SubTropolis
SubTropolis
LocationKansas City, Missouri, United States
Coordinates39°09′40″N 94°28′34″W / 39.161213°N 94.476242°W / 39.161213; -94.476242
The interior of SubTropolis

SubTropolis is a business complex located inside of a 55,000,000-square-foot (5,100,000 m2), 1,100-acre (4.5 km2) artificial cave in the bluffs north of the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. It was developed by late Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt via Hunt Midwest Real Estate Development, Inc., with the trademarked the phrase World's Largest Underground Business Complex.

Dug into the Bethany Falls limestone mine, SubTropolis is up to 160 feet (49 m) beneath the surface. It has a grid of 16-foot-high (4.9 m), 40-foot-wide (12 m) tunnels separated by 25-foot-square (7.6 m) limestone pillars created by the room and pillar method of hard rock mining.[1] The complex contains almost 10.5 miles (16.9 km) of illuminated, paved roads and several miles of railroad track. In 2015, more than 7,300,000 square feet (680,000 m2) was occupied and 6,700,000 square feet (620,000 m2) was available for expansion.[2]

The mine naturally maintains year-round temperatures between 65 and 70 °F (18 and 21 °C). The United States Postal Service and the United States Environmental Protection Agency lease spaces within SubTropolis, the United States Postal Service for its collectible stamp operations and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its Region-7 Training and Logistics Center.[3] The National Archives and Records Administration leases space for a Federal Records Center.[4]

On the surface of the north edge of the complex, Hunt developed the Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun amusement park complex. His extensive business dealings in Clay County contributed to the Chiefs establishing an NFL Training Camp at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri until 1991.

Other facilities like SubTropolis exist although not on the same scale, such as the abandoned mine in Butler, Pennsylvania used by Corbis and the US Federal Government for secure storage. As the room and pillar mining method is used to extract limestone throughout the Midwest, many companies are looking at ways to utilize the hundreds of millions of square feet created in this manner, such as for mushroom farming and crude oil stockpiling.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "What is SubTropolis". Hunt Midwest. December 15, 2014. Retrieved February 20, 2023.
  2. ↑ "SubTropolis | Industrial Space for Lease in Kansas City". Hunt Midwest. July 23, 2015. Retrieved February 20, 2023.
  3. ↑ "Welcome to Subtropolis The Business Complex Buried Under Kansas City". Archived from the original on February 16, 2017. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  4. ↑ "Kansas City, MO Federal Records Center". Archived from the original on January 11, 2020. Retrieved January 11, 2020.

Bibliography

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