The former Seiden’s Furs building at 935 Broadway sat with a partially collapsed roof and an emergency demolition notice hanging over it when developer Chris Sally stepped in. Crews later hauled out more than 20 dumpsters of decades-old belongings to clear the structure, and hazardous water pooled in the basement complicated the cleanup work along the way.
Sally, a local developer, obtained a contract to buy the building after the city moved to demolish it, according to Kansas City Business Journal. The deal came together in October 2023, just after the city issued an emergency demolition notice, as flatlandkc.org reported at the time. Part of the roof had collapsed more than two years earlier, prompting the city to declare the building dangerous in the first place.
Built in 1874, the structure is possibly the oldest remaining building within the Downtown Loop, per flatlandkc.org’s reporting. It started life as the Brackett Brothers Drug Store before becoming home to Seiden’s Furs in 1935, according to kansascity.com. The furrier operated there until 2006, the outlet reports — though Preserve Missouri’s account of the building places the closure in 2007, and the discrepancy has not been resolved.
A Partial Collapse Sealed Its Fate
The roof gave way in July 2021 after heavy rains, and the property was tagged as dangerous by the city shortly afterward, according to Preserve Missouri. At the time, one estimate pegged restoration costs at roughly $2.1 million for what was described as a 14,000-square-foot building, the flatlandkc.org report on artist-studio proposals noted. A more recent account from thekcpulse.com describes the same structure as 7,500 square feet — sources disagree on the figure, and the discrepancy remains unresolved. Jackson County had estimated the property’s market value at $316,135 in 2019, per flatlandkc.org…