Brookside Business Association
A Century of Local. The Brookside Shops is Kansas City’s first suburban shopping area (fun fact – did you know the Brookside Shops predated the County Club Plaza?). On September 1, 1919, the headline of the Country Club District Bulletin read “Construction Begun on First Group of Neighborhood Shops at Sixty-Third and Brookside Boulevard.” Ground had been broken for the Brookside Shops. Conceived before the first World War and started in 1919, the shops were completed over the next decade.
Designed to serve the automobile set, it boasted specialty, grocery and drug stores, medical offices, even a special community center, as well as the first south-side police and fire stations. 100 years later, Brookside is an enduring model of a neighborhood center. Unlike many other historic centers, Brookside still serves its community with basic needs like a grocery store, drugstore, restaurants, a dime store, realtors, accountants, and so many other services.
Today Brookside is home to over 80 shops, restaurants, and offices, all unique and in keeping with the original neighborhood charm and architecture.
The Brookside Shops and annual attractions like the Brookside Art Annual are managed by the Brookside Business Association.
Started two decades after the shops, the Brookside Business Association, originated in 1939. The association was formed “for the purpose of promoting and furthering the interests of persons and firms in business or professions, as well as property owners and to improve the district in every possible way so as to make it a better district in which to live and work.”
Today, the Brookside Business Association is a voluntary organization whose purpose is to create and preserve a pleasant surrounding for conducting business in the Brookside and serving our community for the next 100 years. We accomplish this by, among other things, maintaining common parking areas, providing for landscaping and trash removal, managing and promoting special activities and events like the Brookside Art Annual, and working with the City, Area Transportation Authority, tenants, property owners and neighborhood stakeholders to maintain the historic Brookside Shops.
