Missouri’s Restored Places: Kansas City
December 19, 2024 | Dana Gould, Chris Johnston, Julie Turnipseed, and Logan Breer
When demolition is not the default, historic commercial districts retain what makes them unique and form the foundation for the sense of place that fosters economic growth, community pride, and social interaction. That is why it is important to continue to advocate for preservation through redevelopment, which prioritizes adaptive reuse, so it becomes the default. The advocacy efforts led by Main Street, economic, and development leaders have influenced property owners and other stakeholders to utilize adaptive reuse over demolition (Howard Chai, August 2024, Renewal Development Wants to Demolish The Demolition-First Paradigm). That is exactly what happened in Kansas City’s Jazz Hill and the Vine Street districts, where property owners and other stakeholders revitalized existing historic structures in their projects to meet housing market demands and to create spaces for businesses cultural destinations.
Properties in Kansas City’s Jazz Hill district have undergone restoration and redevelopment to increase housing options for the area that positively impact the national housing shortage.
The Jazz Hill Apartments, charming grand colonnaded style apartment homes, were originally developed between 1901 and 1913 along Paseo Avenue and 10th Street in Kansas City, MO and were considered fashionable living for the community developing in Kansas City at that time. Over the years, neglect left eight of the eleven apartment properties uninhabitable and in need of major repairs.
The Twelfth Street Heritage Development Corporation and Flaherty & Collins Properties invested in preserving The Jazz Hill Apartments and returned them to working order allowing them to once again contribute to the housing options in Kansas City in 2024 (Freddie Mac, Preserving Affordable Housing and Local History). They were able to redevelop these historic properties on Paseo Bouelvard as affordable workforce housing through public and private funding that included Federal and State historic tax credits, Missouri Housing Development Commission’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, Kansas City’s Economic Development Corporation: Planned Industrial Expansion Authority tax exempt bonds, HUD loans, private loans, and other sources both private and public (Nydja Hood, May 28, 2024, Historic Jazz Hill housing complex being revamped into affordable housing).
Another place in the Midtown Kansas City to increase housing after undergoing restoration and redevelopment is the Westport High School. The 1908 Westport High School closed in 2010 due to administrative decisions from the Kansas City Public School Board and sat vacant for about 14 years (Eleanor Nash, May 13, 2024, Giant Windows & Historic Woodwork). The property was left to await its next purpose and in the spring of 2022 redevelopment began to transform the property into apartments.
Through a combination of new construction and rehabilitation of the existing structure, Westport High School was renovated into Park 39 Apartments with 138 unique units. The developers made use of the wide hallways, large windows, auditorium, and gymnasium space in original ways to ensure that the connection to the past use and history of the school was not lost. As a result, each unit has its own personality based on the location within the former high school. The common areas are fun and vibrant, creating a lively living community for all the residents.
Federal and State historic preservation tax credits were used to finance this project. Now Park 39 Apartments, the former Westport High School, boasts itself as an example of new urban living. MMSC’s board members Chris Johnston and Dana Gould commented, “how cool is it to live in a converted high school.”
In another part of Kansas City, stakeholders in the Historic 18th & Vine Jazz District completed projects that transformed historic properties into places of business and culture. The Zhou B Art Center of Kansas City resides in the former Crispus Attucks School located in the 18th & Vine Jazz District. The Crispus Attucks School was one of the first African American schools in Kansas City, originally built in 1905 and was later renovated in 1922 to add a second wing to meet the school’s demand. With a deep-rooted history in the community, the Crispus Attucks School was accepted on the Kansas City Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places.
Despite being listed on the National Register, this building was vacant for over two decades (Regan Porter, October 4, 2022, Historic Building Near 18th and Vine District Being Restored as New Art Center). The Crispus Attucks School caught the attention of the artists ShanZuo and DaHuang Zhou when they visited Kansas City in 2017 on an invitation from Allan Gray, an equity partner with the Zhou B Art Center and the former chairman of the Missouri Arts Council and Arts KC.
The Zhou brothers began redeveloping the Crispus Attucks School building in October 2022 as a “sister art center” to the Zhou B Art Centers in Chicago, making it their second art center to open in the United States. Completed in 2024, the Zhou B Art Center is a pioneering $27 million cultural institution dedicated to fostering artistic excellence, innovation, and inclusivity. It provides a dynamic platform for artists, patrons, and the community to engage with the arts with facilities including 45 studio spaces, three private event spaces, a sculpture garden, and exhibition space.
Another project in the 18th and Vine Street District, that increased the vibrancy of the district through occupancy after undergoing restoration and redevelopment, is the historic Public Works Buildings. Located on 2000 Vine Street, these 150-year-old buildings are the oldest public works buildings in Kansas City. Since 1987, when the city’s water and street departments relocated to new facilities, the buildings were decommissioned and sat abandoned leading to deterioration and vandalism.
In 2021, three local business owners committed to a long-term investment project that would rehabilitate the abandoned Public Works Buildings into mixed-used office and retail space (Farrah Mina, July 28, 2021, Kansas City Businessmen Transforming Historic Public Works Buildings in Jazz District). This project is the 2000 Vine project spearheaded by Tim Duggan, principal owner of the urban planning and design firm Phronesis; Shomari Benton, real estate attorney and partner at Benton, Lloyd & Chung LLP; and Jason Parson, president and CEO of the public relations firm Parson + Associates.
After the completion of the renovations, this historic limestone building still dons most of the graffiti it acquired from decades of abandonment, adding to the atmosphere of the Vine Street Brewing Co. that calls it home. The Vine Street Brewing Company’s co-founders Kemet Colemand, Woodie Bonds Jr., and Elliott Ivory were one of the first tenants to commit to opening in the 2000 Vine project when it was completed (J.M. Banks, September 5, 2023, Art, Culture, & Beer). Vine Street Brewing Co. is the region’s first black-owned brewery. Read more about this amazing endeavor by these three men with these publications: Kansas City’s Newest Brewery Isn’t Just the First in Missouri Owned by African Americans, It’s ‘Sacred Soil’ by Lawrence Brooks IV and Passion Project: 2000 Vine Street’s ‘Cultural Inheritance’ by Matthew Gwin.
Each of these projects have made a positive impact on Kansas City through the diligence of the developers and property owners leading them to be featured during the Missouri’s Premier Downtown Revitalization Conference educational tours. It is exciting to know that developers and property owners are seeing the beauty of historic properties and how their historic character can contribute to projects that have an economic impact.
