Raytown shows Jesus who's boss, demolishes church

By David Martin in Martin

Fri., Mar. 6 2009 @ 9:08AM

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Heavy equipment reduced the old First Baptist Church in downtown Raytown to a pile of bricks and metal.

The demolition was a long-time coming. The City of Raytown bought the building in 2001 for $500,000. (The church moved into a larger facility on 350 Highway.) Last year, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II and Sen. Kit Bond came up with $539,000 in federal funding to pay for its demolition.

So what's next for the inner-ring suburb that touts itself as a destination for young couples looking for decent schools and cheap houses?

In the short term, workers will plant grass seed where Baptists once worshipped. Longer term, well, let's just say city officials are open to ideas.

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First Baptist's remains
The earmark made a condition that the four-acre church site return to green space. Mayor David Bower says the grant does not prohibit redevelopment from taking place in the future. In the meantime, he'd like to see "some sort of people-gathering place" take shape where the church stood.

Lucky for Raytown, Bower is an architect at HOK Sport; it stands to reason that when he says "people-gathering place" he is thinking of something more sophisticated than a bench and a trash can. In 2007, the city took an unlovely corner at East 63rd St. and Raytown Rd. and built a pretty and useful "pocket park."

Development-wise, the city seems to take one step back for every step forward. The Raytown Plaza shopping center was in the midst of a face lift when its developer ran out of money; the bank owns it now. "Unfortunately, it's not developing as rapidly or as well as we'd like," Bower says.

Hy-Vee is renovating an old Shnucks supermarket off 350. But the new store will create a vacancy at Blue Ridge Boulevard and E. 67th St., site of an existing Hy-Vee and a Wal-Mart whose days are also numbered. A Thriftway on Raytown Trafficway closed recently.

Bower is happy to note that Raytown's employment base is growing. Two companies, USA 800 and Kansas City Power & Light, are expanding call centers they have in Raytown. Headset power!