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Several stores remain open at the Harmon Heritage Center, but 70% of the decades-old shopping center located northwest of Interstate 70 and Little Blue Parkway sits vacant.
The city hopes a new Community Improvement District will breathe new life into the neighborhood.
“We came specifically for this location,” Amy Shores, who co-owns Kanga’s Indoor Playcenter with her family, said. “We liked the building. It was perfect. We were told that it had sat dormant for quite a while, and it was just waiting for us.”
Kanga’s is a hopping place, along with a handful of other stores in the shopping center — including World Market, Half-Price Books, Cold Stone Creamery, Buffalo Wild Wings and Beauty Brands — but the majority of the 214,000-square-foot building sits blighted, damaged, and empty.
Bed Bath & Beyond crossed into the great retail beyond, Buy Buy Baby went bye-bye, and the party ended for Party City, among other now-shuttered stores.
“As we look at the retail landscape since COVID, and maybe even a little bit before COVID, things have started to change,” Independence Assistant City Manager Charlie Dissell said. “The presence of online shopping has obviously hurt a lot of businesses out there, and we've seen that with a lot of our retail centers within town, which have some vacancy rates that are a little bit higher than we wish they would be.”
The Harmon Heritage Center faced foreclosure in 2023, according to the Kansas City Business Journal. It’s a problem many cities, not just Independence, face — how to continue to generate the sales-tax revenue they rely on to provide basic municipal services.
“This is a really important economic and retail corridor in the city of Independence because of its location to the highways,” Independence City Councilwoman Heather Wiley said. “... We've seen what has happened to brick-and-mortar in the last five years, but I think that retail is slowly coming back and I feel really optimistic that, if we can bring some interesting options to this area, we will attract new shoppers.”
Dissell shared Wiley’s optimism, though they weren’t able to share any specifics about possible future tenants.
“Now that it's in the hands of new owners, new owners have connections with different retailers around there,” Dissell said. “So, I think the developer would hope that some retailers come in here and start increasing the presence of customers in this area.”
Highland Capital — a Nashville, Tennessee-based real-estate firm — is behind the development and stands to benefit from the CID.
Messages with Highland Capital for this story went unreturned, but the company’s website boasts 90-plus redevelopment projects anchored by a wide variety of retail outfits.
“We're hoping that it'll bring some shoppers from Lee’s Summit and Blue Springs,” Wiley said. “Additionally, we really want the people who live in Independence to shop in Independence.”
The Independence City Council approved the formation of the CID, which will impose a 1% tax on retail sales in the shopping center to help Highland Capital make repairs to the building caused by vandals and deferred maintenance.
The ordinance passed 5-1 with Mayor Rory Rowland casting the lone “no” vote.
Shores didn’t have any conversations with the city or the developer before the CID was approved, but she’s excited for Harmon Heritage Center’s future.
“I'm looking forward to breathing some new life into the strip mall,” she said. “I think that would be wonderful. ... Anytime you open up and bring in new businesses, I think it's good for the community.”
Under Missouri law, the CID must expire before July 7, 2052. It is expected to generate tax revenue to pay for nearly $9.2 million in repairs to the property, according to the CID's five-year plan.
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