2026 Intercity Visit coverage
Day 1: Soccer stadium visit highlights Intercity Visit opening day
Day 2: Importance of investment highlights Intercity Visit second two programming
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – What sometimes gets lost in the economic development equation is the importance of housing.
“Don’t forget that homes are where jobs go to sleep at night,” said Geoff Jolley, executive director of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) of Greater Kansas City. “...It’s like, OK, you’ve just attracted 5,000 new jobs. Where are these people going to sleep? And where are their kids going to go to school?
“And where are the baristas going to sleep because they are going to want to start up down the street where the people are? Thinking about the ripple effect in economic development can be incredibly powerful. But housing has to be the foundation of the conversation.”
Jolley participated in a panel discussion about housing at the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s Intercity Visit (ICV), which concluded Wednesday.
A northeast Oklahoma delegation of more than 130 people, a record for the 17-year Chamber series, attended the annual three-day event to a peer city to learn best practices and success stories.
Jolley works for LISC, which focuses on affordable housing, financial stability and economic development in historically under-sourced neighborhoods in Missouri and Kansas.
“We often hear about the public-private partnerships, the three P’s, right?” Jolley said. “I like to tell people that there really should be the five P’s. It’s the public, private, philanthropic and people partnership. When you can get all those sectors working together and moving in the same direction, then you really have something.”
In the past five years, he said, more than $90 million of philanthropic investment has poured into Kansas City housing projects.
Kansas City City Councilor Dr. Melissa Patterson Hazley and Todd Lieberman, president of Brinshore Development, shared the panel discussion stage with Jolley.
The final guest of the event was Sly James, who served as Kansas City mayor from 2011 to 2019. As mayor, he led voter approval of a new airport terminal, passage of an $800 million infrastructure package and the construction of a free-to-ride downtown streetcar system.
James also was mayor when the city broke ground on the 24-story, 600-room Loews convention center hotel, which opened in 2020. Alongside the city and other partners, the Tulsa Regional Chamber is pushing for the construction of a convention center hotel in Tulsa, a project that James said is well worth the effort.
“It is now the place where most of the teams who come in to play the Royals or the Chiefs stay,” he said. “It has been a boon.
“It has created a much more vibrant convention business, and that convention business has created overflow with hotels in the region, as well as with restaurants and entertainment districts.”
All told, the 2026 Intercity Visit featured a series of panel discussions and guest presentations that attracted close to 20 Kansas City-area experts.
“Kansas City produced a parade of thought-provoking speakers and laid out the red carpet for our delegation,” said Mike Neal, president and CEO of the Tulsa Regional Chamber. “We thank the city for its Midwestern hospitality and for a behind-the-scenes look at its proven processes, which we hope to use to take Tulsa to the next level.”
