It Only Takes a Spark

When Gouddou leased the first floor, he was obligated to provide a detailed schematic showing how he planned to renovate the space to the plans-review division of the city's codes-administration office. Gouddou hired local architect Allan Present to draw up the required plans and submitted them in December 1999 with a project-cost estimate of $54,000 to $68,000 -- all of which would be financed by Gouddou and his limited partner, Mark Landregan. Gouddou expected that the process -- from lease to renovation to opening night -- would take abut four months. As it turns out, it would take longer than that just for the plans-review division to sign off on the proposed improvements.

Present, who has moved much larger works through City Hall, now believes Gouddou was shortchanged by a process made needlessly difficult. "The city is understaffed, overworked and not very responsive," he says. Present stops short of saying that Gouddou was singled out. "But this did bridge on ethical issues. In terms of business development, small businesses like Mike Gouddou's are not treated very well by city government," he says.

Gouddou complied with each request made by the plans-review division, paid several months' rent for a space he couldn't use and spent hours at City Hall waiting for responses to his proposals. He was frustrated that the city asked him to resubmit some applications (with a new fee for each) with only minor adjustments. "For God sakes, I'm an engineer," he says. "I have worked on subway systems in major cities. To me, you don't need [that many] reviews. We're not designing the Taj Mahal. It was an existing building.

"It was ridiculous," Gouddou adds. "It was like I was begging them to see me. It should never be like that. It was very unprofessional."

Even when the plans-review division finally approved the project, Gouddou had to cancel the opening weekend he had advertised because city officials would not issue an occupancy license on a Friday afternoon. Gouddou had to wait until the following Monday to pick up the license.

The entire experience of opening the bar, which took six months longer than he had expected, left Gouddou annoyed but resolute. "I was determined," he says. "I put my money into it; I put my sweat into it; I put my heart into it. I wasn't going to let anything kill my dream."

Then Tower Properties -- the real-estate powerhouse owned by Kansas City icons the Kempers and Commerce Bank -- killed his dream.

In May 2001, the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City released the Sasaki Plan, a downtown-improvement report prepared over seven months by a team of consultants. It is primarily an ode to the miracles that big business could unleash downtown if given enough incentive, but the report also notes that for downtown to crawl out of its current slump, the city should spur growth that produces activity during those times when streetlights shine. "[Kansas City should] diversify downtown to create a place for culture, the arts and living, not just business," the plan reads. "Many U.S. cities are transforming their economies to reflect changing transportation and business decisions, and to capture the unique advantages of a central location that offers historic character and an urban lifestyle with arts, housing and entertainment."

As of spring 2001, the Spark was drawing crowds weekly Tuesday through Saturday nights, and the nightclub hadn't elicited even one complaint since opening the previous September. Having generated more than $100,000 in cover charges and drink sales, Gouddou was eligible to apply for the 3 a.m. license. Officials with the city's liquor division supplied Gouddou with consent letters -- permission slips, basically, for Spark to stay open until 3 a.m. -- addressed to all property owners within 500 feet of Spark Bar's front door and told him he needed the owners of at least 51 percent of the surrounding property to sign.

Of course, it was pointless for Gouddou to distribute all the letters because Tower Properties owned more than half of the real estate. So he walked one block to the Commerce Tower and delivered the packet of consent letters for each parcel of property the company owned. He had no reason to believe he would be turned down.

Nonetheless, Tower Properties projects a daunting presence in the area, controlling so much property and directing a sizable portion of business growth downtown. Placed in control of "tax-increment financing" expenditures in 1995, Tower Properties wields tremendous power over development within a 20-acre district that wraps around the largely vacant eleven-story office building housing Spark Bar. When another real-estate company, Dallas-based Simbol Commercial Inc., requested $3 million in TIF money in April 2001 for its own plan to refurbish an office building at Ninth and Walnut, the company had to first seek approval from Tower. In that case, Tower gave its blessing to Simbol, which sought to renovate the building and bring more than 800 jobs to the area.