Towne West has been in the news for the wrong reasons lately, mainly because the power gets cut off more often than Wichitans complain about parking. It is often the butt of many jokes (☝️ guilty as charged).
But that isn’t fair to the hard-working business owners at Towne West.
u/empires228
Considering I have barely been in the building the last few years besides going to the Dillard's outlet store 5 years ago and stopping by a bin store and exploring a bit last year, I had to give myself a refresher of who is even over there.
Keep in mind that all the issues at the mall have nothing to do with the individual businesses there, but rather the ownership. While Towne East is renovating and bringing in businesses like Scheels, Towne West is busy not paying their bills.
Kohan is located in New York and now owns ~50 malls across the country from Connecticut and New York to Kansas and New Mexico. They bought Towne West Square back in 2019 with “plans to remodel and make repairs to draw in new customers” (anyone see this happen?)
They have doubled the number of malls they own since 2019.
The Problem
Like many of us who don’t love paying our own Evergy bills, Kohan doesn’t like to pay theirs.
Unlike many of us though, they wait until Evergy actually shuts off the power before they pay anything.
Here is a little rundown on the timeline of events:
April 2024: City of Wichita was forced to shut off the water to Towne West as Kohan didn’t pay their water bill
The other issue is that the big retail stores have their separate Evergy accounts so they can keep their power on, but that leaves the 58 small businesses hanging.
One of the topics that makes the rounds on Reddit and other social media probably too often is “What would you do if you had the keys to Towne West?”
..and there are always a number of good (and bad) ideas. I’ll let you be the judge which bucket these fall into:
“A giant indoor rainforest like the one at Sedgwick County Zoo but way bigger.” - u/Just_Saying_Howdy
“Turn it into a motel 6. That way the lights will be on.” - u/tony8 ( 👏)
“Entertainment district. You already have theaters. Turn jc pennys into an urban air type place. Put a go cart track on the east end. Bowling alley, sprinkle in different bars and clubs and make it so when you come through the entrance you can take alcohol between clubs. Like an indoor power and light.” - u/Repulsive-Fly-6424
“Maybe a job training center. Apprenticeships in plumbing, electrical, carpentry, auto mechanics etc.” - u/kmsc84
"BRING 👏 BACK 👏 LASER 👏 QUEST! 👏” - u/ShamanShogun or “Airsoft / Paintball” - u/SadTurtleSoup
“I'd make it the largest Spirit Halloween in the nation. Year round, baby.” - HimboHistrionics”
“Retirement community” - @FatGirlEatsWichita
“New indoor habitat for the elephants? 🤣🐘” - @SedgwickCountyZoo
There are plenty more ideas, but I’ll let you sift through the comments.
Part 3: What are other cities doing with their old malls?
Other cities can do it, so why can't we?
I won’t go into detail on a ton of these, but a quick Google search brings up a TON of models we can follow. So whoever has a bunch of cash lying around, go buy the mall from Kohan, and let’s see what you can make happen. Here are a few ideas:
Schools / Satellite Campus / Vibrant Community Colleges - Large, empty buildings provide a lot of space for schools to grow and fill out. Do we start our own school like in the movie Accepted?
Micro Apartments / Neighborhoods - This is a cool idea because of the community it could build. You could build in everything you need from the living quarters to recreation to grocery stores. Crosstown Concourse is a great example.
Medical Centers - Nashville did this with the 100 Oaks Mall and it is now used as a medical center by Vanderbilt U
Church - Just as Morningstar Community Church turned the former Premier Palace Theatre into a church. Some of the mall space could be used for that.
Mixed-Use Development or Office Space or Warehouses- This is one of the more boring uses of the space, but hear me out…
What if we move the King of Freight offices from the old Gander Mountain on the river into the Towne West Mall as offices and then we can raze the Gander Mountain building leaving plenty of room for our namesake riverside Wichita Life Bar…just imagine. This is a topic for another day...
Picture this where the Gander Mountain building sits
In the meantime, let’s support the small businesses and organizations at Towne West Mall (and help them move out if that’s the best course of action).
That’s it for today! What do you think we should do in this situation?
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