Feb

28

39th and Main Redevelopment

February 28, 2008 | 9 Comments

Hawthorn Plaza apartments

This week the City Council’s Finance Committee approved a plan to redevelop the 1920s Hawthorn apartment building at 3835 Main Street. The Section 8 building will become a mix of market rate and affordable housing. Another part of the plan will replace the Naughty But Nice porn shop with a parking garage with street level retail. The city is providing a 25 year property tax abatement and $1.4 million in TIF subsidy.

The project should clean up a particularly skeezy section of Main Street, and it actually uses TIF for real redevelopment. The only downside is that Midtown will lose one of the last places where adults can buy porn.

The Kansas City Star, Wed, Feb. 27, 2008
By KEVIN COLLISONA $26 million plan to reform the decrepit Hawthorn Plaza apartments from troubled midtown property to solid middle-class housing is being hailed by neighborhood advocates.

The redevelopment plan was endorsed unanimously by the Kansas City Council Finance Committee on Wednesday and was expected to be approved by the full council next week.

The plan calls for converting the 1920s-era building at 3835 Main St. into 56 market-rate and affordable apartments. The building had been a 164-unit low-income property that was the source of frequent police calls.

In addition, the redevelopment will remove the Naughty but Nice adult novelty store to the north at 3821 Main St. and replace it with a 94-space garage with retail on the street level.

“This gives more validity to our vision about Main Street,” said Diane Burnette, president of Main Street Corridor Development Corp. or MainCor, the nonprofit entity charged with assisting the area. To revitalize Main, she said, “we need more residential. It can’t be all commercial.”

Burnette pointed to the recent expansion of the Unicorn Theatre near 39th and Main streets, the opening of another theater, the Metropolitan Ensemble, at 36th and Main streets, and MainCor’s establishment of a Community Improvement District last year to provide additional security and maintenance as signs the major artery linking downtown with the Country Club Plaza is coming back.

“The Hawthorn Plaza project is not a silver bullet, but part of a long-term solution,” she said.

For developer Howard Fisher, the Finance Committee endorsement capped a redevelopment effort that began almost three years ago.

“Thirty-ninth and Main streets is a major node, and that particular building … is one of the most negative influences on the entire neighborhood,” he said.

Councilwoman Jan Marcason, a Finance Committee member whose district includes the Hawthorn Plaza property, praised Fisher for his persistence.

“This is such a critical block for midtown Kansas City,” she said. “The renovation of this beautiful building, combined with the new Unicorn theater stage, means this is really the rebirth of midtown, and I’m grateful for it.”

The redevelopment is being assisted with a 25-year property tax abatement and $1.4 million in tax-increment financing assistance that will be used to acquire and demolish the adult bookstore.

“This is what we should do with TIF,” said Councilwoman Beth Gottstein, another committee member whose district also includes the building. “If we don’t take that risk every once in a while, there’s no reason to have incentives.”

Councilwoman Deb Hermann, chairwoman of the Finance Committee, expects that the plan will have no problem winning approval from the council next week.

“I think it’s very important, and it hits many of the points that are important to our new economic development policy,” she said.

Construction is expected to begin this summer with completion expected in early 2010.

Categories: Midtown/Plaza


Comments

9 Comments so far

  1. John on February 28, 2008 3:18 pm

    Porn is the reason Al Gore invented the internet. We’ll be fine without Naughty but Nice.

  2. Accountant By Day on February 28, 2008 8:35 pm

    There’s always Wink over on 39th Street, run by the refreshingly sincere and candid Elizabeth Rich. Although, come to think, I’m not sure whether they sell porn there.

  3. anthony on February 29, 2008 7:36 am

    Did someone say porn and City Hall together again?

  4. bob berdella on February 29, 2008 2:04 pm

    “The Hawthorn Plaza project is not a silver bullet…”

    No, but Wink does sell those.

  5. Ryan on February 29, 2008 2:22 pm

    That’s great! More Condos in a neighborhood where no one can afford one! Eventually we could just push all of the poor people to the suburbs, cancel taxes for the ATA (because no one rides those buses anyways), and forget about light rail!

  6. William Rockhill Nelson on February 29, 2008 2:30 pm

    Ryan, This part of Midtown is suffering from a disproportionate share of low income housing. A healthy neighborhood has a mix a different incomes. The whole point of Section 8 was to spread it out there weren’t concentrations low income ghettos. The city proceeding to funnel most Section 8 to Midtown and Hickman Mills, with terrible consequences.

    This proposal would create a mixed-income building instead of the current vertically segregated building.

  7. Greg on March 1, 2008 11:50 pm

    Old Hyde Park Historic District is for the Howard Fisher development.

  8. Patty on March 2, 2008 12:09 am

    Ryan that’s why we see so many section 8 over in South of the Plaza or along Ward Parkway. Because Kansas City wants to spread out the section 8′ers. Not.

    Kansas City just wants them in one area. Between Broadway to Troost. From Linwood to 47th Street.

    This helps bring down certain neighborhoods. It just takes 1 family to bring a neighborhood down. And we who live in midtown have seen this happen over numerous times.

    Some of us who can’t afford to live in a condo would love to live in a condo with secure parking, but condos cost too dam much.

    The worst part driving down Main is seeing that dam parking garage that Howard Fisher wants to build. What an eye sore. Why not put the parking lot behind the Hawthorne?

    Dam arse city planners.

  9. Tim on March 3, 2008 9:52 am

    The parking garage cannot be placed behind the building because the Scientologists own the parking lot behind the building. And no, that’s not a joke.

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