(upbeat music) - Welcome back for another edition of "Kansas City Experience."

I'm Catherine Hoffman.

This month, on our KC Perform series, Glenn North shares his poem, "I Sing Their Names," that he wrote as a part of Kansas City's Black History Project.

- There is a little brown girl in a classroom who has no idea how beautiful her Afro puffs are.

And she needs to know there is a little brown boy who doesn't see himself reflected in a biased curriculum, so he loses interest, gets labeled with a behavior disorder, drops out, runs across the right cop on the wrong day and becomes a headline and a hashtag.

- [Catherine] We learn how a change in a city ordinance is helping to light up signage in Lee's Summit.

- For many years, most cities around the country have not allowed the use of neon in much of their signage.

And it's just a vestige of how neon was viewed in the 1960s and '70s, primarily.

You know, it was seen as sort of seedy or tacky or associated with things that were unseemly.

- [Catherine] For the beer enthusiasts, we visit Kansas Hop Company and find out about the challenges and benefits of growing hops locally and how area breweries are incorporating fresh hops into their beer lineup.

- The majority of hops that are used throughout the year are picked, dried down, processed into pellets for storage ability, but this is kind of a once a year type thing where they can use, you know, super fresh ingredients that were just picked.

So, you know, within just a couple hours of being harvested, they're going right in the beer.

That can only be done this time of year.

- [Catherine] As a part of our 90.9 The Bridge Playback Series, Lava Dreams and Jass cover a Missy Elliott hit.

♪ Quiet, hush your mouth ♪ ♪ Silence when I spit it out ♪ ♪ In your face, open your mouth ♪ ♪ Give you a taste ♪ ♪ Holler ♪ And, finally, Kansas City is about a year away from two major events, the opening of a brand new airport and the NFL draft.

We get started this month with an update on the new KCI and find out if it'll be ready in time to welcome football fans from around the country.

- A year from now, we in Kansas City will be preparing to open a new look KCI Airport.

It's been five years since voters approved what is the largest infrastructure project in Kansas City history.

A lot has happened since then, including a global pandemic.

Will it be ready to go, or will it be different than the project promised to voters?

Geoff Stricker is with us.

He's in charge of the development team.

He's senior project manager for Edgemoor.

Also with us, the manager of the airport, Kansas City aviation director, Pat Klein.

We're so grateful to have you both with us.

I remember in the end of 2020, as magic date was offered up, Pat Klein, and that was March 3rd, 2023.

That would be the opening of the airport.

But as I mentioned, a lot has happened since then.

Will we still be opening on that day?

Or will you be asking for forgiveness to delay?

- Right now, we will not be asking for forgiveness.

We are planning on opening in March of 2023, and, knock on wood, with everything through a pandemic, we are on time and we are on budget.

- On budget, you know, it started as a $1 billion project.

And the last I looked, it was at 1.9 billion with financing.

Is it gonna top 2 billion?

- No, it's we borrowed 1.5 billion, and that's the budget we stuck to, and that's the billion, the budget we'll bring it in on budget with.

- Okay, when you started this five years ago, we could never have predicted, Geoff, we would be going through this thing called COVID that has really upended everything, including the airline industry and what any anyone does in their lives.

How has that changed the nature of what's happening at the airport?

And even when you think about suppliers and the labor shortages that we've had, how has that affected you?

- Thanks to good planning on our team and in COVID, which as you point out, Nick, is something nobody could have predicted back when we signed the contract and started construction, but we've been very fortunate in working with our trade partners and the team to make sure that we've not had supply chain issues.

Material has shown up on the job site when we've needed it.

From a labor perspective, we have about 750 men and women showing up every single day, building the job.

We've put in place lots of policies to keep people safe.

Safety's our number one priority.

So, we have, whether it's face coverings, whether that's increased hand washing stations, we are making sure that the job will be delivered, as Pat said, on time and on budget.

- You know, if we went to our local Home Depot store, we all say, God, the price of lumber is a lot more expensive.

Nails are more expensive than they once were.

If you're trying to remodel your kitchen, good luck trying to find the contractor who can do it.

You haven't experienced those problems?

- No, we were fortunate to purchase the contractors that we needed, the materials, back in a time before some of the supply chain issues that you're describing in Home Depot and other places.

And so, no, we've had no problems.

- How about the airport itself?

What we'll actually be able to see when this opens in 2023, a year from now, have you made adjustments given the fact that we might not have been considering some of these health issues in the, like we'd had in the past?

- The number one thing in airport designs today and thinking about the future is flexibility.

And, so, the design of the airport, even before COVID was very flexible.

Some of the things that we have added to the design that passengers will see are things as simple as touchless, you know, faucets and soap dispensers.

We have the ability to put in Plexiglas screens at the ticket counters, if people want.

We will have the most advanced filters in the mechanical systems of the HVAC systems to filter out any types of diseases and particles, or the vast majority.

And so, it should be a very flexible and safe experience for passengers when the airport opens.

- When voters approved the, this new KCI terminal, Pat Klein, back in 2017, I remember even Emmanuel Cleaver saying, God, we have the opportunity here to make this the most environmentally friendly airport in the country.

Is that still the goal, or have all of these other issues of supply chain and challenges of money made that dream too big?

- No, not only have we been pushing the environmental, we've been pushing the accessibility.

The council passed a resolution that wanted us to look at accessibility options, either.

So we've done things like the, the building's going to be League Gold.

We've got a solar array being put on the south side of the parking garage that will bring solar into the project.

We've got the airlines to agree to move their ground service equipment to all electric.

We put in all electric boilers.

On the airport side, you know, there's been announcements.

We're in a feasibility study for looking at a much bigger solar project on our property that, you know, we've got a lot of hoops to run through, so.

- I remember seeing the headlines about what could be the largest solar farm, actually, in the country, next to KCI, but there was also those concerns about this could not happen.

It's gonna cause too much gleam for pilots trying to land their planes.

The shine coming from those would make it too difficult.

You've overcome those obstacles?

- Well, we've got studies to go through there, but there are a lot of airports that have solar arrays are up already that are very near runways.

So, it's technology that we think we can overcome.

We just gotta do the cost benefit and the feasibility to make sure that all those studies are taken into account.

- Let's take a quick pause right now from the conversation for a moment to take a trip down memory lane.

Five years ago, as I've mentioned, voters went to the polls to approve this new revamp of KCI, but did you know this year marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the existing KCI?

- [Announcer] In 1972, Kansas City International Airport will become the new hub of air transportation for this area.

- [Charles] We're already a cosmopolitan town, and I'm going to do everything I can to get all the international airlines I can flying into Kansas City International.

- [Announcer] At KCI, the outgoing passenger will be able to drive directly to his gate.

In most cases, he will have walked less than 300 feet from his car to his aircraft.

- You know, Geoff, I remember when the whole campaigns were going on in 2017, one of the big objections that many people in the public had, why would you destroy an airport that is so incredibly convenient?

You can just go a few steps, as that video piece showed, from your car right to the gate.

Have you managed that in this new design, or are we expected to lose one pants size going from our car to the gate?

- Now, we heard, and we did a lot of early work in the community to understand what was important and what the community liked about the existing airport.

So, we have a parking garage right across from the front door of the terminal.

So, people can park their car, walk right across the roadway, and get straight into the headhouse where you would check in and go through security.

We've added things like moving walkways in certain places to get you through the concourses to get you to your gate.

So, it'll be a very convenient airport that all the passengers will enjoy spending their time in.

- Some people are still worried about the business case for this airport, Pat, when you consider, since this pandemic, a lot of business travelers that are the most lucrative customers for the airlines, are not traveling right now.

And actually, I remember one of the biggest proponents of having a single terminal was the Suna Company.

They may not even exist by the time the new airport opens next year.

Does that make the financing of this much more difficult?

Does that mean, if you have fewer business travels, that fees are gonna have to go up?

Are coffees gonna cost more?

Are flights gonna cost more?

- No, the business case remains the same.

We're back to about 8 million passengers, probably, in 2021.

We expect 2022 to be much, much better than that.

We had 12 million in 2019, so we're right on track with that.

We actually believe, you know, the street pricing for the concessions will be the same, but our concessions will go up simply because, now, our customers will have choices, and they will have choices with Kansas City local companies.

So, as you walk through, instead of just having two choices to grab and go, or to get some food, you've got all the choices in front of you of the entire concession area.

And we believe with those choices will come increased revenue to the department, which will help fund the business case.

- But would it make it harder for airlines to wanna come in here to provide direct flights, which was another component of what we wanted to do with this new airport?

It would make us more attractive, if we don't have all of these business travelers coming through Kansas City?

- It shouldn't.

It should not.

I mean, we've got, you know, everybody who, we've got five signatory airlines that signed onto the deal ahead of time.

We still have Frontier and Allegiant and some of our low cost travelers traveling through.

And we're always out looking for new business carriers and international carriers as the, as they said in 1972, from that video earlier.

- You know, there's a lot about the complicating factors, of course, beyond the pandemic.

Missouri lawmakers are looking for a bill that would actually increase the amount of funding going to the police department.

Mayor Lucas says that would lead to a defunding of firefighters and, more importantly here, defunding of KCI, the argument being if there's less money for the, more money for the police, that means less people, less money for you at the aviation department.

Does that mean food prices go up at the airport, other fees go up to make that difference?

- No, and I think what the mayor was getting at is the point with the airport is every dollar generated at the airport has to stay at the airport.

So we can't divert our revenue to go fund other, whether it's police or fire or public works, it's not allowed.

So, the FAA will won't allow revenue diversion.

So, however that legislation ends up at the state, it should, it won't affect us because our revenue has to be used for aviation purposes.

- How close are you in the design of this airport, Geoff, in terms of the things that we saw at the very beginning, including that fountain.

Did the fountain go away, this two story fountain?

- So, we do have a fountain as you come right through the check in once you've gone through security.

That is part of the public art program that we've put in place so that as travelers come through, there will be a fountain visible right away.

I think, as I mentioned, Nick, we did a lot of work early on to hear what the community wanted.

Some of it Pat just touched on, the local food options.

That's coming through the concession program.

The feel of the airport, the fountain.

So yes, passengers will still see that.

- You know, we are gonna have more shops and restaurants, though no Chick-fil-A.

We know that from the headlines, but yes, we'll have more choices.

We know there'll be gender neutral bathrooms.

You've talked about some of the environmental features.

What else can we expect that we may see in other airports that we've just never seen at KCI before when we come there in March, on March 3rd, 2023?

- You know, we've got a lot of amenities that we don't currently provide.

We'll have an inclusive play area that we've partnered with Variety KC.

We'll have a meditation room for folks who want a quiet area as they prepare for their flight, whether it's, you know, for yoga or for some meditation.

We've got a sensory room for those on the audit spectrum, or dementia folks.

We've got an airline simulation room, so, folks who are maybe a little afraid to fly can, through a room, go through a mock where they do their boarding pass.

They walk down a boarding bridge.

They they come into a room where it looks like an airplane, and they sit down and they hear what the flight attendants will say.

So there are a lot of opportunities that we don't currently have in our terminals that flyers will see in this new terminal.

And they'll love it.

In addition to the, you know, the medallions that we saved on, from Terminal A, that will be in the terrazzo floors.

There'll be 39 of those.

So, there'll be a lot of hidden eggs like that and items that folks really will enjoy that they can't enjoy in our current facility.

- Well, Geoff and Pat, thank you so much for being with us.

Is the next time I'm gonna see you when you'll giving out airplane shaped cookies on March 3rd, 2023, with Rihanna, Drake, Adele and Garth Brooks in the background with us?

- Can't promise that those particular musicians you just rattled off, Nick, will be there, but it's gonna be a great celebration for a project that all of us will be proud of for generations.

- Edgemoor's Geoff Stricker and KC aviation director, Pat Klein, thank you for joining us.

- Hello.

My name is Glenn North, and the poem you are about to hear was inspired by Kansas City's Black History Project.

Something that I've been working on for the past several years with the Black Archives of Mid America, the Kansas City Public Library, and Link.

With this being Missouri's bicentennial, we wanted to do a commemorative edition.

And so, I was asked to write the poem, "I Sing Their Names" that was inspired by great Kansas City African Americans, and my grandparents, Louise and Basil North.

"I Sing Their Names."

I hope you enjoy it.

(contemplative music) I sing their names.

"History is not the past.

It is the present.

We carry our history with us.

We are our history."

James Baldwin.

I know of a place on the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, home of the Missouri and the Kansa and the Osage people, where York, strolling ahead of Lewis and Clark, set his left foot down, and the whole world tilted west, a place that called out to my grandfather, Basil North, senior, who came here from Hartville, Missouri, which he left when he was 16 on a mule that he bought and rode 118 miles to Jefferson City, Missouri to attend Lincoln University.

Praise God for HBCUs.

He later saved up enough to send for my grandmother.

They both became educators, then moved here to Kansas City.

Perhaps that is my origin story.

Perhaps that is why I love this city more than it loves me.

Still proud to say it's where I'm from, because I know who came before me.

My feet are firmly planted on their shoulders, those who shine brightly beyond February right into eternity.

And so I sing of Langston and Parker, Miss Bluford and Mary Lou, Old Buck, Leon Jordan, Horace and Bruce, Sarah Rector, Junius Groves, Tom Bass and Anna Jones, Count Basie, Chester Franklin, Bernard Powell, and DA Holmes.

I chant their names almost as if holy, because you have to be careful about who you allow to shape your history.

Like Malcolm said, folks that won't treat you right won't teach you right.

We must tell our own stories, reclaim the narrative.

I say, read, research, collect, interpret, curate, archive, document, observe and report.

There is a little brown girl in a classroom who has no idea how beautiful her Afro puffs are.

And she needs to know there is a little brown boy who doesn't see himself reflected in a biased curriculum.

So he loses interest, gets labeled with a behavior disorder, drops out, runs across the right cop on the wrong day and becomes a headline and a hashtag.

He needed to know there are little white children in schools all over America being taught that the world revolves around them.

Before they grow up to believe that it does, they need to know.

I know of a place on the confluence of jazz, blues, baseball, and barbecue, home of countless Black lives that surely mattered.

I have no choice but to sing their names.

(upbeat music) - So, for many years, most cities around the country have not allowed the use of neon in much of their signage.

And it's just a vestige of how neon was viewed in the 1960s and '70s, primarily.

You know, it was seen as sort of seedy or tacky or associated with things that were unseemly.

When those ordinances were enacted, it really wiped out a tremendous opportunity to make your city interesting and filled with beautiful light.

So, we worked hard as a community to change that ordinance in Lee's Summit.

And we went to city council, we showed them the opportunity that was there to allow neon to become at least another material we could use in sign making and in art.

(upbeat music) The Icehouse Auction sign you see over here, that was the first sort of contemporary neon sign that came back to Lee's Summit after all those decades.

And today we've got 18, 19, 20 signs down here that have all popped up in the last five to six years because of an ordinance change, which was not a really big deal, especially if you could persuade people that it's the right direction to go with what we want to do.

And I think it's helped our city.

- Hops are definitely an agricultural product, which a lot of people may not think about when they're drinking beer.

My name is Ryan Triggs.

We are at Kansas Hop Company in Ottawa, Kansas.

Today, we're picking for some fresh hop beers.

You know, growing up in Kansas City, there's not a lot of fresh hop beers that are made around here.

It's just a completely different flavor and aroma profile.

(funky music) In total, there's probably 10 acres of hops in the whole state out of 100,000, probably, in the country.

(funky music) Fresh hops, green hops, wet hops are all kind of interchangeable terms.

The majority of hops that are used throughout the year are picked, dried down, processed into pellets for storage ability.

But this is kind of a once a year type thing where they can use, you know, super fresh ingredients that were just picked.

(funky music) (saw buzzes) So, we've been growing hops for six years now.

And we try to get on par with industry standard of what people are expecting from larger farms in Europe and Australia and the Pacific Northwest.

- So, this is called a Wolf harvester.

(funky music) - [Ryan] Our four main varieties are Cascade, Comet, Chinook and Columbus.

(funky music) I guess the most sustainable thing is just our location and cutting down what we call beer miles.

Most hops are shipped on a truck or in an airplane.

And a lot of brewers can either come down here and pick 'em up fresh, or we can deliver them, just kind of keeping the supply chain as short as possible.

(funky music) So, you know, within just a couple hours of being harvested, they're going right in the beer.

That can only be done this time of year at harvest time.

So, it's pretty special, unique thing that we're able to do with local breweries.

(bluesy music) - Once Kansas Hop Company got here with all the hops that they harvested this morning, we took those hops and we put them in our mash tun, and so, by doing that, we essentially create a big vessel where we can steep the water back onto the hops.

And that allows us to extract all the oils and everything that we want out of those hops to get the character.

And then, after that's done, we will transfer that into a fermentor and then add our yeast, and then we ferment all of that.

And then, it turns into beer.

It's a really niche thing.

It's not, this isn't what hops are commonly used for.

They're a really expensive product, so, you know, it's in our best interest to source hops that are well taken care of.

That's it right there.

(mellow music) - All right, and this is the end result of our collaboration with Kansas Hop Company, Fresh Hop IPA, 2021.

We used the Comet and Chinook that Ryan grew at Kansas Hop Co. Our blend was a lot more Comet heavy, and we're really happy with how it turned out.

And we get really big notes of strawberries, papaya, and I think, overall, it just, it really compliments everything that I look for in fresh hop beers.

In addition to some of the, like, tropical and citrus notes that he was referring to, like, there's this kind of like fresh cut grass, like, earthy, herbal resonance.

Due to our growing season here, it's extremely hot and humid, and it can be pretty grueling, but to come back a few weeks later and try the beer just makes it all worthwhile.

(wheels scrape on gravel) (funky music) ♪ Missy gonna put it down ♪ ♪ I'm the hottest around ♪ ♪ I told your mother, ooh ♪ ♪ Y'all can't stop me now ♪ ♪ Listen to me know ♪ ♪ If you're with me now ♪ ♪ 'Cause if you want me, people ♪ ♪ Come and get me now ♪ ♪ Is you with me now ♪ ♪ Then biggie biggie bounce ♪ ♪ I know you dig the way I switch my style ♪ ♪ Holler, people gather round ♪ ♪ And people dance around ♪ ♪ And people jump around ♪ ♪ Go, get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha freak on ♪ ♪ Quiet, hush your mouth ♪ ♪ Silence when I spit it out ♪ ♪ In your face ♪ ♪ Open your mouth ♪ ♪ Give you a taste ♪ ♪ Holler ♪ ♪ Ain't no stopping me ♪ ♪ Copy written, so don't copy me ♪ ♪ Y'all can't come close to me ♪ ♪ And y'all ain't stopping me ♪ ♪ I know you feel me now ♪ ♪ I know you hear me now ♪ ♪ I scream it loud and proud ♪ ♪ Missy gonna blow it down ♪ ♪ People gonna play me now ♪ ♪ In and out of town ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm the best around ♪ ♪ With the crazy style ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Get your freak on ♪ ♪ Getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha freak on ♪ (funky music)