That's what Wizards President Robb Heineman posted tonight over on Bigsoccer. Heineman said that
"Unless the world falls apart, we will break ground this year." So while news hasn't really been
forth coming in regards to what's going on with either the Legends deal or a potential deal on the
Missouri side, it appears that things are definitely very close.
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That's the message from Kansas Governor, Mark Parkinson, to the Wizards and OnGoal in regards to
the STAR Bond deal the state offered the team. If the Wizards are going to be building at the
location out at the Legends, it'll be using the $230 million package that the state of Kansas has
presented. Parkinson announced today that the deal they offered to the Wizards was final.
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So tonight was the big game out at Arrowhead between Chivas and Club America. First I want to touch
on a few other things.
Before the game tonight, the Wizards held a Season Ticket Holder Event out at the training facility
that included dinner and a Q&A session with Robb Heineman about the new stadium plan out at the
Legends as well as the plan out at Bannister.
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It's been a while since Wizards fans have heard anything about what was going on out at the old
Bannister Mall site. The last we heard was that the project had stalled due to the state of the
economy. It had also been a while since we'd heard from team president, Robb Heineman. Well now we
hear about and from both at the same time.
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Missed this a week ago, but there is currently a little trouble over at the Bannister Mall site.
Due to the economy as a whole right now, which is scaring off banks from financing and businesses
from expanding and moving, the entire project at the Bannister site is stalled, including the
Wizards stadium.
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The year is over half over already, and that means time to look at my Wishes for 2009 and how
they've done so far.
1. Ground breaking on the stadium - The mall is down now and we actually have some renderings, but
we still have not seen an official ground breaking for the building of the stadium.
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From the KC Star comes this announcement The United States Youth Soccer Association is planning
to hold its national youth soccer championships in Kansas City's biggest suburb from July 20-25
2010. An official announcement about the tourney is expected next month.
The national championships are the culmination in a series of events known as the U.
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From the KC Star comes this announcement The United States Youth Soccer Association is planning
to hold its national youth soccer championships in Kansas City's biggest suburb from July 20-25
2010. An official announcement about the tourney is expected next month.
The national championships are the culmination in a series of events known as the U.
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For those of you that missed Thad's post over at The Back Post yesterday, the last remaining wall
at Bannister Mall came down yesterday. The mall is now completely gone. Over the next few weeks and
months, they'll be cleaning up the site and breaking up the pad and in ground walls. Here's my
album for this week of the nothingness that is left.
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A Milestone today. The last remaining wall of the old Bannister Mall came down this morning. It did
not take long as you can probably tell from the photos. After everything was down I talked to the
only bystander watching. He was one of the iron workers who helped build the mall. Hypermart and
the other building were built by him as well.
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Very little remains of Bannister Mall, there is only part of Sears left. What remains is basically
a shell and then the garage portion of Sears in the southwest corner. Other than that, the roof is
basically all off and walls are coming down. I'd expect the rest of the mall to be down by next
week.
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With soccer fans not just in KC, but around the US now talking about the new stadium renderings for
the Wizards, the facility seems more realistic now to some. For that all to get built, though, the
buildings currently there need to come down. It looks like the mall itself could be down within the
next two weeks or so.
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Here's your weekly dose of pictures from the old Bannister Mall site. As the weeks go by, there is
less and less of the mall. This week, as you'll see, the mall portion of the building is almost
gone. There is a small ledge and a wall and that's about all that remains of the mall portion of
Bannister Mall.
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Here's your weekly update on how the demolition of Bannister Mall is going. Demolition continues to
move on, and they're getting closer and closer to Sears. Today while I was out there, they were
working full force on getting parts of the building down. In fact, I got to see one of the beams
pulled out causing part of the roof to collapse while I was driving from one spot to another.
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Despite the delays in financing that will likely keep the stadium from opening in time for the 2011
season, demolition continues to bring down Bannister Mall. There are now only 2 entrances to the
actual mall still there, as all the rest have come down. There are also a lot more holes as the
crews work on getting Sears cleared out completely so that it can be brought down too.
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MLS Rumors 20 May @ 06:06 PM EST
According to this article in the Kansas City Buisness Journal the stadium that was due to open in
2011 looks increasingly unlikely to open then:
A developer working on the $1 billion mixed-use redevelopment of the Bannister Mall area said hopes
of getting the proposed $130 million Kansas City Wizards soccer stadium opened there by 2011 are
growing dim.
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Things are not looking good at the moment for the Wizards stadium at Hillcrest Road opening up in
time for the 2011 season. According to the Kansas City Business Journal, it looks like chances are
starting to get very slim for an opening in 2011. Due to the current state of the economy it's hard
for the developers to sign any retail or office tenants for the project.
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Here are this week's demolition pictures from out at Bannister Mall. Looks like they've started
clearing out the inside of Sears, the last part of the mall that hasn't been cleared out. There are
multiple holes in the building where debris has been pushed out. The outside work continues to come
along as they push further and further towards Sears.
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Not a lot of exterior work seems to have been done this past week out at the Bannister Mall site,
but they appear to be moving along on getting the rest of the inside of the mall cleared out. In
fact, all the walls appear to be down and you can now see clearly all the way to the Sear's
entrance inside the mall now.
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Here's your weekly update on the demolition of Bannister Mall. I didn't expect a whole lot of
demolition to be done this week due to the amount of wet weather that we've had, but they've moved
along pretty well. Dillard's is all the way down, and they're now just cleaning up what is left in
that part of the mall.
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Made it out to Bannister Mall today to get some photos of the continued process of tearing down the
mall. The crew is moving fairly quickly, as they have gotten a lot of Dillard's down now, and seem
to have a lot more of the mall gutted. The progress is amazing to go through from my first set of
photos of the demolition to now.
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Here's your Friday update on how demolition is going out at the old Bannister Mall site. Demolition
continues to move along, with a lot of working happening to the old Dillard's. There's now actually
a gap between Dillard's and the mall. Here's the full album.
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30 years ago, a bunch of kids went to the new Bannister Mall. They put their handprints and
initials into a pair of long skinny concrete slabs. April 4th, some of those kids came back. They
are now parents and grandparents. They wanted to see their handprints before the mall was
completely torn down.
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I know it's early this week with my demolition pictures, but it's with good reason. Thad and I were
able to go inside Bannister Mall on Thursday to see the remains of what hasn't been cleared out
just yet from the mall. And honestly, there isn't much left. Dillard's has been cleared out and
there's now few huge holes in the south wall for the crew to get materials out.
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Demolition continues at the old Bannister Mall site. Not much external progress has been made this
week, but you can definitely see the work being done. Another entrance to the mall is gone, as the
middle mall entrance on the east side of the mall is now gone. They are also setting up on the
south side of Dillard's for the little ceremony tomorrow where people can take picture of the slabs
of concrete where their kids had put their hands years ago.
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The Wizards and OnGoal a href="http://www.kansascity.com/sports/wizards/story/1115060.html"are
featured today in the Star/a. The Star covers the Wizards continued work at the old Bannister Mall
site to get the mall torn down to make room for the redevelopment. There's not a ton of information
that hasn't already been stated here on this blog, but it's still nice to see that the paper of
record in KC is giving the Wizards and their stadium construction some coverage.
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Demolition continues to move along at the old Bannister Mall site. The place where JC Penny's was
is basically cleared now, and work has began on the inside of the old Dillard's store. Demolition
is certainly moving along at a good pace. It's amazing going and seeing how far they've come on the
demolition compared to how big the building was.
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I was able to kill a little bit of my excitement about the Wizards home opener tomorrow by stopping
out at Bannister Mall to take a look at how the progress is coming on the mall. Demolition
continues to move along, the old JC Penny's part of the building is now completely gone and
demolition is now marching on towards the old Dillard's building.
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The destruction of Bannister Mall is continuing to move forward, as the walls continue to come
down. This week, a lot of work was done on the shell of the store that used to be JC Penny's. 2 of
the 3 outside walls are now down, and it's connection with the rest of the mall is now gone. I'd be
optimistic, but it's possible that next week most, if not all, of JC Penny's could be down,
especially with the weather forecast.
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On my way to open tryouts today, I stopped by Bannister Mall to get my weekly update on how the
demolition is going. While looking at it from the normal angle I get pictures, it looks like not a
lot of work has been done, there has certainly been plenty of work going on this week. The top
floor of the old JC Penny's now has no roof on it, and the inside appears to be entirely cleared
out on both levels.
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Demolition continues at the Bannister Mall site, and it's certainly coming along, lots of work is
getting done, and they have almost reached JC Penny's. When I got there, I even got to see a nice
chunk of the room start to come down and kick up a big cloud of dust. The demolition is moving
along a lot quicker than I had expected it to, and it's great.
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Here is your weekly update on how the demolition of Bannister Mall is going. Earlier this week,
Robb Heineman on Between the Lines mentioned that the mall was 1/3rd down. I was a little surprised
by that personally, but having been out to the site, it certainly appears to be true, they've
already taken out one of the mall entrances and are moving closer to starting work on the old JC
Penny's.
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Wizards president, Robb Heineman was on Between the Lines today in Kansas City and talked about the
development going on right now at the Bannister Mall site. You can listen to the full interview
here. Some good information in the interview, some that was already known, and some good new
information as well.
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Hillcrest Road posted a few photos yesterday, and today I made it out to Bannister Mall to check
out how demolition at the site is going. The part of the building that had housed the Jones Store
is now basically completely gone now. All my photos from today are here. You can actually see into
the mall from the Jones Store entrance inside the mall now as seen in the picture below.
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Seems like quite a few people made it out to Bannister Mall today to get an update on the
demolition of the mall, myself included. I was able to stop by today and get a few pictures while
running between errands today. Thad over at the Back Post was actually able to go inside the mall
after contacting the Wizards about it.
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