BY MARK B. SOLOMON, SENIOR EDITOR
SITE SELECTION
specialreport
Take an ideal location
and an engaged
business community,
throw in some world-class barbeque, and
Kansas City may
have the recipe for
logistics powerhouse?
IT RESTS ON AMERICA’S LOGISTICS AXIS, THE
focal point for much of the nation’s freight moving in
any direction. It handles more rail tonnage than any
city in the country, and more railcars than any city
except Chicago. It is bisected by two major interstate
highways: I- 35 running north to south, and I- 70 from
east to west. Its airport handles more cargo than any
facility covering a six-Midwestern-state radius with the
exception of O’Hare International Airport. Its bi-state,
18-county region boasts more road lane capacity than
any of comparable size, which might explain why “rush
hour” is a largely alien concept even though more than
2 million people call it home.
It also serves up the meanest barbeque anywhere in
creation.
Yet it remains one of the world’s most overlooked
commerce centers, a reality not lost on its devoted community of business leaders and civic boosters. Upon
arrival, visitors will usually be greeted by a boisterous
“Welcome to Kansas City!” followed by, “Is this your
first time here?” with the tacit understanding that the
reply is often affirmative.
Kansas City’s image has long been that of a “large
small city” dwarfed by Chicago, 500 miles northeast,
and by its sister city on Missouri’s eastern rim, St.
Louis, with the latter being considered more cosmopol-
itan than Kansas City and with stronger ties to East
Coast culture and commerce.
None of that seems to bother the locals. They revel in
Kansas City’s label as the original “cow town,” a phrase
coined decades ago after the preponderance of cattle
roaming its streets. As they see it, their city’s central
location makes it—not Chicago or St. Louis—the natural eastern gateway to the West, as well as the ideal
northern consolidation point for truck and rail service
supporting the booming U.S.-Mexico trade.
Yet for all its strengths as a rail center, Kansas City
still lacks the established gateway status of a city like
Chicago, where all seven North American Class I railroads come together. Patrick Ottensmeyer, executive
vice president and chief marketing officer for Kansas
City Southern Inc. (KCS), the Kansas City-based railway, said it is more efficient for shippers and carriers to
go direct into Chicago without the need for an interchange at Kansas City.
Still, Ottensmeyer said that, in many cases, Kansas
City is the “perfect set-up” for rail movements, especially given its position as a median point for north-south traffic moving between the upper Midwest and
Mexico. To leverage the region’s pre-eminence as a
source of animal protein products, KCS is considering
a “shuttle” service at Kansas City under which the rail-
