Welcome To SubTropolis: The Limestone Mine Turned Climate-Controlled Business Complex

After extracting all the useful stuff from a mine, you are often left with a lot of empty subterranean space without a clear purpose. This was the case with the Bethany Falls limestone mine, near Kansas City, Missouri, which left a sprawling series of caverns supported by 16′ (4.9 meter) diameter pillars courtesy of the used mining method. As detailed by [Benjamin Hunting] in a recent article on the Hagerty site, this made it a fascinating place for a  business complex development now called SubTropolis that among other things is used for car storage by Ford and long-term stamp storage by the US Post Office. (Check out their cool period photos!)

The reason for this is the extremely stable climate within these man-made caverns, with relative humidity hovering around a comfortable 40% and temperatures stable year-round at about 21 °C (70 °F), making it ideal for storing anything that doesn’t like being placed outdoors, while saving a lot on airconditioning costs. With Ford one of the biggest companies in SubTropolis, this means that many companies providing customization services for vehicles have also moved operations inside the complex.

With the only negative being a lack of daylight, it seems like the perfect place for many businesses and (evil) lairs, assuming electrical power and constant air circulation are provided.

Featured image: “Subtropolis” by [ErgoSum88]

31 thoughts on “Welcome To SubTropolis: The Limestone Mine Turned Climate-Controlled Business Complex

      1. having lived in both desert and arctic locations, people’s use of heating/cooling seems to vary widely between seasons and locations. it was pretty common to see thermostats in phoenix set to 60-66 range (in freedom units) with a few misanthropes and server babysitters in the <50 range. alaska winter heater setting is usually like 74 and ive seen a few as high as 80+. my sister had some house guests and they burned through six weeks of firewood over a weekend, top floor had to be in the 90s. i ended up sleeping in the winter entry because it was the only room that wasnt an oven (id have slept outside in a hammock if not for the skeeters and bears). 70 seems like the perfect temperature though. i guess living like morlocks isnt all that bad.

      1. Egress windows as a requirement is silly given you aren’t gonna egress out of a high rise apartment building window (and the Fire department ladders won’t get there either).

        Regardless, it must meet building codes if companies have offices and workshops there.

      1. It most certainly can. It’s a very efficient emitter of radon because of its permeability. The amount of radon it releases is a function of the amount of uranium in the bedrock.

    1. Constant temperature and humidity means that you dont have to fight the environmental variations of summer and winter. Heat rises and with 17 portals, 17 feet by 40 feet, that open to the ground surface, creating air flow, dealing with the heat produced by any machinery or processes is a relatively trivial concern.

        1. Big difference between the two. Limestone caverns that far below ground will sink any heat generated into a rock mass large enough to deal with it for years.

          The Underground and subway systems are indeed underground, but not as connected to the geologic strata as the abandoned mines. A lot of manmade heat sources go through those manmade tunnels and the effect is heat retention unless significant airflow is used to remove it. And they don’t.

  1. Prairie Plant Systems (Subterra) grows plants in old mines. The reasoning is that it is easier to produce the light needed for growing plants than it is to provide the heat. Looks like they’ve moved into BioPharma–makes sense since you can just lock the door for security. Good luck doing that in a field or conventional greenhouse.

    1. Fantastic idea! Glad it’s being developed. Industrial scale non-field farming may be the way we get the food issue resolved. And as you point out, for Pharma purposes it’s a win/win.

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