‘Iconic but overlooked.’ Could KC’s Paseo Stairs, a favorite of runners, be improved?
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Growing up, Chris Goode had a love-hate relationship with the Paseo Stairs.
His father used to bring him there, starting when he was 13, to spend hours running up and down the 69 steps of the local landmark — 136 feet from top to bottom — for physical conditioning.
For the elder Goode, it was a way of sharing an experience from his own youth, as well as a connection to his alma mater, the Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts, which stands atop the stairs.
For the younger Goode, now 39 and the founder of Ruby Jean’s Juicery, it was a punishing exercise but one that he now credits with helping him develop a lifelong love of health and fitness.
Now, Chris Goode is working to give back to the stairs, which he said are in need of more upkeep.
“I said to myself, these stairs could be something beautiful,” Goode said. “They are beautiful, they are iconic but overlooked and have been blighted with tons of trash, weeds and crumbling rocks.”
For decades, the Paseo Stairs have sat in front of Paseo Academy, leading from Flora Avenue down to The Paseo in the heart of Kansas City. Generations of students, athletes and travelers have traversed the two 12-foot staircases running on either side of the large, white stone letters that spell out “Paseo.”
Built in 1941 by the Kansas City Public Works Department, the stairs were a shortcut for students accessing the campus from Paseo Boulevard.
Today, the stairs are a popular destination for local runners and walkers, both in ones and twos and in organized groups.
Paseo Stairs improvements
In recent years, Goode has identified several needed improvements at the Paseo Stairs. In 2019, he began organizing community clean-ups to pick up trash around the site.
No stranger to working in the community to promote change, Goode has been a Kansas City Parks and Recreation board member and was part of the successful push to strip J.C. Nichols’ name from the fountain in Mill Creek Park and a nearby street and to create a Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the city. In recent years, he also created a petition to change the name of Troost Avenue, which is named after a slave owner.
In the future, he would like to have work done on the Paseo Stairs to reinforce cracked and crumbling areas that could be hazardous to runners, repave surfaces for a more comfortable run, install additional lighting and build a walkway wrapping around the length of the hillside.
To that end, Goode has helped organize a group called The Paseo Stairs to raise money for the improvements. Goode has been working with the city and the Paseo Academy.
“Everything I touch is about building a healthier eco-system for Kansas City,” said Goode. “It is such a beautiful nexus point for our city and Paseo represents one of the strongest intersections to help residents to become a healthier community.”
