Kansas City is changing — and fast. The West Bottoms’ historic Weld Wheel Building, formerly at 933 Mulberry St., is no more following a controlled demolition as part of SomeraRoad Inc.’s planned $526.7 million “live-work-play” redevelopment of the central West Bottoms. The total redevelpment will include close to 1,300 apartments, 168,000 sq. ft. of office space, 100,000 sq. ft of retail space, and 50 boutique hotel rooms. This many more residents signals a revitalization of the mostly, but not entirely, empty West Bottoms, a once flourishing mixed-use neighborhod.
The Weld Wheel Building sat directly across from the popular Kansas City venue, The Ship. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
Previously, the Ridenour-Baker Grocery Co. used the building as a warehouse within its West Bottoms complex from 1910 to 1919. The structure most recently was home to Weld Wheel Industries Inc. starting in 1978. It has sat vacant since the race car wheel maker moved to a new facility near Truman Sports Complex in 2003 and the building had fallen into significant disrepair. Many “urban explorers” documented the inside of the building. Notably, someone took the time to go through and break every remaining window.
A developer had initially planned to convert the building into a 189-unit apartment building, but plans never came to fruition. The owners sold the Weld Wheel building to SomeraRoad, a New York City-based developer with significant history renovating neighborhoods in Nashville and other midwestern and southern Cities, as well as six other nearby properties for $3.8 million in December 2021.
SomeraRoad has since won approvals for a $86 million, five-story, 290-apartment community with 9,207 retail square feet with construction targeted to take place between 2025 and 2028, according to the Kansas City Business Journal.
SomeraRoad’s anticipates work on their phase-one projects — which include four historic building conversions in addition to the apartments on the Weld Wheel site — to start later this year. Kansas City, MO’s City Council approved of a 26-acre tax increment financing (TIF) plan in late March. As part of the plan, the city will perform an expected $42.3 million worth of work on public infrastructure and investment into green space that is intended to serve the residents of SomeraRoad’s multiple buildings and others, some already existing and some that may come out of this, around it. Notably, the plan will include $8.3 million worth of support for affordable housing within the redevelopment.
SomeraRoad has prioritzed a number of best practices for urban planning, including activating the street level of buildings and building spaces for the community to gather. This work will complement ongoing work that unions are performing to build up the wall that prevents flooding in the area.
It is currently unclear what percentage of the work from this redevelopment will go union, but SomeraRoad agents have been working with union leaders in Kansas City, MO and the current labor market provides some advantage.
Tristin Amezcua-Hogan is the Editor of The Labor Beacon and a member of LIUNA Local 264. Tristin also serves as the Director of Communications for the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO and the Chair of the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance.
Tristin grew up as the son of a UA Local 669 member in Tecumseh, KS and the great-nephew of George C. Amis, longtime leader of the United Rubberworkers (now USW Local 307) in Kansas. Growing up in rural Kansas as the child of teen parents, Tristin quickly came to appreciate the life-changing benefit of a union job.
Tristin and his partner, Rebeca Amezcua-Hogan, are residents of the Westside, Kansas City, MO's historic Mexican neighborhood. They are proud members of Kansas City's New Reform Temple.
