Cauthen pushes convention hotel idea hard

By Justin Kendall in News

Wed., Feb. 11 2009 @ 4:40PM

Wayne Cauthen

While City Manager Wayne Cauthen arrived early to his the city council Finance and Audit Committee meeting this morning, he was late for lunch at the meeting of The Downtowners.

Cauthen spent most of his time -- or it just seemed like it to me -- pushing the idea for a convention hotel, noting several missed convention opportunities. He also said that there's no time to wait. Building a hotel takes 36 months, so KC needs to act now. My colleague David Martin isn't a big fan of the convention hotel idea.

The half-hour speech went fast. Cauthen bounced around a lot of thoughts. Here's what I took away, plus some extremely amateur video:

Cosentino's is "the best supermarket in the country." Cauthen also expects the lunch crowd to stick around.

Street traffic excites him. When he first moved here there was "nobody downtown but me, myself and I."

Parking problems and traffic jams are "good problems to have when you have a city." I'm pretty sure they just piss people off.

The downtown AMC theater was scheduled to open on February 5. It didn't. The late opening didn't seem to bother Cauthen.

Downtown needs more affordable housing. There's a possibility that business offices in the Midland will become condos.

The West Bottoms could be "the next frontier." And just maybe, the 12th Street bridge will get fixed.

JE Dunn is supposed to move into its new East Village office in August, Cauthen said. He also said that the old Greyhound building is coming down and the city is going to recycle the concrete.

Former Mayor Kay Barnes, who had just received the first Jim Davis Award, named for the late Kansas City Business Journal writer who died last year, ribbed Cauthen on being an Oakland Raiders fan.

Cauthen just said that the Chiefs need to replace often-injured and already-ousted quarterback Brodie Croyle. Uh, Wayne. Croyle isn't KC's only option under center. Meet Tyler Thigpen.

For more shaky videos of Wayne Cauthen, including an explanation of why the Plaza is a special snowflake, go to ThePitchTV on YouTube.