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Independence Square

Ken McClain gets every east Jackson County gadfly's panties in a wad. But he's really just a regular guy.

By Kendrick Blackwood 

John Pennell looked like the big-game hunter who'd finally bagged his ultimate trophy.

A photograph of the longtime Independence gadfly appeared in the pages of The Kansas City Star, along with news of the quarry he'd taken down after stalking him for years.

Pennell had finally lined up Ken McClain in his cross hairs, and Jackson County's government had helped him pull the trigger.

For most of a decade, Pennell had been pursuing McClain, a wealthy lawyer and developer who had considerable influence in his adopted town of Independence.

Too much influence, say Pennell and a host of others who criticized McClain's every move.

But this time, McClain had simply gone too far. Excavating near one of McClain's housing developments in April 2003, a contractor McClain had hired carved an ugly scar into earth that was actually county park land.

Pennell discovered the transgression and fed it to the media, promoting it as a scandal while county officials ratcheted up their demands on McClain. County legislator Robert Stringfield has now hired Pennell as an aide, and in June, the two of them got their way -- the county ditched arbitration and filed a lawsuit against McClain. The county is demanding millions over the developer's removal of parkland soil.

For the cottage industry in McClain-hating that appears to supply much of Independence with its heat and light, the squabble over a misdirected bulldozer scrape has turned into a showdown.

Stringfield and Pennell seem to have convinced the Star and others that McClain, the developer so many in Independence love to loathe, has met his match.

But there's another, less sensational version of events in the east Jackson County town. That a man who happens to be rich got that way by making millions fighting righteous battles against the tobacco industry, industrial polluters and unethical employers. That he then invested his money to transform a town that had nearly died. That along the way, he picked up small-town enemies who turned slight disagreements into nuclear battles, enemies who too easily believed that a wealthy developer was rotten to the core.

But that version wouldn't be as sexy as the little guy winning a victory over the corrupt magnate, would it?

It's not hard to tell which parts of Independence Square have been bought and cleaned up by Ken McClain. His properties are the ones with the ornately painted façades, crystal-clear windows and dust-free signs.

"Here's the difference. Look at the quality," he says, giving a tour of the historic district and pointing out the improvements he's put into the storefronts he owns. One that he doesn't is home to a beauty parlor. Its black tiles are cracked and chipped, but the owner is inside styling hair, which McClain admits is something.

"The last thing I need is more empty buildings to fill," he says.

Since 1997, McClain has been buying up the square, one store at a time. So far, McClain says, he has spent $8 million to acquire and repair the 16 historic buildings he owns. The corner building that now holds the specialty groceries and imports of Gilbert, Whitney and Co. cost $600,000 to repair and $250,000 to stock, he says. Café Verona, next door, with its patio, two floors and giant "Birth of Venus" mural, cost quite a bit more than that.

In June, McClain closed on two more buildings on the square -- the cinema and another showy corner building that has been an antique shop.

Gradually, McClain is turning the town into the Independence he used to know.

Although he grew up in Brighton, Michigan, McClain made annual summer pilgrimages to Independence in the 1960s and 1970s to visit his grandmother, Gwendolyn McClain.

"My grandma made it just the most exciting time to be alive," McClain says.

She organized trips with an army of McClain's cousins to regional attractions -- the Truman Presidential Museum and Library, Fort Osage, Jesse James' home in Kearney, the Mormon Visitors Center. The grandson of a prominent Reorganized Latter Day Saints church leader (called the Community of Christ now), McClain considered the town a kind of child's paradise.

McClain says he clung to this vision of Independence as he attended Graceland College and then law school at the University of Michigan. And he continued to make pilgrimages back.

It was during one such visit for an RLDS Church World Conference that McClain met his wife, Cindy.

After law school, he turned down offers from firms in Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and Atlanta to take a job with Stinson, Mag & Fizzell in Kansas City. The reason? So he could move to Independence with his new wife.

But the Independence he moved to in 1982 was nothing like McClain's recollection. "It was in shambles," he says. "The whole square was closed."

He likens it to the climactic scene from Planet of the Apes in which Charlton Heston realizes he's been on Earth the whole time. "You maniacs! You blew it up!" the movie character exclaims.

When he saw the condition of the city, he wondered why the people with money and influence had let it happen.

"I always told myself that if I ever was successful I wouldn't just sit on my hands and let the town deteriorate," McClain says. "Anytime you try to make changes for the better, you are going to get resistance. I didn't know how hard it would be." Still, he says, "I wouldn't choose to live anywhere else."

Meanwhile, as a lawyer, McClain was learning how to win in court. In 1985, he was recruited to another firm that represented the Independence School District. The district was one of the first in the state of Missouri to sue a company over the asbestos products that were then being removed from school buildings because of health risks.

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