The Star Isn't as Bleak on Mission Gateway

Out local Star paper ran the following article today.

Future of Johnson County’s Mission Gateway 

in question

On their website, it had this headline:

‘We’ve waited so long’: Future of Johnson County project in question, funds in limbo

A bit from the article:

The property has the hallmarks of an active construction project: a yellow crane, orange cones and temporary chain link fencing. But there are no sounds of dirt moving or concrete being poured. And no workers in sight.

After 15 years of delays and tempered expectations, work has once again halted at the ill-fated $225 million Mission Gateway development in Johnson County. And it’s unclear if or when it might start back up.

And check out this ugliness.

Workers left the site after two major funding sources were put on hold during the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, at least a dozen liens have been filed on the property, claiming invoices have gone unpaid to contractors and suppliers.

“We have not been paid,” said Jerry Messick, one of the contractors and owner of Metro Interiors in Lee’s Summit. “I can tell you that without any guilt because it really pisses me off.”
Keeping in mind, as the article states, too, this has been going on for 15 years. Wow.

So true. So very true. I wrote and posted this July 16, last week.

Mission Gateway: 

The Construction Project From Hell

To say, however, that the project is "in question" when you have a huge slump in retail shopping anyway and then now, this pandemic which makes even construction difficult, let alone, again, weakens that same retail shopping and, for the foreseeable future, dining out, restaurant business and then movie-going, too. Yes, it makes the funding of this project highly suspect, if not out and out deeply in doubt to very unlikely. Funding is drying up all over but especially here, on this nightmare.

I say again,  what should happen is the developer finally, finally faces the ugly reality, declares bankruptcy on the entire project then donates the land, the entire site, to the city of Mission for a park.

It won't but that's what should happen.

At one point in the article, the Star asks if it wasn't "The right idea at the wrong time."

To which I'd answer no. It was never the right idea. The former site worked and was good-looking and well-placed. It should have been updated, at most.  And all this was, of course, at the worst possible time, for all the reasons I mention in my post above--the 2008 financial collapse, the collapse of retail and now this pandemic and all it brings down on everything here.

Good luck, Mission.

You're gonna' need it.