In early May 2016, Kilee Nickels and her husband had their next move planned down to the furniture. Nickel & Suede, the leather earring company she started in 2014, was about to move out of their home and into a historic building on Liberty Square. In an interview with KMBC, they described a floor plan with "the location of every table, and trash can drawn out."
On May 3, 2016, the building at the corner of Kansas and Water streets partially collapsed. Ten years later, Nickel & Suede has a storefront on the Square at 19 N. Water Street. It sits on the same block, next to the lot people around the Square still call "the pit," KMBC reported this August.
A pre-collapse wish list, checked against this fall
The building that fell was the Bedinger Building at 1 N. Water Street. It was built around the late 1800s and once held an Ethan Allen furniture store. It had been empty for about four years and was being renovated when it collapsed. Nobody was hurt.
Months before the collapse, in October, former IT company owner Shane Griffin had released renderings of a mixed-use plan for the building. KCUR's report on the collapse quoted the list of businesses he described to the Liberty Tribune:
"a restaurant, a coffee shop, a jewelry store, a cross-fit gym, a loft or two, work spaces, and perhaps a frozen custard/yogurt place."
That building never happened. Several items on the list showed up on the Square anyway, on the blocks around the empty corner:
| The old wish | Where it stands in November 2026 |
|---|---|
| A jewelry store | Nickel & Suede, open at 19 N. Water St., held its grand opening on October 17 |
| A coffee shop | The Copper Canary, 1 E. Kansas St., now runs a coffee bar serving The Roasterie |
| A loft or two | Nine lofts are approved for the corner itself |
| A restaurant | A corner restaurant patio is part of the new building's plan |
The two businesses at the top of that table are already open. Cari Brogden, who owns The Copper Canary, told KSHB that the coffee bar was a direct response to the project: "We knew of the housing development and the mixed-use project that's coming. We thought we would go ahead and take that leap of faith, and we are actually expanding." The Copper Canary's menu now covers espresso drinks, cold brew, chai, matcha and its own Canary Fizz sodas. The shop is also a market for dozens of small vendors.
Nickels told KMBC the timing "feels very serendipitous," with her new store sitting "right in the middle of where we came from" and the new building rising next door. The store is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is closed Sunday.
What is going up on the corner
The project is called Water Street Lofts. Star Development, a Liberty company based on W. Mill Street, is building it on lots 1 through 11 N. Water Street at the northeast corner of N. Water and E. Kansas. KSHB put the cost at $7.5 million. Under the final development plan the City Council approved on July 28, 2025, the building will be:
- Two stories and 23,116 square feet
- 11,284 square feet of ground-floor commercial space
- Nine residential lofts on the upper floor
- On 0.43 acre, with resident parking behind the building
The Bedinger Building was not the only loss on that corner. According to the Liberty City Council minutes, the buildings next to it at 5–7 N. Water Street were declared dangerous after the collapse and torn down. In March 2024 the council also approved demolition of the G.M. Peters Building at 11 N. Water. The empty lot grew to cover several old storefronts.
The design changed a good deal before approval. Patrick Reuter of Klover Architects told the council the first budget came in well over expectations, and contractors in the area blamed the underground parking garage. The team dropped the garage, reduced the building to nine apartments, and moved a few private parking stalls to the back. The Kansas Street side had been planned as a large retaining wall. It now holds commercial space too. Ron Cowger of AGC Engineers added that trash pickup will come from Missouri Street, keeping garbage trucks out of the alley.
Each of those changes affects how the corner will work day to day. Turning the retaining wall into storefronts means the Kansas Street side faces people walking by. Moving trash service to Missouri Street keeps the alley clear behind the businesses on Water Street.
The plan's path through historic review took two years, KMBC reported. The city's Historic District Review Commission recommended approval 5-3 in August 2024, and the council approved it that September. After the redesign, the commission recommended the amended version 4-2 in June 2025. The council approved it 5-0 in July.
On the Square, old buildings lean on each other
On the morning of the collapse in 2016, Liberty's fire marshal, Dustin Paddack, explained why the whole block was at risk: "When you have old buildings like this, they kind of shore up against each other. And when one goes, you have the potential for other ones going." KCUR reported that officials planned to use lasers to help monitor the nearby buildings for movement.
The same concern came up again during the 2025 approvals. At the July hearing, the G.M. Peters Building came up because, according to the minutes, it butts directly up against its neighbor at 19 N. Water Street. Matthew Iway of Star Development told the council the company was working with specialty engineers on vibration monitoring and a demolition plan meant to limit the effect on the neighboring Burnett Building. Nickel & Suede now operates out of 19 N. Water.
The ground itself is another unknown. "Realistically, this is about as many surprises as we can get in this dirt right here — because we don't know," Iway told KSHB. He said nobody had touched the site in 10 years, and before that nothing had been built there in about 100 years. He also said that careful work to preserve the area's historic character was part of the reason the project missed an earlier March deadline. Crews are reusing existing underground infrastructure where they can.
The calendar from here
In August, KSHB reported that crews were doing underground utility work and that the developer expected to start foundations in late September or early October. The building is expected to be finished by the end of August 2027. Here are the Historic Downtown Liberty dates that bring people to the Square while the corner is being built:
- Shop Small Saturday, November 28, all day across Historic Downtown Liberty
- Girls Night Out – Holiday Edition, December 3, 4 to 8 p.m.
- Hometown Holidays Passport Walk, presented by Liberty Hospital, December 5, 1 to 5 p.m. Families pick up a passport at participating downtown businesses and turn in a completed one for a prize while supplies last.
- Pop-Up Holiday Farmers' Market, December 5, 2 to 5 p.m. at 1 Courthouse Square
- Mayor's Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony, December 5 at 5:10 p.m., right after the Passport Walk ends
The city has been planning toward this corner for some time. In September 2024, Liberty adopted the first phase of a downtown vision plan. According to KCTV5, it singled out the site at E. Water and N. Kansas, where two historic buildings collapsed in 2016, as a place for a mixed-use building. Brogden described what she expects in her KSHB interview: "Having more people who actually live here on the square, more businesses that can actually move in, this will just continue to bring more people." Iway put his hope for the project simply: "I hope people won't remember the giant hole that was here for about a decade."
Water Street Lofts shows how building on old ground works on Liberty Square, with demolition planned around the building next door and a parking garage dropped once its cost came in. If you are considering a historic building in downtown Liberty or new construction close to older structures, The Pfannenstiel Group can help you look past the facade at the foundation, the site and the neighbors. Contact us to talk it through.
