars—often paid for by grants.

McNutt says his company can usually arrange funding. He sees the work as a mission, taking the technology he developed to save lives in Iraq and using it to save lives in American cities plagued by violence.

“I still have a hard time understanding how we in our country allow this to happen,” he says.

The surveillance plane is appreciated by most—but not all—police officers.

“Most cops, when you show it to them, say ‘this is great,’ but you have to remind them: We don’t just investigate suspected criminals; we investigate suspicious police activity,” McNutt says.

“We have had two people we actually got released from prison.”

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A LOCAL COMPANY DEVELOPS THE FUTURE OF PROOF OF VACCINATION? by >>

Kathleen Wilcock

OF

VACCINATION

I

F YOU’VE ALREADY been vaccinated, you probably

know that the paper cards issued as proof are a bit of a hassle—they don’t fit neatly in a wallet and could easily be ruined by the washing machine. Well, one KC company is developing a better way, which might end up being the standard solution to this problem.

Cerner, the massive health information company based in the Northland, has created a way to carry proof of vaccination on your phone. “If you’re familiar with Apple Wallet or the Google wallet metaphor, the idea is that you can store certain things in your wallet, maybe an airline boarding pass, maybe a concert ticket, maybe your insurance card, maybe your vaccine record,” says Cerner Senior Vice President Dick Flanigan. “The idea is to give the consumer the control, on his or her phone, of the record of the vaccine.”

How does it work though? The identification will “use the concept of the QR code to quickly validate that you have the vaccination,” Flanigan says. This should prevent fraud, and it will allow your vaccine records to easily transfer from system to system, no matter where you were vaccinated. This technology will debut this summer and could be useful in any future outbreaks, too.

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What if...

SOMEONE PROVIDED A SAFE PLACE TO GHOST RIDE THE WHIP? by >>

Martin Cizmar

MAYBE IT WAS the closure of

nightclubs, maybe empty streets were more inviting, or maybe kids just needed to blow off some steam, but the onset of the coronavirus pandemic coincided with another trend in Kansas City: large groups gathering downtown to drag race and do burnouts.

To be sure, American teens have been doing these things since they had access to automobiles.

But the growing popularity of sideshows—informal automotive stunt demos popularized in Oakland—has angered some, given crowds of hundreds have shut down streets in the heart of the city and have sometimes been accompanied by the discharge of firearms.

In late February, Mayor Quinton Lucas floated an idea: What if the city simply opened a sanctioned drag strip and burnout park?

“We continue to look at ways we can enhance our options on drag racing and making sure people aren’t just going out in the street,” Lucas told Fox 4.

kansascitymag.com

PLAYLIST Bay Area sideshows are celebrated in a subgenre of of hiphop known as "Hyphy." Among the genre's classics are Mistah F.A.B's "Ghost Ride It," Traxamillion's "Sideshow" and E-40′s “Tell Me When to Go.” The teens involved in today's KC sideshow scene likely have no familiarity with such music.

Lucas, whose previous gig was law professor, allowed that “liability issues” might be an issue for the city. “We have to make sure everyone is going to be safe,” he said.

It’s perhaps worth noting here how the American Graffiti era ended: Private companies opened drag strips where they charged gearheads and observers a fee, and everyone was happy.

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THE BRISKET ON YOUR Z-MAN WAS MADE FROM CELLULAR ENGINEERED MEAT? by >>

K

Nicole Bradley

A N S A S C I T Y is a cowtown—we all know

that. KC is a national leader in beef production, with a long storied history in the industry. But what if we were able to produce just as much meat without the bloodshed?

In February, Bill Gates told Technology Review that he thinks “all rich countries should move to one hundred percent synthetic beef,” adding that consumers can get used to the taste difference and eventually shift the demand to satisfy the cost. His statement came soon after the government of Singapore approved cellular-based meat, allowing the city’s trendy restaurant 1800 to start offering lab-grown chicken, engineered by San Francisco startup Eat Just, in a trio of sample dishes—bao buns, phyllo puff pastries and their take on chicken and waffles.

To engineer cell-based meat, “We take stem cells and put those into culture, put them with the right variety of chemicals,” says Dr. Ken Odde, a professor at the Department of Animal Sciences and Industry at Kansas State University who previously worked for SmithKline Beecham Animal Health

COW COUNT In an early 2020 count, there were a total of 4.35 million cattle in Missouri. Of those, nearly 2.1 million were raised for beef production.

and Pfizer Animal Health. “It’s a genetic engineering process. We can ultimately grow tissue that has some semblance of meat.” The meat is then further engineered with chemicals to more closely match the taste of traditional meat.

Odde says the U.S. is the largest producer of beef in the world. We’ve mastered the craft and need fewer cattle because we’ve created cattle that are feed-efficient and able to grow rapidly with high-quality carcass traits.

“In every community, there’s a segment of the market who would look at this, especially if they are convinced that it has a real strong sustainability position,” Odde says. “And I think there’s a segment of the market that would be receptive.”

For cell-based burgers and chicken tenders to show up on local restaurant menus, government approval is required. “That’s a huge challenge for us,” Odde says. “A lot of these companies are forecasting that they could be on the market in a year or two. I used to work in the animal health industry and worked with both the Food and Drug Administration and the USDA in licensing animal health products. Once you really have your evidence, it can still take another three to five years to actually get a product approval.”

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“It’s a genetic engineering process. We can ultimately grow tissue that has some semblance of meat.”

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SOMEBODY BOUGHT THE STAR AND TURNED IT INTO A NONPROFIT? by >>

David Hudnall

NEWSPAPER

T

H E M C C L ATC H Y C O M PA N Y, owner

of The Kansas City Star, declared bankruptcy last year. The paper was then sold to a hedge fund. It’s early to say definitively how that will impact the Star, but we know what’s happened in other cities where hedge funds bought metro dailies: They aggressively cut jobs in an attempt to maximize short-term profits, then discard the corporate carcass once there’s no more cash to squeeze from it. The city is left with a hollowed-out institution no longer capable of keeping its citizens informed.

Of course, the Star has been shedding staff and pulling back its news coverage for years for reasons that mostly have nothing to do with ownership and everything to do with the fact that the business model for a local metro newspaper isn’t working: Print advertising is in rapid decline due to a permanent change in consumer behavior, and the digital advertising dollars that were supposed to offset those losses are being hoovered up by tech platforms

PRINT CASH Who could buy the Star without blinking?

Garmin founder Min Kao is the only local on the latest Forbes 400 list, with an estimated net worth of $4 billion.

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What if... like Facebook and Google. Who wants to pay for a subscription when the paper keeps laying off staff?

“The market dynamics have fundamentally shifted,” says Sue Cross, executive director of the Institute for Nonprofit News. “Metro newspapers just don’t function well anymore as forprofit companies.”

Those concerned about the rapid decline of news in Kansas City— particularly those with the means to do something about it—should take a look at Cross’s growing organization, a coalition of outlets from across the country that have determined the only path forward for robust local news coverage is through a nonprofit model. Many of these organizations are located in places that share much in common with Kansas City.

The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Tampa Bay Times are now owned by nonprofit corporations. In 2016, Paul Huntsman, son of a Utah billionaire, purchased The Salt Lake Tribune from the hedge fund that was bleeding the city’s newspaper dry. In 2019, he converted it into a nonprofit and began seeking donations from readers, many of whom have been eager to support newsgathering. In Minneapolis and Boston, benevolent local billionaires have bought the daily papers (for not very much money, it’s worth noting) and invested in them not because the papers are major profit centers for their business empires but because they believe local journalism is an essential component of city life.

The path forward for local daily news in Kansas City is not some sexy new app. It’s simple, really: You need the philanthropically minded to step up, stop bemoaning the condition of the Star and actually do something about it.

kansascitymag.com

THE CONCRETE WALLS ON DOWNTOWN PARKING GARAGES TURNED INTO GARDENS? by >>

Nicole Bradley

IN THE HEART OF Madrid’s arts and culture district is a giant green wall.

It’s not just any green wall—it’s a four-story-high vertical garden designed by French botanist Patrick Blanc that takes up the entire side of a former power plant building. According to sustainability blog TreeHugger, the wall houses fifteen thousand plants from more than two hundred fifty different species.

You know those eyesore parking garages, like the beige, concrete slabs taking up blocks in downtown’s Financial District and at Town Center? We looked into whether it’d be possible for KC to take pointers from Madrid to beautify parking garages while also maintaining living wall benefits like cleaning the air, muffling sound and capturing dust particles.

Kurt Kraisinger, founder and president of Overland Park landscape architecture firm Lorax Design Group, says the main challenge that Kansas City—or any city, for that matter—would run into is the sheer amount of maintenance required to support these plant walls.

“The irrigation systems, the plant material and the type of soil that you use in those structures and the growing media have to be spot on,” Kraisinger says. As an easier-maintenance alternative, he suggests using naturally climbing plants more.

“In the Kansas City market, we like to use a lot of vines, like climbing hydrangeas and roses and wisteria,” he says.

That sounds like a lot of work, but we know of at least one local spot that took a shortcut: a fake plant wall on Main Street right between City Club Apartments and the DGX. It could’ve fooled us.

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WE HAD A MARINA ON THE MISSOURI RIVER? by >>

M

Martin Cizmar

PEOPLE in Kansas City see the Missouri River as a dirty thing they have to drive over. Our metropolis exists because of the confluence of the Kaw and Big Muddy, but life in our modern city is fully detached from the longest river on the continent. Most people think it’s dangerous or toxic—or both.

Scott Mansker has done a lot to change that misperception as the founder of the Missouri River 340 canoe race from KC to St. Louis. And it’s working.

“Having been on the river for thirty-two years now, I’ve never seen more people than I do now,” he says. “It’s definitely happening, and we are headed for a tipping point, and someone could definitely capitalize on that.”

How to capitalize? By opening a marina where people can store and launch boats, get gas and snacks and hang out with other boaters. The ideal marina is on a back channel insulated from fast-flowing debris on the main channel. All things considered, it’s a relatively OST

small project for a city this size.

“This isn’t prime real estate you’re talking about—this is river bottom,” Mansker says. “It’s not like you have to convince people here to buy a boat. People here have boats; they just don’t know they can use them in the river.”

Mansker grew up playing in a nameless creek in Overland Park, fascinated with the idea that it would eventually end up in the ocean. At age twenty, he and some friends built a raft and spent a week floating the Missouri, Huck Finnstyle. “I just was absolutely hooked,” he says. “I just could not believe we were the only people out there. We had it all to ourselves.”

For those who have boats but are concerned about navigating a river, Mansker points out that the information you need to stay safely in the middle of the channel now comes on a cheap app instead of from expensive gear and nautical charts.

And modern marinas don’t require

FUN FACT Rivers tend to get wilder as you move further downstream from controlling locks or dams. There are fifteen dams on the Upper Missouri, but the last is at Gavins Point in South Dakota.

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“This isn’t prime real estate you’re talking about—this is river bottom.” building heavy infrastructure with slips for every boat. Instead, today’s marinas store boats “dry stack” style and drop them into the water via giant forklift at the owner’s request.

Mansker has taken boat trips from KC to Chicago and the Gulf of Mexico—all much more of a hassle than they should be because of the city’s lack of a marina. Omaha has a marina on the Missouri, as does Columbia—you’ll see people jetskiing, swimming and tubing on the Missouri in both.

“There’s all these trips you can make in motorboats and see parts of the city very few people see,” he says.

“It’s an amazing experience. There’s all kinds of stuff you can do with your boat rather than just drive it in circles on a lake. You can take your boat on adventures to Chicago or Memphis or Mobile Bay or Key West—all these places you can get to in a twenty-foot boat from Kansas City.” kansascitymag.com

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THERE’S A WAY TO GET FRESH FRUIT AND VEGGIES TO UNDERSERVED NEIGHBORHOODS WHILE ALSO BUILDING WEALTH? by >>

Natalie Gallagher

FOR

ALL

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AX K A N I G E R D O E S N ’ T really care

for the term “food desert.” It’s an oversimplification, he says, of systemic issues in our food system. The United States Department of Agriculture defines food deserts as geographic areas where residents lack access to affordable, healthy food. Adding a Sun Fresh to the Linwood Shopping Center doesn’t magically turn the area into an oasis.

“The two big problems in our food system today are waste and access, and they can fix each other,” Kaniger says. The stumbling block is distribution. “It’s getting the right food to the right people at the right price, consistently. And that's what we do.”

In 2017, Kaniger founded Kanbe’s Markets, a nonprofit food delivery organization. In 2020, Kanbe’s delivered over a million pounds of fresh produce to individuals and their families in underserved neighborhoods. They did it through their Healthy Corner Store program, which partners with convenience stores (forty-one so far) to provide the equipment (coolers), containers (racks, baskets) and products (fresh, local fruit and vegetables) that aren't readily available.

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BIG PLATE The current program run by Kanbe’s Market moves 45,000 pounds of food each month.

profits with shop owners. The produce Kanbe’s stocks comes from donations from local wholesalers who have excess inventory.

“It’s tapping into an infrastructure that’s already there,” Kaniger says. “But the best and most important part is the connection to the community. A lot of times, the store owners have lived in that neighborhood all their lives and they know people that are coming into their stores.”

Kaniger’s biggest idea builds on that. The current program works, but it lacks a few essential pieces to holistically address food inequality. Beyond location, food inequality is influenced by income, nutritional education and race. To address some of those elements, Kanbe’s Markets hopes to introduce a for-profit franchise model with stores that do more than offer quality produce at affordable prices.

“The franchise model is a separate, forprofit business owned by people in the community,” Kaniger says. “The idea is that it provides ownership, which can help address generational poverty—the same way owning versus renting a home provides a certain security.”

But you wouldn’t be able to buy your way into a Kanbe’s Market franchise store.

“The majority stakeholders would be elected by the neighborhood,” Kaniger says.

“They’d apply and provide references, and the community would have to vote and say, ‘This is the person that would be best to run this neighborhood institution.’ Their job would be to cultivate the community around it, and then food can do what it’s supposed to—bring people together.” kansascitymag.com

What if...

KCMO’S RECYCLING BINS WEREN’T SO JUNKY? by >>

Martin Cizmar

IF YOU’VE DRIVEN through a neighborhood in Kansas City on trash

day, you’ve maybe taken note of the sorry state of the recycling bins. In KCMO, where recycling pickup is free and unlimited, the black plastic bins tend to be cracked to hell. Sometimes they’re mere shards, held together by weatherbeaten duct tape.

The city uses bins made from brittle recycled plastics. According to a city spokesperson, failure is by design.

“The bins are not expected to last more than one to three years, so if you get more shelf life out of the bin, you are doing great—especially with our severe winters when extreme cold can make the material brittle and easily broken,” says John Baccala, spokesman for the Neighborhoods and Housing Services Department.

But what if there was a way to make it so that the city’s neighborhoods don’t look like Robocop’s Old Detroit on trash day? In Canada, where frigid temperatures strain bins, a company called Nova Products makes bins that last “many years” from durable high-density polyethylene. They come with a five-year warranty.

“If [Kansas City’s] bins are falling apart and the residents are continuously required to purchase new bins, this may deter some from participating in the recycling program,” says Nova’s sales and marketing manager Kayla Kleber. “The goals of most recycling programs are to encourage participation, and a major factor is to make it easy for the participant, so perhaps revisiting the needs of the residents is something to investigate.”

Second * Nature WORDS BY NICOLE BRADLEY & KATHLEEN WILCOCK

Your spring and summer guide to outdoor living

H

aving a plush outdoor living space where you enjoy spending time can be one of life's ultimate luxuries. Whether you’re entertaining, working outside, enjoying native wildlife or just plain digging in the dirt, this guide will get you one step closer to your dream outdoor space.

PHOTOGRAPH PROVIDED BY LORAX DESIGN GROUP

79 April '21

Figure out a power plan.

Make sure that wherever you set up your workspace there are outlets nearby or within an extension cord’s reach. If internet connection in the space is spotty, invest in an extender, which will broaden coverage. (And, of course, make sure this setup will stay totally dry, for safety.)

Add in wildlife.

Sitting in nature has so many benefits on the brain. Kiser suggests adding in pollinator-loving plants and a water feature to attract wildlife to join you in your workspace. “Most animals and insects won’t even bother you unless they feel threatened,” he says.

Provide shade.

The Works* How to create a functional outdoor workspace

If your outdoor workspace is in a sunny spot and it’s hard to see your computer screen, invest in an umbrella to keep you shaded. Or, if you’re in it for the long run, plant a tree. Even when you’re in the shade, make sure to lather up on SPF.

Opt for grass.

If a grassy spot is available to you for your workspace, that will keep the area cooler than a hardscape surface. “Grass is twenty to thirty degrees cooler than a hard surface,” Kiser says. “In the summertime, that's a great way to keep cool.”

Have functional furniture.

Patio chairs usually have deep seats, which is great for comfort but not ideal for a full day of Zoom calls. Test out weatherproof chairs that are firm, comfortable and Remote work is making corporate offices a thing of the past, and people have good back support. are turning to nontraditional workspaces—including outdoor ones.

A patio table should “Your outdoor space is an extension of home,” says Kris Kiser, head of the work heightwise—just Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, a trade association for toolmakers. be sure to opt for one with a smooth surface He says there are so many benefits to spending your workday outside. so a wireless mouse “The outdoors is a great place to destress, and it's great for anxiety relief.” and keyboard can func Here’s what Kiser recommends to make a functional outdoor workspace. tion easily.

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Green as Grass The head Kauffman Stadium groundskeeper gives six tips to maintain a picture-perfect lawn.

W

hen it comes to grass, Trevor Vance knows what he’s talking about.

Vance is the senior director of grounds and landscaping at Kauffman Stadium and in his thirty-seventh season with the Royals.

“My top responsibility is making sure the playing surface of the K is not only safe but beautiful,” he says. See what tips he has for making your lawn as beautiful as the Royals’ outfield.

1. Keep a sharp blade.

“If you're gonna mow your yard, you have to make sure you have a sharp blade,” Vance says, adding that a dull blade will rip and tear the grass. He suggests buying two blades at a time—one for the mower and a fresh, sharp one to store for later use.

2. Understand your climate.

Vance says that Kansas City is one of the most difficult places to maintain grass because of its climate.

“We can get as cold as Canada and we can get as hot as Texas,” he says. Before laying seed, do your research and consult a professional.

3. Know when to mow.

Be sure to mow when your grass needs it instead of when it's convenient. When grass is actively growing in the spring, you’ll need to cut it more often than when it grows slowly in the heat of summer.

4. Water in the morning.

Water your grass by mid-morning instead of at night. “It's like putting the baby to bed with a wet diaper,” Vance says. “You want it to go to bed dry.”

Otherwise, you’re opening up the possibility of disease growth on your turf.

Tool* Around The right way to prep your garden tools for spring

It’s time to dust off your tools after a long winter. Working with dull, dirty tools can be a safety hazard and can spread diseases across plants. Plus, prepping your tools for spring gets them looking nice and new again. Here are some top-notch tool-prepping tips you need to know.

Give them a clean.

Use a wire brush to remove caked mud from metal spades, hoes and shovels. Soak blades and shovels in a gallon bucket of hot water and about one-half teaspoon of dish soap for fifteen minutes.

Sharpen up.

Use a bastard file to sharpen shovels and hoes, keeping a forty-five degree angle as you file. To sharpen pruners, use a wet stone to make a few smooth strokes from the center bolt to the edge of the blade, matching the beveled edge.

Spruce up handles.

Clean up handles with a stiff brush or sanding sponge and then wipe them down with a rag and coat of vegetable oil to condition them.

5. Manage your turf at a height.

When you’re mowing your grass, Vance recommends cutting off no more than a third of the blade of grass at a time. “If you're normally managing your turf at two inches, then you need to cut it before it gets to over three inches or you're gonna have to cut it down in height.”

6. Fertilize in the fall.

Vance recommends fertilizing your grass around Labor Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving. That way, by the time spring rolls around, your grass will be established, green and healthy.

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Contain* Yourself Build a durable and dynamic summer container garden.

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f there’s one thing that can up your curb appeal with just a few materials, it’s a container garden.

There are a lot of factors to consider when creating a container garden. First, and most importantly, you want to be sure that the plants you use work for the space and season. To determine the amount of sunlight your container garden spot will get, look at the area at one- to two-hour intervals, starting with when the sun has risen fully and lasting until dusk.

Julie Cruz, co-owner of Adorn, a custom container garden-assembling business, uses the popular thriller, spiller, filler method to assemble her planters. Thrillers are plants with height that add drama to a container garden. Fillers are plants that help fill in gaps to make it feel fuller. Spillers are plants that hang over the edge of the planter.

Before planting pots, Cruz always starts by filling the bottom half of the container with cut-up pool noodles or pinecones before adding potting soil to minimize the amount of soil needed.

She also uses an extended release fertilizer when she plants. In every container, she leaves a layer of mulch about an inch thick at the top. “In the summer, it serves as a way to keep the moisture in,” she says.

Here are a few of Cruz’s favorite summer plants for containers.

THRILLER For sun: mandevilla, dipladenia, hibiscus For shade: cordyline, Chinese fan palm, macho fern

FILLER For sun: lantana, succulent, purslane, angelonia For shade: periwinkle, impatiens, begonia

SPILLER For sun: Mezoo, trailing lantana, Supertunias, calibrachoa, trailing vinca For shade: creeping jenny, vinca major, vinca minor, fuchsia

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Make Like a Bee As the world turns from brown to green, one thing that has become a telltale sign of the changing seasons is the hum of bees.

U

PHOTOGRAPH PROVIDED BY ADORN KC

nfortunately, bee numbers have steadily declined over the years, which is a huge problem—if the bees were to disappear altogether (and they very well might if the decline continues), then our food source would be in danger.

“When you start thinking of food—like apples, peaches, pears, fruits, all the berries, even things from tomatoes to peppers—these are all insect-pollinated,” says Steve Buback, natural history biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation. Although it’s difficult to track the decline of wild bees, it’s known that they are continuing to be killed off by pesticides and lack of habitat.

KC itself, however, might actually be helping native wild bees. “Kansas City, in particular, is in a unique position,” Buback says.

“A lot of times, cities can serve as a refugee area. We can go into cities like KC and find more bees on a per-acre basis than you would in rural areas.” This is partially due to the pollinator-driven flowers planted around the urban area outside businesses and bordering city blocks that aren’t often planted out in rural areas.

The decline in honey bee populations is a whole different issue. Christine Faltynowski, owner of The Kansas Bee Company, says that honey bees “have an issue with mites. The colony collapse disorder has affected our bees, and that is mostly due to mites that are living on flowers.” The honey bees bring back the mites to the beehives where the mites can grow, forcing the bees to leave the colony.

Between the pesticides that farmers use and the invasions of other species, honey bees face a bleak future.

To help the bees, the simplest solution is to be lazy with your yard. The more plants there are—yes, including weeds—the more pollen bees will have access to. You can also help native bees by planting native flowers that will attract them, such as purple coneflower, blazing star and foxglove.

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The Deeper Story* Before you build a pool, this designer suggests looking at it from a different angle.

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W

hen it comes to building pools, Kurt Kraisinger likes to think outside the box—or, should we say, rectangle.

“For the last couple years, there’s been a whole evolution of pools,” the owner of Overland Park landscape and pool architecture firm, Lorax Design Group, says. “It used to be that a pool was a sixteen-by-thirtysix rectangle with a ladder in the deep end and four feet of concrete around it.”

Now, Kraisinger says a huge part of building pools has been rethinking your vantage point—not how the pool looks from the deck but from your view inside the pool.

Infinity edge pools have been on the pool scene for a while—especially at resorts and upscale apartment buildings—but they’re becoming more common in residential spaces.

Kraisinger compares it to looking out upon a large body of water. “Historically, when you stand in a body of water like an ocean, you're looking out to where the water marries up with the background,” he says. “It's an endless kind of view.”

Another way to play with perspectives in pool design is to create a sunken seating area. “When you're sitting in a sunken seating area, you're looking across at water a different vantage point,” Kraisinger says. “You're like, ‘Wait, I've always experienced it while sitting up on a chaise lounge and looking down at the pool.’”

Perimeter overflow pools and spas are becoming increasingly popular, too. Kraisinger says to think of it like a champagne fountain: “You raise that water elevation up toward the same level as the deck and it gives you a whole different experience,” he says. “You have a gutter around the perimeter of the pool that you don't see and that water just drops off into the gutter.”

PHOTOGRAPH PROVIDED BY LORAX DESIGN GROUP

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY CALEB CONDIT AND REBECCA NORDEN

E AT I N G A N D D R I N K I N G W E L L I N K A N S A S C I T Y

BROTH SIDES

Korean ramyun culture is, in some ways, more similar to American than Japanese—the Korean soup is more typically a quick and humble home-cooked meal instead of a dish built off fresh noodles served in lively latenight shops that are a fixture of urban life.

“In Korea, what we know is packaged,” says Sura Eats chef-owner Keeyoung Kim. “The Japanese have made it a craft with dedicated shops to highlight just noodles. Our kimchi shin ramyun is a homemade take on packaged noodles.”

With his new noodle pop-up at Parlor food hall, Kim brings Korean flavors and ingredients to bowls featuring noodles from industry gold-standard Sun. When it comes to ramyun, you’re probably looking for big umami, and you’ll find a potent punch of that in Sura’s pork broth with pork belly and shiitake mushrooms, which gets further flavor from kimchi, roasted seaweed and a soy marinated egg and some kick from chile-sesame oil. – M A R T I N C I Z M A R

GO: The Sura Noodle Bar pop-up runs through the end of April at Parlor, 1707 Locust St., KCMO, suranoodlebar.com

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TA S T E FE AT U R E

CHILI EFFECT The secrets of Dixon’s Famous Chili, explained

BY N ATA L I E G A L L AG H E R

Dixon’s Chili opened, Stephen Steffes—the general manager and great-great-nephew of founder Vergne Dixon—realized he didn’t know the restaurant’s exact birthday. So he started dusting off the memorabilia that’s been in his family for four generations and rediscovered a recording of former president Harry S. Truman talking about Dixon’s.

“When we were celebrating our hundredyear anniversary, we weren’t sure the exact date we opened, and I finally listened to it,” Steffes says. “And there’s Harry Truman, and he says: ‘You want to know when Dixon’s Chili opened? I’ll tell you, because I was there. It was August 10, 1919.’”

In 1950, after LIFE Magazine published a spread with Truman enjoying lunch there, Dixon’s Chili became Dixon’s Famous Chili. The presidential favor gave Dixon’s notoriety. The chili— served on a plate, never in a bowl—is the main ingredient for every dish, but the dishes themselves range from tacos to tamales to spaghetti.

On a fact-finding excursion with the Truman Library Institute, Steffes uncovered the origin for this unique style of chili: “They said the way we cook our chili— the meat and beans separate and the do-ityourself method—that’s the way they do it in the military,” he says.

“That’s why Harry liked it, because that’s the way he had it when he was in the army.”

A CENTURY AFTER

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DIXON’S BURGER & DOG

Uncle Vergne banned ketchup, and when customers would smuggle it in, he would ban them, too. Today, Steffes keeps a bottle or two of the condiment around—and he charges anyone who asks for it a fifteen-cent “fine” as a nod to tradition. But if you order the Dixon’s burger or the chili dog, you can avoid the fee.

“For those, we combine the meat and the beans with meat juice, chili powder and ketchup, and it looks more like a homemade chili paste,” Steffes says.

T H E P L AT E

If you are new to Dixon’s, the staff will prime you for the experience with a series of statements: The chili is served on a plate, not in a bowl. It is not tomato-based. The beans (Jack Rabbit pink beans) and meat (nineteen-percent-fat ground beef from L&C Meats in Independence) are cooked separately. You ask for it “soupy” (with bean broth) or “juicy” (with meat juice) or both or neither. And when it arrives at your table, you’re supposed to dress it up yourself: For a few extra cents, you can add shredded cheese, sour cream, diced onions or jalapeno relish.

“We’ve had people who try it just as it comes and they’re like, ‘I don’t like it,’ but that’s not how you’re supposed to eat it,” Steffes says. “You need to fix it. I have ten different ways I like it.”

TA C O S S PA G H E T T I

In the seventies, Vergne’s son Vince Dixon expanded the menu by adding burgers, tacos and spaghetti chili—that is, Cincinnati-style spaghetti noodles topped with beans or meat (or both).

Steffes himself eats that dish a few times a week.

“It’s hearty, it’s filling, it’s the best combination of two great dishes,” he says.

In the early aughts, Dixon’s made waves when Steffes’ sister had the idea to boost summer sales by introducing “taco mania.”

“People think of chili and cold weather, and we’re twice as busy on a cold day than on a summer day,” Steffes says. “We used to close in July and August because business would be that slow.”

Tacos (meat, cheese and lettuce in a hard shell) debuted as an all-youcan-eat special, then stuck around on the regular menu.

CHILI POWDER & V I N E G A R & M U S TA R D

On every table at Dixon’s, you’ll find a basket of crackers, a shaker of the house-blend chili powder, vials of regular and pepper-infused vinegar and a squeeze bottle of spicy mustard (brown mustard mixed with Dixon’s spicy vinegar).

“It sounds weird, but my whole family and the employees and regulars, the first thing they do is open the crackers and put mustard on it,” Steffes says. “And some people can’t eat without the spicy vinegar. Since I’ve been alive, that’s always been on the table, and it’s in all the old pictures. It must have been something Vergne had done.”

TA M A L E S P R E A D

The tamale spread is one of Dixon’s most popular items, and Steffes says it’s been on the menu since the beginning. For the first eighty-five years of business, the tamales came from Ford’s in Kennet, Missouri. When Ford’s went out of business, Steffes searched for a replacement.

“The originals were called ladyfinger tamales,” he says. “Two ounces of spiced beef wrapped in cornmeal. We served three to a plate.”

Since 2016, the plate has been a single six-ounce tamale from Senor Tamales of St. Louis.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CALEB CONDIT AND REBECCA NORDEN

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TA S T E PER FECT DAY

JUSTICE LEAGUE There are two things you need to know about Tricia Rojo Bushnell: She fights for the innocent and she’s got damn good taste in tacos.

BY N ATA L I E G A L L AG H E R

TRICIA ROJO BUSHNELL

thought she’d go into immigration law. She’s Mexican-American, born in California, and the first in her family to attend college. Working for migrant justice resonated with her—until her last semester of college, when she found herself working the case of Emanuel Gissendanner, an Alabama man wrongfully convicted and on death row.

That was the start of a career working to free innocent people imprisoned for crimes they did not commit.

Bushnell worked Gissendanner’s case all the way through to his release from prison in 2019, nearly two decades after he was wrongly convicted. Today, she’s the executive director at the Midwest Innocence Project, headquartered in Kansas City. In addition to supporting the exoneration and release of wrongfully convicted people, Bushnell leads the organization in advocating

for policy changes that ensure individuals aren’t arrested for crimes they didn’t commit.

Bushnell says that for the system to change, more people need to get involved. Helping can be as simple as staying informed and sending an email.

“When we’re trying to bring someone home, it’s a political act,” Bushnell says. “The prosecutor who is elected decides what justice is in our system, and those incarcerated innocent people who are seeking justice are powerless without the support of the community.”

When she’s not fighting for justice, Bushnell spends her time cycling around the city (she’s a retired roller derby player and stays active). A self-professed nerd, her guilty pleasures include video games (“Breath of the Wild” and “Persona 5”), fantasy and young adult fiction, and pop culture.

P E R F E C T DAY

The Happiest Hour “Swordfish Tom’s is where I went on October 13, 2017, when Lamonte McIntyre was exonerated. It’s been a special place for me since. I love their Little Black Book Club membership program, where you get to try limited edition spirits.”

Taco Town “I love eating tacos in KCK, and my favorite place is a place called Tacos el Tio. It’s cash only, and I love taking people there. When they have the first bite of their taco, they forget the conversation and they’re just experiencing that taco.

The carnitas are my favorite taco there, hands down.”

Chocolate Necessities “I always take visiting folks to Andre’s because I spent two years in Switzerland and I love going there. And you have to do Christopher Elbow, too. Funny story: For my ten-year law school reunion in New York City, at this fancy party, they served us Christopher Elbow chocolates.”

Later Nights “One of the things I miss about our pre-Covid days is the Mutual Musicians Foundation in 18th and Vine. I loved going to listen to some jazz, and then if you ran into someone you know there, it was always that awkward moment where you’re recognizing that you’re out at an obscene hour of the night. I miss that awkward moment a lot.”

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATALEA BONJOUR

Morning Stroll “I live in Midtown.

The first thing I do is get up and walk my dog around the city. I love walking around Westport in the morning when it’s quiet and seeing folks cleaning up after what happened the night before. And I’d stop at Café Corazon for coffee—they have great Latin American coffees and tamales. For me, it’s a little bit of home.”

TA S T E B I T E S

TA K E F I V E

Five essential KC patios where you’ll find us as the weather warms up.

NEWSFEED

WHAT’S NEW IN KANSAS CITY FOOD & DRINK

Chewology

The Condor Has Landed Va Bene

1

Char Bar

One of the city’s all-time great patios, Char Bar in Westport draws a hip crowd for lawn games, ribs and excellent peoplewatching. Char Bar just reopened in early March, and we’re all about it.

2

Va Bene

Bro! Bro? Bro!

We’re in love with this friendly and stylish new Italian spot in Prairie Village, which has a welcoming front patio. All of the cocktails with house-made Limoncello are great picks, as is the frozen hot cocoa on the dessert menu.

3

The Monarch Bar

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY RESPECTIVE VENUES

For the patio lover who wants to get a little dressy. Surrounded by flowers and foliage, The Monarch Bar’s patio is a picturesque place to enjoy some of the city’s finest cocktails.

4 5

Sandhills Brewing

This brewery in the heart of walkable, charming Mission has made great use of the sidewalk out front. Grab the hazy IPA, Junco, on a sunny day.

The Well

The rooftop patio at this Waldo spot covers the entirety of the bar’s top and is such an institution it’s almost easy to forget about it.

Tide is Hi The Collective EX building in the Crossroads has had a number of tenants pass through. Built to be a collaborative space for designers, the Collective building supplies creators with materials and encouragement… and coffee. When established roaster Thou Mayest moved out of the cafe space located in the building, HITIDES Coffee owners Michele and Johnny Dawbarn saw an opportunity to start up their own coffee concept: a third wave shop with a bit of their grown-up confectionery nod (hitidescoffee.com). Peek at the hot chocolate menu, doughnut offerings from Donutology, ice cream bar or the unique Meshuggah bagel lineup—perfect pairings to your tropical lattes and provisions.

With fast-casual food chains adding more locations across the city—we’re looking at you, Torchy’s—Hawaiian Bros is following suit on a large scale. The Hawaiian plate lunch spot announced that they plan to open seven more locations across Kansas City and seven in Texas. Hawaiian Bros owners and brothers Cameron and Tyler McNie brought knowledge from their Oregon family business, Hawaiian Time, to open the first Hawaiian Bros in Belton in 2017. When we talked to them back in 2019, they had just opened their Overland Park location and said that they were committed to making their business grow and expand all across the Midwest.

Now, it looks like they have succeeded in doing just that and more. Among the new locations are spots in Shawnee, Ward Parkway Plaza, Midtown KCMO, Lenexa and another spot in Overland Park.

With the corona closure of TikiCat, KC lost its flagship tiki bar.

A new pop-up is helping to fill the niche. Condor’s Cove comes from Diana Condori, the Cat’s former bar manager. Condor’s Cove is popping up at slower nights inside Condori’s favorite spots, including Waldo Thai and Westport Cafe. Among the drinks featured at the first few events were a Bahamian Sky Juice, the classic Zombie and the highly ’grammable Banana Dolphin.

Follow @condorscove.kc on Instagram for news and tickets.

Bao Wow The surest sign yet that the postpandemic food world is coming fast? An exciting new opening in a well-known space. After establishing herself at Lenexa Public Market, Taiwanese street food chef Katie Liu-Sung is moving to the former home of the shuttered Bluestem, which was one of the city’s standout restaurants a generation ago.

As first reported by Feast, Chewology will close in Lenexa in June and then move to Westport, where the larger space will allow Liu-Sung to expand beyond dumplings and into a more eclectic mix of dishes pulling from Chinese, Japanese, Korean and traditional Taiwanese cuisine. Bluestem’s owners told Feast that they had planned to close Bluestem regardless of the pandemic while Liu-Sung said that taking over the storied space prompted her to briefly rethink the direction of her project. “For a moment I wondered if I should lean into fine dining, but then I took a step back and realized that wasn’t me,” she told Feast. “In the end, my place will be less fine dining and more Ugly Delicious.”

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TA S T E DR I N K

IF YOU’VE GOT GUTS Boozy booch comes to North Kansas City.

BY N ATA L I E G A L L AG H E R

T H E I N F O M E R C I A L for Brewkery’s new alcoholic kombucha practically writes itself: “Now you can get buzzed while improving your gut health!” some well-coiffed, beaming lady would announce, bottle of hard Lavender Lemon Kombucha in hand.

But while regular DID YOU kombucha—that K NOW ? is, fermented Brewkey’s tea—does boast a owners are powerful swing of veterans of the homebrew probiotics and antiscene who oxidants, Brewkstarted out selling at ery owners Amy farmers Goldman and Sean markets.

Galloway aren’t making any claims about the alcoholic version. It’s just a fun, tasty drink.

To make their boozy booch, Goldman and Galloway add grain-neutral spirits to their

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kombucha, which goes through a three-week fermentation process. The duo aim for Brewkery products to appeal to a wide range of drinkers, and the neutral alcohol ensures that the kombucha still tastes like, well, kombucha. The Brewkery brew has a nice tang to it—not too sweet and with a gentle kick from the vinegar. Current flavor offerings include hops with passionfruit, tart raspberry, lavender lemon and peach blossom.

(All are good, but the hops and passionfruit is the standout.)

“It’s like a hard seltzer with way more flavor and body,” Goldman says. “Like a pleasant punch in the mouth.”

GO: Brewkery’s hard kombucha is currently available in the taproom.

The Brewkery, 1443 Swift Ave., North Kansas City. brewkery.com.

TA S T E ‘FO OD FIGH T

TACO TOWN II Forbes declares KCK to be America’s Taco Capital, bruising feelings in the Lone Star State.

T

EXAS

HAS

HAD

A

Jerry Jeff Walker passed.

Austin became a mecca for undesirables exiled from California. Several elected officials from the state taunted Cali about losing power because of wildfires over the summer, only to watch their grid fail because of snow.

And then came a Forbes listicle that declared Kansas City, Kansas, as America’s one true taco capital. The case made in the article, penned by a freelance travel writer, is a good one: “Unlike other U.S. cities, Kansas City’s Mexican population comes from nearly all of Mexico’s cultural regions, which means KCK doesn’t specialize in carnitas, mole or sopes, but is home to masters of all Mexican dishes. If you can find it in Mexico, there’s a family in Kansas City serving it today.”

Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go over well in America’s most prideful state. “I love Kansas City—both of them,” wrote Texas Monthly’s taco editor José R. Ralat. “Still, to declare one of them the nation’s taco capital is laughable.”

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RUN.

I am sympathetic to the argument that KCK’s claim is a bit overblown— Los Angeles is America’s taco capital— but it’s far from “laughable.”

It’s not just that KCK has fifty taco spots. As the Forbes article said, the city has such a diverse and excellent collection of taco spots in a small geographic area. In Texas, most tacos are Tex-Mex. There are plenty that aren’t, but they’re spread over a state that takes sixteen hours to drive across. (And, of course, there are not two Kansas Cities, as Mr. Ralat mentioned—there is one Kansas City, it’s just in two states.)

Ralat’s publication, Texas Monthly, seems to be spoiling for a feud with KC. Just a few weeks before this, Daniel Vaughn, an event promoter who writes about barbecue for the magazine, went on a national radio show and trashed Kansas City barbecue. Vaughn declared that “most of the big names in Kansas City… cook with gas” (not really true) and then said that Kansas City brisket is “so tough they have to slice it with a deli slicer” (please go tell the old man working at a New York deli that he’s not slicing brisket right).

In these parts, brisket is sandwich meat. That’s what it is, that’s what we

do with it. We slice it up thin and put it on bread with pickles and spicy sauce.

And if you can’t innately understand why Arthur Bryant’s is a sublime brisket experience, that’s a defect in your soul and there’s not much we can do except pray on your deliverance.

In Kansas City, people understand that barbecue is about more than one very specific Germanic-Czech brisket preparation. They have a lot of good barbecue in East Texas that never gets any attention from the Austin transplants who make lists because it’s part of a foodway they don’t seem to appreciate. That would, I can say confidently, never happen here.

The strength of Kansas City’s approach to food—tacos and barbecue alike—is that it embraces diversity and shuns uniformity. There is not, to the mind of most here, a platonic ideal of brisket or deshebrada that all briskets and deshebrada should be measured against. And that makes for a pretty good claim to KCK being a “taco capital.” Congrats to the folks at Visit Kansas City Kansas for capitalizing on that.

And if the once-mighty state of Texas wants to talk about a “rivalry,” we’ll call it a win.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMEY THERON KIRBY

BY M A R T I N C I Z M A R

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I M P O R TA N T M O M E N T S I N K A N S A S C I T Y H I S TO R Y

1884 Kansas City gets its first major league baseball team, led by a legendary manager.

“

TED SULLIVAN WAS KNOWN

as the ‘Daddy of Baseball’ and the ‘Godfather of the National Game.’ He was born in An Gorta Mor (the great hunger or potato famine) in Ireland. In 1874, he attended a college in St. Marys, Kansas.

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While he was there, he met Charlie Cominsky, and later they both became legendary in the baseball world. Sullivan was known as the first scout, and he founded the first modern minor league system in 1879 in Dubuque, Iowa. He was the manager of what is regarded as

the first Major League Baseball team in Kansas City: the 1884 Kansas City Unions.

They were part of the Union Association, which began in St. Louis to compete with the American National League and American Association to establish major leagues.

Sullivan managed the St. Louis Browns—they were a pretty successful team in the American Association as Sullivan helped put together this league.

They were winning so much that smaller markets were starting to lose interest.

Henry Lucas asked Sullivan if he would go prop up the Union franchise in Kansas City, and Lucas told him that it came with a little ownership.

Sullivan accepted the offer and came to Kansas City. The franchise was called the Kansas City Cowboys. When they first started playing, they were awful. They played at Association Park (at Lydia and Tracy avenues). When they would play, umpires hated to come there because they were verbally and physically abused

by Sullivan and the players. Despite how bad the Cowboys played, they were exceedingly popular. They ended the season with a 16-63 record, which was last place in the league, but they had cleared around eight-thousand dollars, so they were feeling pretty good.

The following season, the Kansas City representatives put an end to the Union Association and moved the Cowboys into the Western Association in 1885.

The Western Association was a minor league, and the Cowboys played better that season.

They were able to obtain well-known national players—they were popular and that meant a lot to Sullivan. While managing the 1885 Kansas City Cowboys, Sullivan became the first and only manager in baseball history to have a dead man pitch a game.

Sullivan was a big advocate for the designated hitter; he did not want fans to have to sit through watching pitchers attempt to hit the ball. He also coined the word ‘fans’ for baseball fans because he was tired of hearing from certain numbers the name ‘fanatics.’ Before Sullivan coined this term, people that liked baseball were called either bugs or cranks.”

— Tom Coffman, co-author of Ted Sullivan, Barnacle of Baseball: The Life of the Prolific League Founder, Scout, Manager and Unrivaled Huckster as told to Amijah Jackson

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY O’NEILL /COFFMAN COLLECTION

BACKSTORY

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