Union Station developers will consider pop-up shops to fill vacant food vendor kiosks
The little glass-and-metal canopies outside Union Station, 701 E. Douglas, were a new concept for Wichita when they were built back in 2016.
Occidental Management, the developers who spent $54 million renovating the Union Station area, billed the four spaces — which all have room inside enough for a small kitchen, a counter and a tiny table — as a places where food vendors could get their start with low overhead and draw pre-concert crowds.
Since then, vendors have come and gone. Some were wildly popular for a while. Others struggled to get traction and closed after just a few months.
But four years after they were built, only one of the four canopies is occupied. Rolled ice cream shop 8 Below, which drew long lines when it first opened in June 2017, decided not to return this summer, leaving Wichita Cheesecake Company as the only tenant.
Now, Union Station’s developers say they’re open to different uses for the structures. Occidental president Chad Stafford said they’re looking to talk to non-food vendors — and even vendors who only want to use a kiosk for a short-term rental, as brief as a week or two.
“What we found was, as you’ve seen, throughout the iteration of who’s made it or not, those kiosks are most likely best served as a shorter term lease,” he said. “We’ve started to switch up our marketing of those to be more of a pop-up or a short-term rental.”
Stafford says he envisions, for example, a specialty T-shirt business who wanted to set up during a festival coming in for a couple of weeks. Or maybe a hot chocolate or hot toddy vendor would want to set up just during cold weather months, he said.
He’s in discussions, he said, with a “couple of interested parties” and hopes to have some new tenants for the kiosks soon. But there will still be space available for anyone who wants to try a short-term stay.
“I think that in the transition from the pandemic, people are looking at more pop-up and short-term markets, they’re looking to be more transient,” he said.
Of course, he said, longer-term leases are also still welcome.
Here’s a look at who has come and gone from the canopies since they were first completed in 2016:
Funky Monkeys Shaved Ice 21 +: J.D. Young was the first vendor to move into one of the canopies, choosing the most northern spot closest to Douglas. He opened a shaved ice stand for grownups, who could get their drinks spiked with alcohol. He opened in February 2017 and often had big crowds filling up the patio space in front of his shop. He moved out of the space last summer, citing a spike in his rent. Young moved the business to 216 N. Washington, but it closed in the fall.
8 Below Rolled Ice Cream: This was the first business in Wichita to take advantage of the rolled ice cream craze, and when it opened June 2017, it was always busy and packed with long lines. But popularity waned, the owner said. The shop closed for the season in October and decided not to reopen this summer.
Douglas Street Tacos: Young decided to try a taco business on the other end of the canopies in the summer of 2017. He opened in August of that year but closed three months later, saying there wasn’t enough traffic.
Noodles to Go: 8 Below owner Yu Huang decided to open a noodle shop in a second canopy next door to her 8 Below back in December 2017. But it wasn’t open long.
The Dapper Doughnut: Former Kansas State football player Brett Alstatt opened this mini-doughnut shop in the far south canopy, which had once been occupied by Douglas Street Tacos, in December 2018. But he closed in January of this year, saying that construction on the plaza slowed business and that he realized he really needed a drive-through and more parking to survive.
Wichita Cheesecake Company: Mark and Grace Daniels opened their business, which sells cheesecake whole and by the slice, in April of 2019. They took over the far north canopy previously occupied by Funky Monkeys Shaved Ice 21 + and are still open there now.
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 2:27 PM.
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