Don’t look now but the KC Strip may be poised for a comeback…
The three year-old entertainment trolly just blew taps a few days back, but point man Bill Nigro already has formulated a plan to dig it back up and breath new life into it.
“Here’s my prediction,” Nigro says. “The KC Strip will come back. The KC Strip was the best thing Kansas City has for (entertainment) tourism. We helped people experience Kansas City nightlife and that’s really important for tourism in our town.”
Nigro’s plan?
“Here’s the real deal, for the KC Strip to really boom we need to be linked to Zona Rosa up north and Town Center on the south. To do that we need two extra buses and I would sure love for the ATA to provide those vehicles.”
Nigro’s rationale:
The river is the biggest obstacle to growing tourism to experience Kansas City entertainment,” Nigro says. “That’s because people are afraid to cross that barrier because of the crime and DUI checkpoints. And the ATA could run one bus from the River Market up to Zona Rosa and back. At the top of the hour it could be in Zona Rosa and at the bottom of the hour it could be at the River market. So every half hour the bus would be at one of those locations.”
From 7:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and special occasions.
The Brew Top Pub & Patio up north has already agreed to be the hub.
Could it actually happen?
“The Strip could easily come back,” Nigro says. “With just a little help from the city by providing two buses.”
What about the party poopers at Power & Light who effectively just got through killing the Strip off by bailing out of the promotion?
“The Power & Light District’s going to miss out,” Nigro says. “The Power & Light District’s going to be missing
out because we’ll be going to the City Market instead of the P&L.”
Besides…
“From Day One the Power & light District has failed to honor the drink specials,” Nigro says. “This has been like Chinese drip torture. The thing is, the specials were created as a way to create an affordable night out for people.”
As for the Power & Light District having been the No. 1 stop for The Strip, “We won’t need ’em if we have Zona Rosa and Town Center,” Nigro says. “Plus we’ve heard from non-Cordish bars in the Power & Light that they want to be part of The Strip. So we’ll have them.”
Stay tuned.
I gotta think that if there were a demand for ATA to run buses to Town Center and Zona Rosa into the wee hours of the morning, they’d already be doing it.
And nothing says “party” like an ATA bus.
Hobo or wino party.
This is just ridiculous and stupid. The Strip was already deeply in debt. Now they want to avoid the biggest attraction in town and have the ATA run buses for them? And run them to places that don’t really scream tourism to me, just a bunch of crappy chair restaurants bunched together.
If the plan can’t work without their wonderful drink specials and the someone else paying for it, it probably isn’t a great plan.
In this time of economic hardship I think the best solution isn’t corporate welfare to encourage overconsumption to the point where you can’t drive a car.
If Nigro wants his bus, go buy one surplus at govdeals.com and hire somebody with a bus drivers license to go from Leawood to Westport. The cost would be about $5000 initially and $200 a day going forward.
Seems like a group like the Westport merchant’s association could split the cost.
Why do we need to give you a free bus again?
” . . . to the point where you can’t drive a car.”
I always wondered what happened at 3 a.m. when the trolley brought them back to wherever they thought they parked their cars. Hopefully, they couldn’t remember.
They attempt to get in their cars sh*tfaced and attempt to drive drunk. This trolley sounded like a horrible idea from the word go. How they got the city to fund it is not surprising either and shows the great lengths this city will go to throw money at stupid ideas.