Hy-Vee Arena, home to NBA and NHL teams when it was Kemper Arena, now provides playing space for residents plus regional and national youth tournaments. (Courtesy Hy-Vee Arena) Renovated Hy-Vee Arena provides Kansas City with a new place to play KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For Alfonso Hayes and those who play in his Ball Up Sporting adult basketball program, the recently renovated Hy-Vee Arena provides more than just a warm, dry location to play the game they love. “It’s a central place,” he said on a recent early spring day as he watched a pickup game drift up and down one of the building’s numerous open courts. “It’s become more like a community.” That is precisely what developer Steve Foutch had in mind five years ago when he first considered buying and renovating long-neglected Kemper Arena, for 33 years Kansas City’s primary arena, in the West Bottoms neighborhood southwest of… Continue Reading New Blueprint for Old Arenas?

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