General News in the 316

[SubGod22]

WBJ - Report: Wichita has one of the hottest small metro apartment markets in Midwest

Wichita's apartment market remains one of the most competitive in the region, according to a new national report.

RentCafe's latest rental market competitiveness report found the city has the second-hottest Midwestern small market, trailing only Madison, Wis.

Aiding the city's ranking, the apartment search website said the typical Wichita apartment remains vacant for 26 days, 11 days faster than the national average of 37 days, while its lease renewal rate of 63% beats the national average of 60%.

Demand will only continue to increase with Integra and the medical campus coming.

[ShockBand]

Heard these guys at Winfield this past weekend. Terrific local group!

https://haymakers316.com/

[shoxlax]

Heard these guys at Winfield this past weekend. Terrific local group!

https://haymakers316.com/

Original or mostly cover music?

[SubGod22]

Heard these guys at Winfield this past weekend. Terrific local group!

https://haymakers316.com/

I want to say that they sometimes play with Dustin Arbuckle, but I would need to double check that. I know he has a couple of different area bands that will play with him from time to time, including The Damnations.

[SubGod22]

Wichita could be hosting a tattoo convention this coming spring and potential zoning changes could have an impact on its success and the economic benefit.

KSN - Wichita expected to lift some restrictions on tattooing

The city of Wichita votes Tuesday on whether to expand where tattooing can be done within city limits.

Zoning regulations restrict where tattooing can be done. Century II and the Old Town overlay don’t allow the procedure for now, but that could change Tuesday.

It all has to do with an artist who’s fighting to stay in his shop in Old Town and organizers of a proposed tattoo convention at Century II.
.....
“It feels good because I feel like we’re moving forward with tattoos because I think tattoos have been frowned upon for so long,” Do said.

The city is expected to approve the change.

Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple says they’ll also vote on whether to allow tattooing at Century II.

“There’s an economic benefit to this as well, not just with small businesses but also with being able to host something like (the tattoo convention) in the future,” Whipple said.

[ShockBand]

Original or mostly cover music?

Both. Their newest album coming out soon is covers of Hank Williams Sr. tunes. But plenty of originals in their repertoire as well.

[ShockBand]

I want to say that they sometimes play with Dustin Arbuckle, but I would need to double check that. I know he has a couple of different area bands that will play with him from time to time, including The Damnations.

Dustin is lead singer and harmonica player with the Haymakers. Met him at the merch tent at Winfield.

[SubGod22]

Dustin is lead singer and harmonica player with the Haymakers. Met him at the merch tent at Winfield.

He's a really good dude and I love listening to him. Saw him play in Andover a couple months ago with The Damnations. He recognized my brother (the worked together some 10+ years ago) and came up to us and said hi, and caught up with big bro a bit.

[ShockBand]

He's a really good dude and I love listening to him. Saw him play in Andover a couple months ago with The Damnations. He recognized my brother (the worked together some 10+ years ago) and came up to us and said hi, and caught up with big bro a bit.

Yeah, he has a great singing voice. Plays a mean harmonica too. His take on these Hank tunes (I got an early release of the album on a flash drive at Winfield) is really cool.

[SubGod22]

Good news for Wichita

WBJ - Textron Aviation signs 1,500-jet order

NetJets has signed a deal to purchase 1,500 Cessna Citation business jets from Textron Aviation over the next 15 years, the Wichita-based manufacturer announced Wednesday morning.

This agreement extends NetJets’ existing fleet agreement, and includes options for an increasing number of aircraft each year. NetJets will expand its fleet with Cessna Citation Ascend, Citation Latitude and Citation Longitude aircraft, all designed and manufactured in Wichita.

Deliveries of the Citation Ascend are expected to begin in 2025, when the aircraft, currently under development, is expected to enter into service.

Not that Textron has been struggling at all, but this is a lofty commitment that's nice to have in your pocket.

[SubGod22]

A new book about Wichita is out, and may very well be worth picking up.

KSN - Wichita author uncovers secrets of her hometown in new book

“So, this book here, ‘100 Things to Do in Wichita Before You Die,’ is my first book. It came out about this time last year, and it’s a compilation of things you can do in the city. Some people treat it as a checklist or a scavenger hunt that they create for themselves. And there’s some hidden gems in there as well. And then the second book is ‘Secret Wichita: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure,'” said Whiteside at her latest book signing.

It’s interesting how much you can learn about the place where you live if you look closer or dig deeper. That’s what Whiteside did in “Secret Wichita.”

“So, this was really fun because it’s very different than the first book in that I got to go write more for it. I took all the color photography for it. And since it’s a guide to the weird, wonderful and obscure, it’s not things that you would expect to maybe find in Wichita,” said Whiteside. “If you pass by them, maybe you didn’t realize what the story was with it. It could be an artifact in a museum. It could be something that you see as you drive out on the street. It could be a business. There’s businesses in here. So, some tucked away treasures.”

A few they mention in the article are:

Tunnel of Trees in Chisholm Trail Park
the one-hundred-year-old art-deco tower at Wichita North HS
The Munger House built in 1868
A bookcase inside of a bar that opens into a speakeasy
a robot that's a piece of art buried on the campus of WSU
Rainbow Row near Crown Uptown
the horse made of car bumpers
House of Tanks

The book apparently features 84 different places, sights and people.

[SubGod22]

KSN - Local and state leaders continue to push for Amtrak in Wichita

This week, multiple local and state leaders are in Illinois continuing the push to bring Amtrak to Wichita.

Sedgwick County Commission Chair Pete Meitzner, the Kansas Department of Transportation, Kansas Senator Carolyn McGinn, and Representative Avery Anderson are attending the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission Annual Meeting.

Nine states met with the Federal Rail Administration (FRA), Amtrak, and others to discuss passenger railways.

Some are looking at updating tracks, others want to add more trains, and in Wichita, the goal is to bring the Heartland Flyer Extension to Wichita to connect to Oklahoma City and the national Amtrak network.

“There is a logical connection in the Amtrak network to connect Oklahoma City to that Southwest Chief connection for an overall connection to Kansas to the national network,” KDOT Divison of Multimodal Transportation and Innovation Director Cory Davis said.

[WuDrWu]

KSN - Phil Ruffin's plan approved for Wichita Greyhound Park



More info to come I'm sure.

I wonder about this....I remember reading some additional information in the Eagle and Ruffin or his son or a representative was quoted as saying they were not financing but had a check ready to go and expected work to be done in, if memory serves me correctly, 14 months or so.

I was out of town and decided to drive by the area as I returned. I don't think I've been in that loop since WPG closed in 200something.

There hasn't been a pebble moved. The chains blocking the entrance don't look as if they've been touched in a decade. The article says the guts are fine. Perhaps. I just wonder what the hold up is, since the money isn't part of it.

[SubGod22]

I wonder about this....I remember reading some additional information in the Eagle and Ruffin or his son or a representative was quoted as saying they were not financing but had a check ready to go and expected work to be done in, if memory serves me correctly, 14 months or so.

I was out of town and decided to drive by the area as I returned. I don't think I've been in that loop since WPG closed in 200something.

There hasn't been a pebble moved. The chains blocking the entrance don't look as if they've been touched in a decade. The article says the guts are fine. Perhaps. I just wonder what the hold up is, since the money isn't part of it.

Perhaps there's a permitting issue. I've heard SG can be a pain in the ass to deal with at times. Though you'd think with what's expected of this and the man in charge of it that things would flow smoother.

There could also be hold ups with the architecture/engineering aspect as well as figuring out what needs upgraded to code before they can begin.

Back to permitting and such, it's possible that some sort of safety inspection with the county/state has to be done to verify that the guts are good. That place has been abandoned for a number of years.

[SubGod22]

More on the potential impact of the massive Textron deal on Wichita.

KAKE - Textron order could have wide ranging impact for Wichita economy

It was a big day for the Air Capital Wednesday as Textron Aviation and NetJets announced a massive partnership. The private aviation company is purchasing up to 1,500 Cessna business jets from Textron.

It is such a massive deal that the director of Wichita State’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research (CEDBR) Jeremy Hill said “It's really hard for us to get a real grasp of how big this is."

Hill's data models say this deal could have an economic output of around three billion dollars annually in Wichita from direct, indirect and induced sources.

"This is going to increase business activity, is going to boost the supply chain, which is important for our overall economy," he explained. "Then because of all that, we're going to have more demand for things like real estate.”

He also goes on to state that this deal should end up supporting 4K Textron jobs as well as another 2K in the local supply chain.