@BlogKCThe Cleaver Boulevard TIF plan is a project that would tear down several historic apartment buildings along Cleaver Boulevard and East 46th Street, just east of Main Street and the Plaza. They would be replaced with new condos and a new hotel. The developer is asking for a big TIF subsidy, and is claiming that the apartment buildings are “blighted.”
The buildings in question are classic KC-style apartment buildings from the 1920s. Many were designed by Nelle Peters, one of the country’s first female architects. People who live in the buildings say they are in decent shape, and only suffer from a lack of maintenance and attention from the landlord. This looks a lot like many other cases where a developer has purposefully neglected property so that they can claim blight and ask for a big subsidy to redevelop it.
The Southmoreland Neighborhood Association has been doing a great job of tracking this proposal and background information for those interested in the possible destruction of a historic streetscape.
Apartment building on Cleaver between Main and Oak
Apartments on East 46th Street between Main and Oak.
This is one of the most ridiculous TIF proposals ever. This is a project that even if they were willing to take on on their own dollar the city should fight to save these old, historic buildings. Giving them TIF money to do the project is maybe the most assinine thing the city has ever discussed…and it’s up against some tough competition.
Will empty appliance boxes or tents be handed out to those modest-income people displaced by this yet another greedy developer?
I think not.
A big NIX to this “tear down the old but sustainable affordable and put up expensive housing units” project!!!
According to several articles in the Star, we need to discourage the building of more small hotels in order to raise occupancy rates and build the case for a new major convention hotel.
This just makes me quiveringly mad. TIF money aside, why would anyone want to do this? These buildings are beautiful. I don’t want this stretch to end up looking like Main street.
Please tell me this is a joke.
They aren’t seriously thinking of tearing down these beautiful old buildings, are they?
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Little by little, Kansas City is being robbed of her true character. Of course, I’m so old school that I felt it was ruined when the old downtown went the way of the dinosaur.
If memory serves, the developer for this proposed project did a condo conversion of an office building near the plaza in 03 or 04 and have only sold one condo. Let’s pretend these aren’t historic buildings. Let’s pretend this isn’t right off the plaza. Why do these guys deserve city help?
This TIF is ridiculous. Why would we use our tax dollars to rob the plaza of any of it’s remaining character and mixed-income housing. Do we really need another high-end hotel?
And who is actually supporting this?
I simply cannot think that our city is better off by replacing historical mixed-income housing with a hotel and MORE expensive condo’s that are going to sit empty.
I can’t beleive this deal is going anywhere – but it sounds like it is.
Good point Joe. What other properties does this developer have? (where are the condo’s you’re referring to?) I’m curious to see what they’ve done – I also heard that the same developer has purchased the property on the cliffs on the west side, overlooking downtown and I35, and that they want to build $2M homes in a mixed income neighborhood which block the views of everybody behind them.
Nice.
THIS MUST BE STOPPED. Developers should also get in BIG trouble for letting areas where they own a lot of properties become truly blighted. Best example: Larry Sells and the area around the Uptown Theater.
the worst is that the project would DECREASE density. the number of units proposed is lower than what’s there today. why do we keep allowing such failures and then complain we have such low population density?
Don’t just complain here folks. Let your city council candidates know how you feel.
http://www.kcmo.org/council.nsf/council/home?opendocument
Don’t just write to your district reps. Remember, the six at-large reps are voted on by everyone. That makes you their constituent even if you aren’t in their district.
Here’s what I was able to find. A little history of the Wilson brothers was given in a Kansas City Star article from Wed, Aug. 22, 2007, “East Cleaver condo-hotel project proposed near the Country Club Plaza”
By Kevin Collison. The link I had is dead, but I had the text in an e-mail.
“[The Wilson Group] also renovated a former office building at 4528 Belleview Ave. into nine luxury condos in 2003.”
I can’t find where I found that they had only sold one. I’ll keep looking.
I remember when this was proposed about 6 months ago, and the reaction was not good. Maybe the developers thought people had forgot. Let’s keep our historic buildings instead of tearing them down for no reason.
This seems to be the very kind of misuse of the TIF statute that Mayor Funkhouser based his campaign on last year. If he really intends to claw his way out of the political hole he finds himself in, the Mayor should make this rotten proposal a public example. I hope to see him get more involved in protecting this charming neighborhood. If Funkhouser get out of City Hall and intervene at the neighborhood level, then people would remember why they voted for him. It would be a win/win as far as I am concerned.
Seems like the Sailors Project about 1983 and probably something before that.
I don’t live in KC proper but I spend enough time there to have driven past those buildings several times and I honestly thought of them as an argument against those neighborhoods being as bad as some people think they are. The word “blight” never entered my mind when looking at them.
Good thing we don’t have the Queen of TIF as Mayor and that idiot from the northland who was such a whore for any and every TIF on the Council anymore.
Although the power attorneys at WG will probably buy enough votes to get this passed like they did at Bannister.
I don’t live in KCMO, but I drive down that street every morning. My wife and I have talked about how beautiful those buildings are, and I think it would be a shame to destroy something so beautiful. It’s time to put your money where your mouth is Funkhouser, and start preventing ridiculous spending.
Say what you like pro or con about this particular TIF, but I lived in the building facing ECB a few years ago and it’s a rat hole. Colapsed ceiling, black mold, roach and mouse infestation… I hope the jerks that own the property don’t see dime one from a land sale – their selection of property manager is shameful
I understand there are problems with these particular properties, but they can be renovated instead of being torn down.
I’ve lived in the Sophian Plaza right on the corner of 46th Terr and Warwick for 15+ years. Its expensive maintaining buildings that are 80 and 90 years old but it should be done.
Already with Highwood, the Plaza area is morfing from a very quaint European-style unique neighborhhod to glitzy cookie cutter America. The Plaza was really the first non-downtown 20s-era shopping district in the country. We need to fight to retain this uniqueness! It started to lose its style when JC Nichols passed away and his son thought buildings line One Ward Parkway & Halls fit with the Seville style. They don’t. You can reallym see a distinct change for the worst on post-J.C. Nichols building projects. Lets not continue this with TIF assistance!
These classic old rental projects are good neighbors. To TIF them into oblivion is public policy and funding at its worst.
I’d even prefer condo conversions on the existing units. With all the similar neighborhood condo conversions (like Ponce de Leon on the same block), it must make sense, it will enhance the building’s maintanence and won’t cost taxpaer funds. Condo convert them and they can still be rented out.