General News in the 316

[ShockerDropOut]

I went to Crosswinds this past spring and it was okay but packed and smoke filled.

I have never been to Crosswinds. Went to Kansas Star once. It was full of smoke too. I wont go back. If Crosswinds is the same, I will skip it too.

[JJClamdip]

I haven’t been to Hartman arena though I recall Ringo Starr played there. Was a bit surprised he didn’t play at the Orpheum Theater.
Is Hartman a nice venue or a smaller version of the infamous Kansas Coliseum? Nothing about the place looks very exciting from the exterior.

Attending a concert on the Hartman parking lot in the summer sounds like a nightmare.

Hartman is a great place for a concert even the cheapest seats provide a great view.

[ShockerFever]

I have never been to Crosswinds. Went to Kansas Star once. It was full of smoke too. I wont go back. If Crosswinds is the same, I will skip it too.

Go to any Jersey casino it’s clean air. Same with Vegas I believe. But here in good ol backward hypocritical Kansas, smoking is banned in all public buildings except casinos. Go figure. One of the reasons I don’t go to anything around here.

[SubGod22]

A Wichita based company is expanding into new markets.

WBJ - Chick N Max's growth continues with jump into Texas market

Johnson is targeting north Houston for potential locations and is aiming to open his first restaurant by the end of the year. Leases have not been signed.

“Anchored by our innovative take on chicken and an enthusiastic franchise partner like Aaron Johnson, we’re perfectly positioned to accommodate the demands for healthier alternatives to burgers and look to the future with great enthusiasm," Chick N Max founder Max Sheets said in a news release.

In the last year, Chick N Max, a fast-casual chain that launched in 2017 in Wichita and began franchising in 2021, has signed an area development agreement for 25 locations across Kansas and a three-unit deal in Sioux Falls, S.D.

I've still never had it myself, outside of maybe it being brought into a previous job, but I love seeing Wichita businesses succeed, no matter what they are. Continued growth and staying local will only expand their footprint and how many they will have to employ here in the future. We've seen what Freddy's has been able to do as they now have around 450 locations in I believe 38 states. Maybe Chick N Max is the next big thing for Wichita to share with the country. Maybe not as exciting as some big tech company, but it's still something that benefits Wichita still.

[SubGod22]

Here's something new I've just come across.

Wichita by EB - The inaugural Festive Hoop Jam is coming to Charles Koch Arena

The entertaining basketball event is slated for Saturday, August 13th at Charles Koch Arena.

This exciting event includes a dynamic slam dunk contest, and a 5 versus 5 celebrity basketball game. The Festive Hoop Jam will feature a diverse group of renowned and popular skilled athletes. The event kicks off with The Slam Dunk contest which will include local celebrity judges, and some of the premier dunkers in the nation. Highflyers such as popular social media athletes ,Anthony Hamilton Jr and Sir Isaac, among others will go head-2-head for the chance to win the slam dunk champion trophy.

Following the slam dunk contest, will be the 5V5 celebrity basketball game. This electrifying game will feature top tier street ball and professional athletes such as The Bone Collector, White Iverson, Hezigod, Konfuzion Hoops and others.

It will be interesting to see how well this does and what kind of environment it gives us.

[SubGod22]

Potential deal could be a big deal for local economy.

WBJ - Air India mulling jet order that could mean months of Wichita work

Wichita-based Spirit AeroSystems Inc. builds around 70% of the structure on Boeing’s narrow-body 737 MAX, with the plane representing the most important individual aircraft program to the local economy.

Even if Boeing scored only half of the deal, 150 aircraft would still represent nearly five months of work at Spirit (NYSE: SPR) at the current production rate of 31 aircraft per month on the 737.

Such a large deal, however, would likely require years before either Boeing or Airbus moved through existing orders to the point it could begin work on the Air India order.

I don't know how much Spirit does for Airbus, but apparently their work with Boeing is greater, at least when it comes to the narrow body jets.

I believe the article stated around 85% of the current Spirit backlog is related to narrow body jet orders.

[SubGod22]

Something to consider if you have little ones

KAKE - City of Wichita offers free swim lessons, encourages parents to enroll kids for safety

WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) - The City of Wichita is offering free swimming lessons to kids at McAfee Pool this summer with help from two community donors.

The second session of classes started Monday morning. The program was in such high demand, all the spots, at least free ones, are filled.

“It’s definitely at least a known issue in our community that a lot of young kids, especially that grow up around here, don't learn how to swim,” Kyle Ellison, executive director of Real Men Real Heroes, said.

Real Men Real Heroes and Skaer Veterinary Clinic helped fund the program. Ellison said that it’s been two years in the making.

“It’s just something that's really a big confidence builder for kids, and they know how to swim, and it just opens up a lot of opportunities,” he said.

Even if not through this, making sure your kids know how to swim is never a bad thing. Pretty sure there are a lot of different places you can do it too.

[SubGod22]

Another piece on a local restaurant group and the work they're doing.

Restaurant Hospitality - Wichita-based Thrive Restaurant Group looks to HomeGrown as its next growth vehicle

Thrive Restaurant Group, a decades-old family-run business operating dozens of restaurants in multiple states, mostly in the Midwest, has long run traditional casual-dining concepts, but now they see potential in their breakfast, lunch and brunch concept, HomeGrown.

Founded about five years ago as HomeGrown Wichita, there are now three such restaurants in their hometown, plus a HomeGrown Brookside in Kansas City, Mo. A fifth location is slated to open in Liberty, Mo., at the end of June.

“Our family of restaurants was heavy into full service hours,” said CEO Joh Rolph, whose father David and uncle Darrel began their careers with a Pizza Hut franchise in the early 1970s. In 1981 they founded casual-dining Tex-Mex concept Carlos O’Kelly’s, now with 14 locations in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Virginia, and went on to run dozens of Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar restaurants across multiple states, among other concepts.

Today, Thrive Restaurant Group has more than 5,000 employees and upwards of 100 restaurants in 12 states.

But HomeGrown is fairly new territory for them, with retail components, limited hours and a strong focus on local sourcing.

It's a nice article that focuses on their determination to have as much as possible locally sourced, which can also slightly change how things taste from one area to another, and their desire to promote those local offerings and help their businesses as well as using local artists for decor.

I've personally not been to HomeGrown yet, but have heard wonderful things from most that have. I tried going there with a friend once, but the wait time was a couple of hours as we didn't want to wait that long. Though had we planned to go there first, it may have worked out. We were going to DooDah until we got there and realized they were doing buffet style and neither one of us are big on buffets.

[shock]

Hopping in on the license plate discussion-

Kansas has the worst tags. Alaska started their artwork tag a while back and it is awesome. The free tags are the yellow plain tag, the old original alt plate standing bear, and art work.

the first artwork tag was the golden staircase, and the second and current art tag is northern lights.





Kansas can do something like this very easily.

[SubGod22]

I do like that 2nd tag.

[SubGod22]

WBJ - Dream Hotel Group will open a 155-room hotel on Wichita's downtown riverfront

Dream Hotel Group is a hotel brand and management company with a 30-year history. In addition to Unscripted Hotels, which has a flagship location in Durham, North Carolina, Dream Hotel Group's portfolio includes Dream Hotels, Time Hotels and The Chatwal.

Going up at the northeast corner of McLean and Maple, the hotel is part of a larger, mixed-use project that encompasses two acres to the east of the ballpark that's being developed by the Overland Park-based EPC Real Estate and Wichita Riverfront LP, which includes Wind Surge owners Jordan Kobritz, Jane Schwechheimer and Matt White.

Across McLean from the hotel will be two office buildings with a combined 88,970 square feet of Class A office space, along with the31,125 square feet of ground-floor retail. A skybridge above McLean will allow pedestrians to cross to and from the hotel and office, and a parking garage will have 283 parking spots.

Nice to see something announced, and construction should begin soon.

[SubGod22]

I should stop reading comment sections online. This story was posted by multiple news agencies and the overwhelming number of comments were negative. Mostly from uninformed dopes who parrot things they here elsewhere. Had many people bitching about parking. I pointed out a few times that they're adding a parking garage with nearly 300 spots and it was either ignored or I was told parking garages don't matter. Even though they take up less space and offer more parking.

A number of other comments about needing more mix used space where ground levels are restaurants and shops. Others pointed out that that's the plan for just about every office/hotel/apartment building in the area. Then they ***** about there being too many empty spaces in those units, even though they're new and they will fill in as there is more going on down there.

Then there's the group of people who don't think we ever need another hotel built ever again. I saw someone who runs some festivals point out that the downtown hotels are at 100% capacity when they have events which would indicate a need. Then people claim that's only for a few days and not the other 360. I forget what hotels shoot for for profitability, but it's not 100% and I believe is closer to half. Others pointed out that the downtown hotels have much greater usage than most locals realize. I did see someone claim that they bring clients to town that love staying at the Ambassador or Hyatt and like what downtown has to offer.

I've said many times that people refuse to look at the big picture and aren't patient enough to let things develop and demand everything happens at once. Those are the people that hold back progress. I do agree that I would love to see more shopping/dining developed along the river and I do think that it will happen. But it will take continued development along the ballpark village and would be greatly assisted if we would build a new performing arts center and convention center in the area. Those are a couple of other things that can bring people into town and focus them down in the river district. I'm also sure that we will continue to see more apartments go in as I hear that most are nearly full so the demand for downtown living continues. It wouldn't suck if someone would build something new, and a little larger, rather than just repurposing old warehouses, but those warehouses do have some character. Would just like to see something that maybe offers a few hundred units go in that could help grow the downtown population and attract more things.

Just needed to vent a little this morning.

[SubGod22]

KWCH - Wichita announces plans for new downtown Ballpark District

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) - More development is coming to downtown Wichita and the Delano community.

The City of Wichita and EPC Real Estate Group announced on Tuesday plans for a “Ballpark District” located next to Riverfront Stadium. The mixed-use space, comprised of three buildings, will include a full-service hotel, office, retail and restaurant space. Improvements to the west bank of the Arkansas River are also included.

The hotel, Unscripted Wichita, will serve as an anchor to the new development. Set to open in 2024, the hotel will feature 155 guest rooms, multiple food and beverage offerings, an indoor-outdoor rooftop bar and lounge concept with “sweeping views of the downtown skyline and Riverfront Stadium, along with a signature restaurant on the street level, transforming the section of S. McLean Blvd between Maple and Texas Streets into a communal gathering place for visitors and Wichitans alike,” according to the city.

An additional 120,000 square feet of space will make room for office, retail and restaurant space and an attached 283-stall parking garage. Shared fitness and conference space, private patios, electric car charging stations, and high-efficiency buildings are all a part of the design. For more information, visit www.ballpark-district.com.

There's a nice rendering within the link that gives you a feel for what to expect. I also wasn't aware of the new website I'll have to be checking out.

The end of the article leads you to believe there will be another announcement for usage of more land in the district. It says soon, but who knows exactly what that means. I would hope to hear of more plans by Halloween. I think that would be a fair window for soon in this sense.

[SubGod22]

I'm no expert, but I do like the ballpark district website. It's clean, it's nice, it's easy to navigate and they make it easy to contact them should you want to be involved. I also noticed that they have a mailing list so that you can stay up to date on what's going on. I may sign up for that later.

I'm excited to see how the development beyond right field goes and am curious to see when and what happens beyond left field. There's quite a bit of land there to develop as well and could be a nice little area. At one point, I thought I'd seen they were going to add apartments out there somewhere. I hope there are plenty of dining/shopping options when the time comes too. The more reasons you have to pull people into the area the better.

[SubGod22]

Derby Informer - Native Wichitan composes anthology of 'must-do' things in Wichita

The work is a guidebook to the city of Wichita providing readers with a laundry list of things to do in the city. Whiteside says the process for coming up with 100 things was easy. The difficult part was actually narrowing down her list of things that would make it on the page.

“When you’re from here, you know, there are some quintessential things that have to go in the book,” Whiteside said. “So the process of writing the book started with creating a list of a hundred plus – and there were definitely more than a hundred – and then reviewing that list and considering every kind of person that might pick up this book.”

One of the book’s requirements set by the publisher was that all 100 things had to be within the city limits of Wichita. That being said, Whiteside said there were a number of things she could’ve easily included outside of the city in places such as Derby, Mulvane or any of the surrounding communities.

Whiteside said that she put a tremendous amount of effort into making the book accessible to a wide range of people whether they were new to the area or native Wichitans. She wants the book to cover all the bases.

I'd be curious to see what's in the book. I may pick it up when I get the chance.