Wheel of Fortune: Westsiders wonder what Pennway Point’s entertainment district means for their future

Final rendering of Talegate and Barrel Hall concepts // Courtesy Whiskey Design and Pixel Foundry

Fleeing the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, many immigrants headed north to seek employment in the booming railroad and meatpacking industries with job opportunities in the Midwest. Such prospects brought Hispanic families to Kansas City, primarily settling on the West Side of the city near the industrial hub of that time.

Jobs building the city’s infrastructure provided steady wages, and the Westside offers a convenient and affordable housing enclave.

Maria Chaurand, co-owner of her family’s Westside restaurant La Fonda El Taquito, is one of many residents whose parents and grandparents came for work and stayed for the vibrant community they fostered.

“Mexican American families built this community, this area, the railroads, and packing houses,” Chaurand says. “They built all their homes in this area where nobody else wanted to live. And that’s the truth—which is fine.”

Now, a hundred years since her family arrived from Mexico, half-a-million-dollar townhomes have begun to pop up across the street from the community’s modest Victorian bungalows and small businesses. Among the most visible changes to the area—currently under construction between the I-35 and Pennway bridges—is an entertainment district outfitted with a 150-foot ‘observation wheel’ and ‘urban playground.’ 

To the neighborhood, this may be simply the largest scale change on a new wave of revitalization efforts, but residents expressed uncertainty across the board about its intentions, its impact, and what it means for their collective future.

Welcome to Pennway Point.

Talegate interior rendering // Courtesy Collins Webb & Associates and Whiskey Design

Led by 3D Development founder Vince Bryant, the 3-acre development occupies space of the former Carter-Waters industrial site and will have miniature golf, yard games, a winter ice rink, a vintage neon sign alleyway, and various food and drink concepts with VIP suites. Davinci KC, the master-tenant developer also cofounded by Bryant, is overseeing these first concepts, which they aim to have open by early 2024. 

A virtual video flyover of the development from early renderings is available here.

Pennway Point also boasts the addition of a silhouette of a Ferris wheel to Kansas City’s skyline—though the actual structure will tower over 25th Street, a block from Sacred Heart of Guadeloupe.

Developments like these and the increased property taxes they bring all pose a threat to the culturally rich neighborhood of the Westside, says Dr. Theresa Torres, associate professor of Latinx and Latin American Studies at UMKC.

“Today, the Hispanic West Side is the oldest Mexican business district in greater Kansas City,” Torres says.

The gentrification of the Westside has been a major concern for decades now but became especially significant in the ‘90s, according to Torres.  It was in this same decade that Chaurand sold her home in the Westside and left the neighborhood, much like many of her friends in the community.

Lifetime resident and vice president of the West Side Central Neighborhood Association, Robert Hurtado, is grateful to remain in the Westside in the house he was born in. But many aren’t so lucky.

“People with money are coming in and then offering them a whole lot of money that our own people cannot afford,” Chaurand says. “And they’re moving us out of here.”

This gentrification tidal wave is only gaining strength with developments like Pennway Point—as the Westside saw the highest jump in property taxes of any Jackson County neighborhood.

As Chaurand watches the area’s second and third-generation immigrants get driven out by skyrocketing property taxes, she fears the culture her family helped build will be swallowed up by big developers flipping Pennway for profit.

The space in progress during July 2023 press tour. // Photo by Brynn Winkler

Verbiage around the development from the outside paints a positive picture: Developers are revitalizing an underused industrial site and overlooked area to provide family fun for everyone.

DJ Belfonte, director of operations at Davinci KC, says they have looked to other cities with similar concepts for inspiration but noted Pennway Point would have something they don’t—an ‘observation wheel’ added to our skyline. To him, this ‘observation wheel’ that will tower over 25th Street is just the “cherry on top of the overall development.”

In preparation for transforming the industrial site into a “destination with dining and recreation for all ages” and installing the new carnival ride, they “worked with the city to remove homeless camps under the I-35 bridge underpass” and planted over 80 trees.

Managing partner of Davinci KC, Dante Passantino, told The Pitch he sees Pennway Point as an opportunity to repurpose an underused industrial site that “helped build Kansas City for the past 100 years.”

“It’s kind of overlooked by everybody, set below two bridges, not really in the Crossroads, not really on the Westside,” Passantino said in an interview with KCTV5.

And overlooked it is, says Hurtado, who is a second-generation immigrant and believes the development feels like the further erasure of the Westside’s culture.

The site is just across the bridge from La Fonda El Taquito, hugging the eastern border between the Westside and Crossroads Arts District—which is generally considered to be Broadway Boulevard. Community members still refer to this area as a part of their historic district, despite the walkability impediment of the I-35 bridge and traffic lights.

Still, marketing materials make no mention of the traditional Westside fixtures but highlight its convenient proximity to Crown Center, the Crossroads Arts District, and Union Station—the latter of which is just one piece of infrastructure Mexican immigrants helped build, according to an article authored by Torres.

“​​The Mexicans had a big part in the railroad system and history in the Kansas City area,” Hurtado says. “And that shouldn’t be forgotten.”

Passantino referred to the overlooked site as a piece of Kansas City history and Pennway Point as a way to showcase where the city came from and the “brands that have helped build [it]”—while the families of those who technically built KC claim they have been shut out of conversations surrounding the development.

A statement in response to questions from The Pitch by the development’s communication team explains that 3D Development and Davinci KC have “given presentations for the Pennway Point project to all surrounding neighbors over the last two years with overwhelming support.”

He cited a handful of local businesses as neighbors that gave their ‘permission,’ including Dan Meiners Studio and Event Space, KC Ballet, Union Station, Outfront Media, and Boulevard Brewing Co—the latter of which is an anchor tenant in Pennway’s ‘Barrel Hall’ concept slated to open in 2024.

The statement also said that 3D and Davinci reached out several times to the Westside Neighborhood Association with hopes to present the project and offer a tour, but they were never able to schedule a time to do this. They said the offer is still open for this.

Richard Hernandez, current president of the Westside Neighborhood Association, did not recognize the finalized name of the development but was familiar with its initial plans when The Pitch reached out for comment.

Additionally, Hurtado said he was not aware of any organized meetings for the Westside neighborhood to discuss the Pennway with developers, despite being under the impression City Council had mandated it. A representative from the city said public engagement in the form of a neighborhood meeting was not required for the Pennway Point development project.

A rendering shows the expected design for TaleGate at Pennway Point. // Rendering courtesy BNIM

Anna Roseburrough, vice president of the Sacred Heart Neighborhood Association on the Westside, says her organization has also yet to hear from developers about a community meeting to let local voices be heard on the matter. A major concern for Roseburrough, which is echoed by Dr. Torres and Robert Hurtado, is a potential influx of traffic in their residential community and the exacerbation of limited parking in the area. 

“The residents here don’t have a place to park as it is,” says Hurtado. “These developers just keep chopping up the Westside as they go along. Pretty soon, there’s gonna be nothing left.”

A statement from the development’s communications team assured there will be abundant parking with city and state leases for 350 parking spaces accessible from 25th Street to the south and from Broadway to the east.

With Westside residents shut out of conversations, Hurtado, Chaurand, and Torres share concerns about the potential effect on the character of this longstanding cultural epicenter.

“Such developments are pushing out a major continuous historical Mexican Business Center, which adds a lot of culture and value to that community,” says Torres.

From its genesis, the Hispanic Westside community centered around tight-knit family values, Catholic traditions, and celebration of their rich cultural heritage. The Catholic Church of Sacred Heart – Guadalupe has been a community pillar since its founding in 1926, and when the Guadeloupe Centers were started with the help of Robert Hurtado’s grandparents in 1919, these became key gathering places.

Chaurand says her neighborhood has always been proud of its heritage and welcomed the opportunity to share it with people from all over who came for their delicious food—a tradition she still keeps alive through her family’s restaurant, which has been open for 44 years.

“My father envisioned it, and my mother was a good cook—so was my dad. And they opened it up for us in 1979,” Chaurand says. “Because of them, we’ve been blessed.” Today, Chaurand runs the restaurant with her sister Sandy on a stretch of Southwest Boulevard, long regarded as the destination for authentic Mexican cuisine. 

But Hurtado and Chaurand witness small businesses around them being squashed, neighbors being priced out of their family homes, and the tradition of fiestas slipping away—the Westside still hosts fiestas annually during Cinco De Mayo, though with significantly less grandeur and resources than before.

From the outside, the Pennway Point Entertainment District may be a fun new prospect on the upper-middle class’ weekend social itinerary. From Hurtado’s point of view, it’s nothing other than a profit pipeline for developers that won’t benefit the third-generation residents of the area. 

“It’s all about money,” Hurtado says. “They don’t care about the heritage of the Westside. They don’t care about any of that.”

Chaurand says the neighborhood has always welcomed friendly visitors and notes that they would welcome business development that uplifts their culture. She and Hurtado said the Westside has visions of their own for community development that would showcase the rich culture of their home and all the while drawing tourists to the area—including the concept of a Mercado, or market-style development where Mexican American and Latinx entrepreneurs can share their livelihoods.

But ordinary residents are barely holding onto their homes with skyrocketing property taxes and minimal support from the city, let alone having the means to revitalize their deserted industrial areas. Such sites remain sitting there until a big developer swoops in to exploit the rent gap—buy up cheap land, turn it into an “urban playground” aimed at outsiders with disposable income, and outfit it with VIP suites and swanky beer-tasting concepts.

Is an ‘observation wheel’ worth the trade-offs to those who built this neighborhood? When Westside community groups have been sidelined in discussions about their neighborhood’s future, it’s difficult for anyone to weigh in accurately. 

The lack of dialogue between developers and Westside residents paints an uncertain future for the Westside in the wake of Pennway Point.

With a focus on the “brands that helped build [Kansas City]” and not the people, community leaders, and those at ground zero who fear they lack solid footing and agency in their neighborhood. They worry these businesses will funnel funds into the pockets of big developers while residents struggle to hold onto the authenticity—and literal homes—their great-grandparents passed down to them.

Construction is underway for the development, but the communications team says the door is still open for conversations with the community. Obviously, the window for negotiating any change to the entertainment district’s location has come and gone, but vast opportunity remains for the developers and associated business parties to take active steps toward involving residents in both its fiscal and cultural future. While they say the door is open for dialogue, clearly there should be a greater incentive from all involved to communicate about collaboration, especially considering the area’s shared future and fortune. The potential for Pennway to serve as a kickstart and a boon to all other parties instead of just creating an economic shift that benefits outside interests is totally in the hands of the businesses at the heart of this. 

Chaurand fears it’s too late for her family and friends to reverse the current course. She laments her neighborhood not organizing against it sooner, even shifting some of the blame to them as she reflects on what this could mean for the community that raised her.

“We’re going to be protective of what we have,” Chaurand says. “This is our home. This is our livelihood.”