2024 - Downtown Manhattan

Downtown Manhattan, Kansas is the pinnacle of place in the Flint Hills region. With 3,000 employees and 350 businesses, it is the premier commercial activity hub and employment center in Manhattan; and the rapidly up-and-coming epicenter of art and culture. It houses a diversity of businesses and activities, creating an all-in-one live, work, shop, and relax district. Downtown is recognized for its historic charm, local business-friendly environment, and its function as an incubator for startup businesses and entrepreneurial endeavors, yet is attractive to national-level employers. In 2023, commercial space and residential occupancy reached 98%.

Manhattan consistently ranks among the top 100 most livable cities in the United States, in large part due to the bustling downtown, but also its physical and relational connections to Kansas State University, the Aggieville District, and the natural environment and recreational opportunities that contextualize it- from the Kansas River to the rolling Flint Hills. These amenities make Downtown Manhattan the gateway of the Flint Hills, which greet visitors as they arrive in Manhattan, before crossing the river and immediately being graced with the iconic downtown skyline.

Downtown Redevelopment Guided by Planning

Under threat of disinvestment and the rise of auto-oriented and big-box retail, the 2000 “Downtown Tomorrow” Plan sought a bold expansion of mixed-use fabric and opportunity to leverage place-based assets to become a regional retail and national visitor draw. This plan paved the way for the development of the Manhattan Marketplace, Discovery Center, and Manhattan Convention Center sub-districts of downtown to come to fruition. These investments were made in post-industrial periphery areas of downtown suffering from high vacancy, neglect, and disjointedness. From 2003 to 2015 the areas underwent massive transformation on a scale that virtually doubled the footprint. Through the heavy leaning on public-private partnerships, creative economic development strategies, and sheer community determination, over $300 million in private and public investments were made in downtown over a twenty-year span. All of this occurred through and despite the impact and economic headwinds associated with the 2008 financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the Museum of Art and Light was announced to be developed in the heart of downtown, both serving as the undisputable capstone of the 2000 plan and the catalyst for the next downtown plan.

Adopted in 2024, the “Beyond Tomorrow Downtown Plan” the plan built off these past successes and the fully realized 2000 plan and paints a bold and exciting vision for the future of downtown propelling it further as a vibrant, historic, pedestrian-orientated, cultural and economic focal point of the city and region, offering diverse and high-quality shopping, dining, art, entertainment, services, events, housing, civic experiences, and spaces all reflective of who Manhattan is as a community. Only months after its adoption, the vision attracted significant interest in exciting development opportunities. Manhattan has been and will continue to be a Great Place in Kansas for residents, university students, military members and their families, and visitors alike, due to continued planning and reinvestment efforts.