Kansas City

With a metropolitan area made up of 2.2 million people in 18 counties, Kansas City is the most geographically central major metro in the country. Kansas City has been named among the Top 25 Best Cities for Business by MarketWatch and the Forty Strongest U.S. Metro Economies by Business Week.

More than 22 major corporations have located their headquarters in Kansas City, with numerous companies choosing to locate significant new operations or expand existing operations in the Metropolitan area. Kansas City is home to some of the major names in distribution, manufacturing, animal health, and the financial industry. Major employers include the Federal Government, Sprint Nextel Corporation, St. Luke’s Health System and HCA Midwest Health System.

The Kansas City real estate market includes 47 million square feet of Class A & B office space and 188 million square feet of industrial space. In 2009 vacancy climbed for both. Improvement is expected to be gradual and should commence in the second half of 2010 or perhaps early 2011. In the long term, there are exciting prospects for the Kansas City office market; Cerner Corporation is a rapidly growing company that plans to add office space for 4,000 new employees over the next six years and the GSA is planning a new 430,000-square-foot office building Downtown to replace aging facilities throughout the metro area. Great things are also expected for the industrial market as Kansas City is increasingly seen as a core for regional distribution. One new intermodal facility became available in 2009 and two more are in planning.