Half a Decade, but a 10 Year’s Worth of Major Movements

PUBLISHED OCTOBER 2024

As the third decade of the century dawned, the American economy was firing on all cylinders: GDP was up a comfortable 2.3 percent—sustainable growth that, by itself, wouldn’t trigger inflation. Quite the opposite; the final year of the 2010-2019 decade produced an inflation rate of just 1.81 percent and closed out with an overall unemployment rate of 3.6 percent. 

When the sun rose on New Year’s Day, all seemed well. But … almost no one outside of his Minneapolis neighborhood knew who George Floyd was. And almost no one in America could have pointed to the city of Wuhan on a map of China.

All of that was about to change.

If you were to pinpoint a defining moment in business for Kansas City, the U.S.—the whole world, in fact—going back to that very first day of 2020, it might have been that afternoon when health officials in New York issued an advisory with this guidance: “There is an outbreak of respiratory disease caused by a novel (new) virus centered in Wuhan, China. Some patients may be catching the infection from other people. … There is no vaccine or treatment available for this or other coronaviruses.”

Just weeks later, as coastal emergency rooms reeled under waves of stricken patients, it was clear this public-health issue truly would be different. Before it could run its course, the illness would become the biggest impediment to global commerce since World War II, spell the end for tens of thousands of small businesses in the U.S., wreck supply chains worldwide, throw tens of millions out of work (thankfully, only for a comparatively short time), reshape the contours of a presidential election, send tremors through financial markets, and by the CDC’s accounting, claim the lives of more than 1.2 million Americans.

It was a heck of a warm-up for what was to come. The Memorial Day weekend brought another national crisis after the death of George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis. That touched off a summer of unrest, protest and outright rioting that wrecked the reputations of the Twin Cities, Portland and Seattle, from which none have recovered. Even Kansas City wasn’t immune to the rage-fest that saw storefront windows smashed on The Country Club Plaza and police under assault with bricks, bottles or other objects that could be hurled as weapons.

Then, an awful year wound down with an equally awful partisan rift over an election outcome that continues to reverberate through American politics a full election cycle later.

2020

Things started off swimmingly: In 2020 alone, the region landed expansion commitments totaling more than $1 billion from companies—mainly in the logistics/distribution space—who say they’ll be creating nearly 3,800 jobs. All told, the region’s successes, according to the Kansas City Area Development Council, yielded 14.8 million square feet of new industrial construction, placing the area third nationally in cities of our class—1 to 4 million metro residents—and ahead of larger markets such as Denver and Seattle.

The first quarter of the year also saw Kansas City’s profile raised on a stage it hadn’t visited in half a century. After a 50-year lapse between Super Bowl appearances, the Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers, 31-20, to win the NFL World Championship. For area residents who had waited a lifetime to see that return to the pinnacle, the moment couldn’t have been sweeter. Check that: The moment couldn’t have been sweeter than the way it unfolded throughout the playoffs, winning every game, including the Big One, after trailing by double-digits. The Patrick Mahomes Era was kicking into gear, and a city reveled in it with a Downtown victory parade that drew an estimated 800,000 people out in freezing weather in celebration. 

That era of good feeling wouldn’t last. Floyd’s death in Minneapolis triggered a national expression of rage. The 440 miles separating us from Minneapolis did little to diminish the anger shown by hundreds of people, who gathered in protest on the Country Club Plaza in late May for days on end. Things turned violent when a comparative handful, wearing body armor, and, in a couple of cases, brandishing AR-15 rifles, incited a spree of window-smashing and vandalism at retail stores. In response to projectiles thrown that injured at least two officers, Kansas City police employed tear gas to disperse the crowd at Mill Creek Park.

A massive police response the following evening helped de-escalate tensions, sparing the city the levels of devastation witnessed in Minneapolis, Chicago and New York as unrest spilled into the streets of an estimated 600 U.S. cities.

Still unbeknownst to many—but forecast by those understanding the dynamics of supply and demand,  the fuse on an economic bomb had been lit that spring with the passage of the CARES Act—for Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security—including provisions for forgivable low-interest business loans under the Paycheck Protection Program. 

The $2 trillion spending measure was designed to provide quick financial support to individuals and families as record numbers of workers lost their jobs. Later enhanced with new funding, the PPP eventually provided companies with $659 billion to help keep employees on the payroll. Kansas City-area banks made 4,677 loans of at least $150,000 under the program.

But an infusion of $2 trillion into an economy already humming along would prove to have the consequences that fiscally conservative economists had predicted, in the form of an inflationary spike unknown to any American younger than 35.

People in Kansas City had other reasons to be preoccupied. For one, a pillar of this region’s business identity was about to fall. Sprint, long the largest private employer in the region, formally bowed out with the April completion of its merger with T-Mobile. The combined company continued to operate under the name T-Mobile, and the Sprint offices, with roughly 5,500 employees, transitioned into second-head- quarters status.

Another corporate domino—a big one—fell in July when Overland Park-based NPC International, the nation’s largest Pizza Hut franchisee, filed for bankruptcy protection. It sold off extensive holdings in Wendy’s and Pizza Hut operations after failing to produce a workable restructuring of its debt. Just like that, one of the region’s biggest companies was gone just a year after posting revenues of $1.6 billion.

While much of the nation’s attention was fixed on Washington and the fallout from the contested Biden-Trump election, Kansas City welcomed the news that Ford Motor Co. would invest $100 million to upgrade the Claycomo assembly plant in preparation for the production of the E-Transit van, the electric-powered version of the popular business cargo van. That would have significant workforce implications as the vehicle maker charted a course to surpass 9,000 employees by mid-decade. 

2021

Eager to move on from a tough year, Kansas Citians joined the rest of the nation, anticipating the arrival of the vaccines meant to stop the COVID-19 virus. By year’s end, roughly 200 million Americans had received the injections, which, they would come to learn, fell well short of the promise to shut down the spread of the virus.    

After a winter that produced unprecedented stress on regional hospitals, case numbers fell sharply until August, when the Delta variant of the virus began its sweep through Missouri. Back up went the hospitalizations, approaching levels of the previous winter. 

On the logistics front, Canadian Pacific Railway and Kansas City South-ern announced a merger agreement in March, with the Canadian company offering $29 billion in cash and stock to acquire one of Kansas City’s most iconic brands. After a series of back-and-forth negotiations sparked by a competing bid from Canadian National, the original offer from CP was raised to $31 billion, creating the first intracontinental rail system linking Mexico, Canada and the United States.

Less positive logistics news was showing up in construction and manufacturing sites, where the lingering pandemic was thrashing the nation’s supply chains. That created massive shortages in almost anything that required a computer chip, including cars and trucks. The downstream effects of that were substantial. 

A new phenomenon in American equities markets—the rise of a rebel cohort among retail investors—thrust Leawood’s AMC Entertainment squarely into one of the biggest national stories of the year. The company’s stock price had cratered as theaters closed during the pandemic, but traders who aligned through reddit.com initiated a squeeze on short sellers, sending the price soaring by 300 percent. From a low of less than $2 a share, AMC stock soared to more than $72. Shares of AMC stabilized in the mid-$30s by year-end.

Giddy expectations of national bragging rights from back-to-back Super Bowl victories—and the opportunity to showcase Kansas City’s attributes to the world—took a thumping in February courtesy of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and a nemesis quite familiar to fans here: Tom Brady. The lone upside to that 31-9 drubbing might have been the wholesale restructuring of an offensive line that clearly wasn’t ready for prime time.

Few anticipated in August that a leadership change in Cerner Corp., the region’s largest private-sector employer, would portend a seismic change just months away. David Feinberg became just the third chief executive officer in the company’s 42-year history. In a matter of just a year, his team would orchestrate a $28 billion sale to Oracle, effectively pulling the plug on operations in Wyandotte County, at the North Kansas City headquarters in Clay County, and eventually, on a project that had been billed as the largest development in state history when it was rolled out a decade ago, with completion of the $4.5 billion Innovations Camus in south Kansas City.

By November, the region was positioned to celebrate its elevation to the cancer research stage when The University of Kansas Cancer Center submitted a 1,726-page application to the National Cancer Institute, seeking designation as a comprehensive cancer center. The center achieved first-tier status from the NCI in 2012, and a higher designation was expected to yield huge economic benefits for the region, as well as local life-saving therapies for patients. 

On the M&A front, Intouch Group, which Faruk Capan took from concept to $220 million in 2020 revenues, announced that it would be acquired by Chicago-based Eversana for a reported $950 million—and potentially more. That acquisition creates a combined enterprise with more than 40 global locations and 5,500 employees worldwide. Capan founded the pharmaceutical-focused digital marketing firm in 1998 and created one of the region’s fastest-growing, rapid-hiring companies.

Meanwhile, the owners of Kansas City’s National Women’s Soccer League franchise introduced its new brand—The Kansas City Current—and announced plans for a $70 million stadium (final cost: $114 million) financed privately and built along the Missouri River waterfront. Owners Chris and Angie Long of Palmer Square Capital Management joined Brittany Mahomes to debut plans for the 11,000-seat stadium, the first in the country to be built specifically for women’s pro soccer.

In a November deal that rocked the wealth-planning sector nationwide, Creative Planning said it would double its assets under management by acquiring the retirement plan business of Lockton Companies. That added $110 billion in assets to Creative’s base, with Lockton assuming an equity stake in Creative Planning. It came just a week earlier after the Overland Park firm announced that its AUM had crossed the $100 billion threshold.

2022

A new year would bring more big deals to burnish the region’s national reputation. And a global one: Kansas City earned its place in the sun with designation as a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. 

But it was just getting started. Nationally, the ability to attract Panasonic Energy’s new $4 billion electric-vehicle battery plant promised to dramatically affect the local job market, with 4,000 hires by 2025—roughly 1,000 of them engineers. The region continued to lure high-profile tech companies here when Meta, the parent of Facebook, announced that it would set up nearly 1 million feet of data center space in the Northland.

The game-changer, though, was all about the game—soccer and the World Cup. An intense, years-long marketing effort paid off in June when FIFA, the international soccer organization, designated Kansas City as one of 16 host cities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. That hard-won victory not only positioned this region before a global audience, it will do so for a tournament expected to draw more eyeballs than any in World Cup history. Kansas City was the smallest U.S. market to make the cut, which included 10 other cities, plus three in Mexico and two in Canada. That local economic impact has been estimated at $695 million.

June brought news that was at once anticlimactic and a dent in civic pride: Oracle Corp. announced that a majority of outstanding shares had been tendered for its $28.3 billion acquisition of Cerner Corp. From its inception as a health-care IT company in 1979, Cerner emerged as the region’s biggest entrepreneurial success story of the past 40 years. And for the second time in three years, the Kansas City area lost the brand of its biggest private-sector employer. First was Sprint, absorbed by T-Mobile in 2020, then Cerner, which had peaked at 13,500 employees locally and 28,000 worldwide before Oracle came calling in late 2021.

Any feelings damaged by the loss of Cerner headquarters may have been assuaged as one of Kansas City’s fastest-growing financial institutions, Lead Bank, announced that it will sell to California tech billionaire Jacqueline Reses. Reses, who made her fortune with Square and Yahoo, indicates that the bank’s innovation in fintech development piqued her interest.

The next phase of Downtown’s transformation advanced in September,  as the Port Authority of Kansas City issued a request for proposals on environmental review and preliminary design for placing a cap over I-670 through Downtown Kansas City. If completed, the proposed $160 million project would yield a 5-1/2 acre park, venues for arts and theater performances, playgrounds and dog parks. It would place a lid over the interstate between Wyandotte Street and Grand Boulevard and possibly to Oak Street.

October brought word that The University of Kansas Health System would add Olathe Health System to its fold, furthering its dominance in health care delivery on the Kansas side of the metro area. The two entities signed off on a letter of intent to merge Olathe Health’s services and clinics into the larger system, with all 2,300 Olathe Health associates as employees included in the deal. 

Another big deal soon followed when Rx Savings Solutions of Overland Park was formally acquired in November by health-care giant McKesson Corp. in a deal that could eventually be valued at $875 million. That started with $600 million upfront and another $275 million possible based on hitting certain performance metrics. 

Then came a big one: Royals chairman and CEO John Sherman issued a letter in November outlining the team’s goal of building a Downtown stadium after a half-century of playing at Kauffman Stadium in the Truman Sports Complex. It didn’t specify a site but did suggest a $2 billion price tag, which he said would not include any additional taxes on Jackson County residents. Further attempts to renovate Kauffman, he wrote, would likely cost as much or more than a new facility without generating the economic benefits of a Downtown location.

2023

Another year, another Super Bowl, right? But Kansas City fans showed they were far from complacent, turning out by the hundreds of thousands to celebrate what’s becoming an annual rite of passage: Overcoming a double-digit deficit to win another NFL title, their second in four years. This time, it came at the expense of the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-35, in Super Bowl LVII. For a team that had gone 50 seasons without a title-game appearance, it was the third Super Bowl in a four-year span. 

Many of those fans arrived here by transiting the new, single-terminal Kansas City International Airport, which beat its projected opening by days with the first flight out at 5 a.m. on Feb. 28. The new facility rose from the ground that formerly was home to Terminal A of the three-terminal design that opened in 1972. Changing travel patterns and consumer demands, the economics of air travel and security concerns that limited the old structure’s satisfaction ratings finally prompted voters to sign off on the $1.5 billion makeover in 2017. Despite complaints that the new design failed to fully account for heavy traffic during peak periods, business executives praised the new facility as a front door to the community that would no longer tarnish the city’s reputation with companies across the nation. 

In May, the crown jewel in Kansas City’s retail reputation took a hit as the owners of the iconic Country Club Plaza filed SEC paperwork reporting that they were defaulting on a loan of more than $295 million that had been secured to acquire the district in 2016. The default was nearly half the $660 million price paid to Highwoods Properties by Macerich Co. and Taubman Centers. Later in the year, speculation surfaced that the Plaza could again change owners, with reports that a Texas firm with ties to Kansas City’s Hunt family might be next in the ownership line.

For the second time in just over a year came a seismic shakeup in regional health care. Saint Luke’s Health System and St. Louis-based BJC HealthCare announced plans to form an integrated Missouri-based health system to serve the state’s 6.2 million residents. They pledged to operate a dual headquarters, with the St. Louis base serving eastern Missouri and southern Illinois and the Kansas City wing covering Missouri and portions of Kansas. BJC Health Care brought 14 hospitals and net revenues equaling $6.3 billion to the table, while Saint Luke’s included nine hospitals and more than $7.6 billion in revenues. 

More major health-care news was soon in the offing: In June, The University of Kansas and The University of Kansas Health System announced that the Sunderland Foundation would provide $100 million for the development of a new destination cancer center, accounting for the majority of the proposed $143 million facility on the 39th and Rainbow campus. It marked the largest donation ever made by the foundation; it was the largest lead gift ever to be received by the university.

In September, officials from Wyandotte County’s Unified Government signed off on tax incentives to support the massive, $838 million mixed-use Homefield project, a nearly 400-acre development at 94th Street and State Avenue. The sports-themed Homefield parent envisioned a $145 million hotel, $60 million multisport training facility and $20 million golf bar. It would be home to a 55,000-square-foot in-door arena, a youth baseball complex and a 30,000-square-foot interactive museum.  

Score one for those chafed by the loss of national prestige with brands like Cerner and Sprint in recent years: In October, New York-based WPP announced that its VMLY&R unit in Kansas City would merge with another operation unit, Wunderman Thompson, to form the world’s largest creative company. Retaining its Kansas City headquarters, the unified operation will bring together respective client bases, functional expertise and geographic strengths for a combined company with more than 30,000 employees in 64 markets worldwide. 

2024

The first half of the decade started the way its opening year did: With a Chiefs Super Bowl victory. And like 2020, the San Fransisco 49ers were the victims. That made three titles in five years, a 3-1 record in championship games, and a team poised in 2024 to do something no other NFL team has ever done: win a third straight Lombardi Trophy.

The part for sports fans didn’t end with the Feb. 14 Super Bowl parade (an event marred by a fatal shooting after the event). That month saw the opening of training camp for the Royals, who would shock the world in the subsequent months and become the first team in MLB history to go from 100 losses in a season to winning a playoff series the following year.

On the business side, the region was again a hotbed for mergers, acquisitions, big deals and big developments. We’re just weeks away from diving into those in greater detail—be sure to check back in the December edition for our annual Year in Review feature.