KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City is no stranger to change, but depending on where you are, development of any kind can be either a bust or boon.
One of those businesses in the latter camp is Brewery Emperial.
It's in a unique "Goldilocks" part of the Crossroads, not too close to where construction could tank traffic and business, and not to far to not experience much of a change at all.
"It would be great for people to be able to walk from the ballpark to a bar," said Rich Kasyjanski, one of the brewery's owners. "Where the ballpark is now you can't do that. It's definitely exciting for us to be, by happenstance, a few blocks from where they're talking about."
He's hopeful a downtown ballpark will bring more business on game days when people are going to or returning from the stadium.
Kasyjanski isn't just thinking about the future when he answers.
He remembers a KC Crossroads before it developed.
"When I first moved here in 1995, downtown was, it was hard to find a place to even go out downtown," he said. "And now there's a lot of activity, a lot of people live down here, there's been a movement to come back downtown."
There's been a big change in business on at least one day of the week.
“A Friday night was a virtual ghost town down here," he said. "(Now) it’s happening down here. There’s a lot of great bars and restaurants and places to hang out and things to do.”
Kasyjanski shares a hopeful outlook, but like many, he still has questions.
"The construction side of that is a question mark," he said. "Who knows what that's going to look like and for how long and how that's going to effect all the neighborhood around here. There's a lot of questions, but it's definitely an exciting outlook being where we are."
