PLAN WORKSHOP!
In January 2025, residents at West Bluff reviewed a conceptual design for the redeveloped site. Designed with the topographical challenges in mind, the framework addressed safety and challenges for youth, while increasing density in the form of townhomes and multi-family apartments with adequate parking for each.
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Residents provided feedback to further refine what amenities they would like to see on site from childcare, youth programming, small retail spaces to the design of open spaces and trails.
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The Housing Concept was presented to the Westside Neighborhood Association to solicit feedback on larger connections to the neighborhood. Members provided input on Neighborhood Goals and strategies, including potential collaborations for implementation.
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westside stories!
In April 2024, we approached residents, business owners, neighborhood leaders, and developers to share their Westisde story!
Hear what our neighborhood residents have to say about Westside!
agustin juarez
Owner, Los Alamos
We are so lucky that every business is different. I run a Mexican restaurant, Westside Local is American. Blue bird Bistro and Chez Elle are French. Clay and Fire is Mediterranean, And that is what makes us unique as a business! There are so many options – whatever you feel like eating, this is where you would come!
I have been in Westside for 43 years. I came with my family from Mexico in 1983. I used to live up on the hill and back then this was not a neighborhood people wanted to come to until they built the FBI building, the Primitivo Garcia School and the West Pennway housing project. Everything changed. I couldn’t afford to live here anymore. Our house was old and we didn’t have enough money to fix it. Now I live up North. I wish one day I can come back to this neighborhood but at least I have this restaurant.
We started Los Alamos 23 years ago. It was a grocery store run by Koreans. There was no kitchen back then. It used to be open from 6:00am to 10:00pm at night, seven days a week. My wife used the space behind to cook with an electric stove, to feed us. And people coming into the market, would ask – “What is that smell? Do you have any food?”. Everyday people asked me the same question and I realized there is a big demand. So I turned to the merchandiser and told him, let us give it a shot. We set up one table, and I asked my wife, cook whatever you have in the refrigerator. And that’s how we started selling tacos.
We had to change the whole storefront. It was all brick first. People were afraid to come in because they couldn’t see what was happening inside and thought it was a meat market. We said, “no, no we sell food too”. This is a family business. My two kids - Benito and Adriana, grew up here. Literally right here! We’ve been open every day except Mondays. And there is just no reason to not be here. We tried doing dinners too, but it didn’t work out for us because we don’t have too many employees.
I joke with my customers, that this is where I was dropped off. I love it and I don’t see myself in any other location. I love my job with all my heart. Money is only a necessity, but my job gives me so much joy. I know every customer here by their names. When I go out to eat, I want to be treated well, I want to feel like home. But it doesn’t happen that way, so I tell my kids – treat people the way you want to be treated. I had a surgery two weeks ago. I am not supposed to be here, but you know what? I enjoy it so much.
It is so heartening to see people come from outside Kansas City, outside of the neighborhood. Some people drive for more than 30 minutes just to come eat with us. People wait for 45 minutes on weekends to get a table. I don’t plan to add more tables. This way I can attend to everybody. People have been giving us so much love. I want to keep this going. Hopefully, my kids can continue this. I don’t see myself retiring ever because this gives me so much joy.
I have lived on the West side for 20 years and worked here for 40 years. I’m married to Bob Hernandez who has lived here for 78 years. He was the sixth of twelve children and there were 175 in the family , 75 of whom live here in the Westside. It is a big family that tends to stay put. They stand to want to be with each other and with other Mexican families. Here in the Westside, we have theaters, businesses, restaurants, bakeries, churches and schools – It is really the Mexican hub of Metropolitan Kansas City. Bob and I decided to build a house here 20 years ago. We bought some vacant land, but we couldn’t get a bank loan. The bank said “You’re just throwing good money after bad. We’re not going to lend you.” So we ended up spending about $250,000 to build the house, but we could only borrow about $140,000, and now it’s worth about $700,000.
It hadn’t happened yet – this whole momentum for redevelopment and the market finding this neighborhood. The market was slow to wake up to the fact that this neighborhood is close to the freeways, really close to downtown and has amazing views. While, none of that has changed, suddenly this has become a desirable neighborhood. So much so that it’s really hard to find places to build now or even to rehabilitate.
This is historically a neighborhood close to downtown. The workforce was downtown and they needed to get south. They needed to get West, and so the Department of Transportation said, well, we’re just going to go right through the West side. And so with I-35, they went right through the West side with I-670, they went to its north end and tore down hundreds of homes, displaced hundreds of people, tore up hundreds of families, all in an effort to get people quickly to the suburbs. We have seen that happen. We have seen schools disappear. We used to have a grade school, a middle school, a high school. We now have one grade school left –people have moved out and the district has shrunk in population. There arent many kids left but because there isnt a high school, the kids remaining in the neighborhood are being bussed all over the city. We have seen the churches close. While there might seem to be many on the map, there’s really only one that is open for business every week. The other one is open for funerals mainly. We have seen gentrification really get a very strong foothold here.
I worked on the 353 Tax Relief Program. In Westside, there’s a $1,000,000 mansion next door to a $30,000 bungalow. All of a sudden, the $30,000 bungalow is now worth a lot more. The property taxes skyrocketed. Except that people in this $30,000 bungalow don’t make any more money. They can’t afford higher taxes. We had to save people from getting priced out.
COLLEEN HERNANDEZ
353 Outreach Director and resident
Here, people know each other. I walk the neighborhood everyday and I know people. I have lived here only 20yrs but i want to live here till I die. because I feel accepted. I feel like I belong. People like me belong.
GENESHA ROUNDS
West Bluff resident
I really want to see us put the people first i.e Prioritize what people need within our community. There are a lot of different cultures that make up the Westside – Asian, Black Americans, Caucasian communities. I would like us to take into consideration this diversity, make sure that all people are seen and heard, and that the needs of all the people in the community are met. We must have educational resources within our community center that also offer financial literacy and health education to bring people out of poverty.
I’ve been living in West Bluff for almost 12 years. I moved here with my 16 year old daughter. I now also have a four year old. When I moved, I didn’t know anything about the West side or West bluff, although I’ve been in Kansas City all my life. I did know it was a nice place to move to and did some research that while the neighborhood was high in crime in the 90s and early 2000s, it had improved dramatically. And so when I moved in, I felt safe. I saw that there were a lot of really nice people and I liked the community.
There are so many different things that aren’t being addressed as far as the lower income families that live in this area are concerned. Things like the bus line and access to healthy fruits and vegetables and the grocery store and having a community center accessible by the residents of West Bluff. Most of the amenities cannot be accessed because not everyone in the community has a car and there are many residents that are older.
I would like to see that the community come together more to make sure that the diversity is included all around the board because I love the culture of this area. That was one of the great things that I loved when I moved here, I was a big fan of Mexican food, and thoroughly enjoyed being around all these different restaurants and the culture. It is so much fun when Cinco de Mayo comes around. They cordon off the entire block and it’s a whole party going on.
I’ve overcome a lot of challenges being in this neighborhood. A lot of people think that because you’re underprivileged or you’re under income, that you have to stay that way. You don’t. I’ve gotten a culinary certification since I’ve been over here, I’ve become a certified holistic health coach. I went to college for business and I’m returning in the fall for my bachelor’s. I have a teenage daughter who I’m preparing for college and a four year old. So you might have been born in a lower income setting, but you don’t have to stay in one, and I am good proof that you can make progress. I’ve also acquired an LLC where I have a small plant based business and I help people with health and Wellness. So yes there are a lot of challenges as a single mother, but you know you can push them and persevere over anything if you have the determination and the willpower to do so. There are a lot of great resources, but some residents because they are not Latino, feel that they are not included or are unaware of the services that are present in the neighborhood.
I would like more communication on services available, because although my children are active in things in school, there are other children that I know aren’t as active and I would like for all children of color to be able to have access to education and health services and activities because recreation is important! With us having three community centers in one area and not having children involved is really saddening to me.
I know my neighbors well because I’ve been in my community for a very long time and I make sure that I speak to people and my great grandmother always taught me to say hello and be friendly to your neighbors because you never know when you may need them. At one point in our community, we were able to knock on each other’s doors. But that changed, maybe because of differences in how people are raised sometimes in lower income settings. But that doesn’t make the area any worse because it is a safe area. There might be a lot of homeless people but West Bluff itself is very safe. We have had incidents, I’m not saying it’s perfect, but the Housing Authority safety officers have done a really good job of making sure to get in and take care of things really quickly.
The Seventeenth and Madison building has always been mixed-use. Over the course of time, it has seen a lot of changes but there were always apartments above and retail on the ground floor. Currently our tenants include a plant retail store, a salon, an architecture office, two healthcare/wellness space, and a showroom for a national folding patio door company. I live in one of the two apartments above. My tenant neighbors are empty nesters that moved from the suburbs. All in all the building is about 22,000sqft.
I have always been in love with the Westside. My family used to come here and have brunch and walk around the neighborhood. It was the vibe and the feel of this place. The old buildings, old trees and the walkability of the neighborhood contributed to this feeling. I am a rural girl who grew up in the farmlands up North. When the building became available, I jumped on that opportunity.
Back in the 1800s, this building housed Summit Poultry and Eggs and Withrow Furniture. I had historic images of the building and knew what it looked like before. In the 1990s however, the building went through a transformation. All the historic details were covered up, the windows and storefronts were gone, the decorative columns were boarded. When I began the rehab of the building in 2020, I wanted to make sure to recover those details. We had to completely redo the interiors and there were many structural problems. We had to pull all that out and put in new floor joists made of old growth Cedar timbers as well as the Fir tongue and groove flooring. The reclaimed wood went back into the building as hallway flooring, stair treads, shelving and some furniture. The reclaimed wood went back into the building as hallway flooring, stair treads, shelving, and some furniture.
The thing about the West side is it’s always been dotted with businesses. As a developer, it has been challenging because it takes time to rent out the spaces. Some spaces go faster than others. The building came with some core tenants like the salon. But it is a process and it has to be the right fit for the neighborhood. Some residents have raised concerns over the type of tenants coming in but otherwise it has been well received.
The neighborhood is continuing to see a lot of changes. Many businesses are coming in like a listening bar on 17th. It was a little garage owned by long-time resident Mr. Brooks. The Westside has also seen many AirBnBs come in among the giant mansions. In my work, I have been sure not to buy properties from long-time residents. I am mindful not to uproot anyone from their homes or get people to sell their homes in the name of development.
CHERYL
Small scale developer
​It was well-received because we renovated an existing building, a historic resource that was not being used. We have managed to create a collective of thriving businesses for the city and the neighborhood.
choice family night!
​A resource fair was held on August 15th to celebrate the achievements of West Bluff residents in completing the needs assessment survey. Residents gathered with their children in the on-site community room to review the survey results and discuss how to integrate them into potential goals and strategies for the neighborhood plan.
Our partners, Guadalupe Center and Samuel Rodgers Health Center, set up booths to raise awareness about their services and programs, offering a space for one-on-one discussion with residents. Kanbe’s Market, a local nonprofit, provided fresh fruits and groceries, further addressing food insecurity in the neighborhood.
Children enthusiastically participated in a collage activity, imagining the future of West Bluff in a creative, dream-based exercise. They also voiced their concerns about Cesar Chavez Avenue, suggesting improvements to make walking and biking safer and more enjoyable. Residents voted on the top priority goals and the community facilities they most wanted to see in West Bluff. The event concluded with a raffle for gift cards and inflatable ball courts, keeping the energy high and ensuring active participation.
i want cesar chavez to be..
about culture! Love and smiles!
A safe street with open spaces, parking, weeded trees cut down, more transit options and more security!
more colorful to represent the diverse culture and ethnicity of all residents
