Investing in Downtown Kansas City Strengthens the Entire City
By Tommy Wilson, Director of Business Recruitment & Research at Downtown Council of Kansas City
The State of Downtown Kansas City
Six long years ago, when pandemic lockdowns emptied Downtowns across our country seemingly overnight, crisis narratives quickly took hold to make sense of the disruption; Downtowns were “dead,” offices were “over,” and dense urban living had lost its appeal in a vast, work-from-anywhere environment.
However, the data in our State of Downtown Report tells a different story and invites you to discover a multifaceted Downtown Kansas City that has recovered and continues to thrive today.
Pedestrian Activity
Overall, Downtown Kansas City has recaptured 95% of its pre-pandemic foot traffic, with workers returning to their offices, patrons filling restaurants and cultural venues, visitors staying in our hotels, students attending Downtown schools, and residents moving into new apartments – all contributing to the daily ebb and flow of people animating our vibrant mixed-use district.
Downtown Employment / Return to the Office
Today, data from Placer.ai confirms a strong correlation between shorter commute times and the likelihood of returning to the office, as employees living less than two miles from their Downtown office have returned at 95% of pre-pandemic totals, compared to an overall employee recovery of 76%. This means Downtown’s residential market reinforces and is directly connected to our office and employment core – with the connective tissue of a fare-free streetcar and a walkable environment.
Therefore, a strong investment in Downtown housing also becomes a business attraction and employment growth strategy. The more we grow our residential population, the greater likelihood we will maintain a higher rate of employees returning to the office, which makes Downtown Kansas City an appealing choice for companies looking to locate here.
Current and prospective office tenants can follow the leadership of Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Populous, HNTB, as well as Sporting KC, and leverage a proximate talent pool for in-office collaboration, community, and connectivity. Telling the story of Downtown’s densely packed talent cluster is one ingredient for attracting new businesses. With an increase in the number of companies, workers, and residents, the more support we gain for our ancillary businesses and retailers.
Residential Growth
As we enter the 4th quarter of 2026, Downtown continues to be the fastest-growing residential neighborhood of both Kansas City and the entire region, in large part because we have converted more than 60 office buildings into apartments over the last 25 years. Our residential population has increased 151% since 2000 to more than 33,000 residents. However, our incredible growth only brought us back into competition with our peer downtowns, as several of their residential populations remain ahead of our own.
As a result, investing in our housing ecosystem and growing Downtown’s population remains a high priority, and Kansas City will need solutions beyond just office conversions to continue our residential growth while maintaining affordability. More residents in Downtown increases economic activity, contributes to a sense of safety, and provides steady foot traffic for our restaurants and retailers, who cannot succeed on visitor activity alone.
Downtown Visitors
Following the success of hosting the FIFA World Cup this summer, Downtown has seen more than 30 million visits from 6 million unique visitors so far in 2026, representing an 7% increase from 2025. Attendance at Downtown’s performing arts venues, museums, and entertainment districts has rebounded substantially over the past several years, with year-to-date attendance ranging from 80% to more than 100% of pre-pandemic volumes.
Downtown Development
Downtown Kansas City continues its momentum. From the Riverfront to 31st Street, the historic Jazz District to the West Bottoms, cranes will start rising at a rate that, just a decade ago, seemed improbable. Over the next seven years, more than ten billion dollars of investment is anticipated to enter the Downtown market, an incredible acceleration of investment that previously took 25 years to achieve.
The mood is understandably confident, but brings with it a temptation to assume Greater Downtown is now self-sustained or resolved. This report is a case against those assumptions and underscores Downtown’s indispensability to the entire region.
Downtown as the Economic Engine for the City
In Walkable City, Jeff Speck writes, “Downtown is the only part of the city that belongs to everybody. It doesn’t matter where you may find your home; the downtown is yours, too. Investing in the downtown of a city is the only place-based way to benefit all of its citizens at once.” It is worth considering this notion.
Greater Downtown occupies just 2% of Kansas City’s land area, yet contains 105,000 jobs, accounting for 32% of all employment in Kansas City, Missouri. But the scale matters less than what it means for Kansas Citians. Nearly one third of those jobs do not require a college degree. They are jobs in hospitality and retail, in building and food services, and are accessible to residents at every level of education and experience. And every job is reachable by public transit from every corner of the city and much of the region.
This is what makes Downtown categorically different from every other jobs hub in the region – it is not a campus, not an office park, not a corridor built for one industry or one demographic of worker. It is a place where accessible opportunity exists for everyone.
Speck continues: “Every relocation decision, be it a college graduate’s or a corporation’s, is made with an image of place in mind. That image is palpable, and it is powerful. It is resolutely physical; a picture of buildings, streets, squares, cafés, and the social life that those places engender. Whether good or bad, that image is hard to shake. And, with rare exception, that image is downtown.”
In 2026, we stepped onto the biggest international stage in our history, welcoming the world to Kansas City for the FIFA World Cup. Fifty percent of all visitors to the City and 45% of all visitors to the region during the World Cup visited Downtown at least once; and as a result, the impression and image many World Cup visitors carried home of Kansas City was formed in Downtown.
However, Downtown’s importance runs deeper than image, deeper than tourism, and any single event. One in every 10 jobs across the region is located here. Downtown is home to 23% of the City’s businesses, 40% of its hotel rooms, and makes up 20% of its tax revenue – revenues that fund schools, parks, libraries, and services in every neighborhood and Council district. Investing in Downtown is not in competition with investing in other neighborhoods; it is the precondition for it. The fiscal base that makes neighborhood investment and improvement possible is disproportionately generated Downtown. The transit network that connects residents across the city to opportunity converges here. The image that attracts talent, visitors, businesses, and residents to the region is formed here. Investing in Downtown strengthens everything connected to it.
Speck closes his argument with a note of optimism that also carries a demand: “A beautiful and vibrant downtown can be the rising tide that lifts all ships … a great downtown can help push a whole city into the great category. That is the place to begin.”
This report is a love letter to the performance and potential of our Downtown; it invites you to look beyond outdated narratives and recognize the remarkable urban center that continues to drive our region’s economic and cultural prosperity. It is grounded in the belief that a thriving Downtown generates opportunity and prosperity for the entire city and region.
Downtown Kansas City’s transformation, which started twenty-five years ago, was not the passive result of forces beyond our control but rather the product of strategic decisions, local leadership, and investments that shaped a new vision. We were not simply restoring things to the old order of a monoculture office district but building a vibrant live-work Downtown that prioritized people and served all areas of their lives.
These achievements should not be taken as evidence that the work is finished. Rather, we should seek to amplify investment in our region’s economic heart to accelerate growth across Kansas City. Let’s proceed, full speed ahead, and lift all ships.
