No More Food Court: A Midwest Costco's Switch To A Business Center Is Causing Controversy

If you've never experienced a Costco Business Center, picture a supersized Costco — but without some of the amenities that regular Costcos have. While you can shop at a Costco Business Center with a regular membership, you may be disappointed by its offerings, which aren't as suited to families or individuals. In Kansas City, Missouri, residents are upset about the impending conversion of their 25-year-old Midtown Kansas City warehouse from a regular Costco to a Costco Business Center. 

In a meeting open to the public at a local library, community members learned that many goods would be axed in the conversion, like Costco's food court, deli, bakery, and liquor options, which would leave many of them looking for another location to fill vital needs. Not only would the food options be trimmed down, but the Costco would lose its pharmacy, hearing aids and optical centers, and its tire shop. Additionally, the new Business Center, which caters less towards personal needs and more towards larger corporate needs, would not sell electronics or clothing, nor would it offer samples.

Members of Kansas City's City Council wrote a letter that was signed by the town's mayor, citing concerns about citizens losing core services that they have come to depend on, as well as concerns about current Costco employees losing their jobs in the Business Center transition. Unfortunately for avid Costco shoppers in Kansas City, representatives for the warehouse told community members there were only two options: Conversion to a Business Center or closing the regular store entirely.

One benefit of a Costco Business Center is that they usually open much earlier than regular Costco locations, sometimes up to three hours earlier. Additionally, the inventory that Business Centers carry is catered towards, you guessed it, businesses. This means that those specific Costcos carry fewer individual-minded goods and more bulk goods like janitorial and commercial kitchen needs, as well as office supplies. This selection also includes bulk quantities of individually packaged beverages and single-serve snack items, and the sizes of most items available are much larger than those sold at standard Costco locations. While Kansas City residents do have other options for groceries and pharmacies within a two-mile radius of the Midtown Costco location, they are worried about the loss of the traditional Costco, as it provided much lower prices on groceries and generic medications than the surrounding stores.

Construction on the building could begin as early as this fall. As for the plans to reopen, that could happen by next spring.