Kansas City picks developer to transform historic Black-owned housing co-op Parade Park
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A year after the federal government seized one of the nation’s oldest Black-owned housing cooperatives to keep it from falling further into disrepair and financial collapse, Kansas City officials think they’ve found the right developer to buy and transform Parade Park Homes.
On Thursday, the City Council will vote to authorize the city manager to negotiate a deal with Indianapolis-based Flaherty & Collins Properties to construct mixed-income housing and perhaps some commercial buildings on the 26-acre site next to the 18th & Vine Historic Jazz District.
Flaherty & Collins’ partner on the project would be the Twelfth Street Heritage Development Corp. of Kansas City. Specifics of their proposal have not been released.
Mayor Quinton Lucas and 3rd District Councilwoman Melissa Robinson said at a committee meeting Tuesday that selection of a prospective developer is a hopeful next step for rejuvenating Parade Park Homes.
If the project moves forward, Robinson said Parade Park residents would be relocated and given a right to return once the work is done. Fewer than half of the 510 townhome units were occupied in 2022.
Built in the 1960s, Parade Park Homes was once a source of pride on the city’s East Side, providing low-income families a way to build equity as part owners of the cooperative that owned the complex. But over the past 15 years, property maintenance deteriorated due to a decline in revenue that spiraled downward as more and more residents moved away.
According to a request for proposals from developers that the city issued in October, the units are “in varying conditions of livability, some being irremediable.”
HUD took control when it was clear the co-op would not be able to repay the $10 million it owed the government and that both the value of that asset and conditions for the residents would decline unless HUD brought in new management.
The agency has advertised Parade Park for a foreclosure sale in March, which would allow HUD to take ownership and then transfer the deed to the city for a nominal fee, which Lucas said was $10. The city would then transfer ownership to the Flaherty & Collins partnership – or another developer, if those negotiations fall through – under terms of a development agreement.
HUD would retain an ownership interest valued at about $12 million.
The city sought proposals from developers willing to buy, rehabilitate or redevelop the property, preferably with mixed-income residential space and ground-floor retail. The RFP was not specific.
“The City will consider commercial, office, retail, recreational facilities, or any other development that contributes to the betterment of Kansas City, Missouri in addition to the residential development required,” the RFP said.
Kansas City and its port authority, Port KC, have partnered with Flaherty & Collins before on apartment building projects on publicly owned land along the riverfront and the River Market.
The company and Twelfth Street are now finishing up work on a different affordable housing project near the jazz district. Jazz Hill will include 181 units of affordable housing in 11 buildings that underwent historic preservation along The Paseo between Ninth and 14th streets. People are already moving in.
Their proposal for Parade Park was one of four the city received. Its contents will remain confidential through the negotiating process, which is the city’s regular practice.
As part of the deal, the developer must sign a community benefits agreement that would, according to the request for proposals, “address local hiring and union participation, climate resiliency, home ownership, and maintaining the project’s historical value and significance to Kansas City.”
Parade Park was home to many prominent Kansas Citians, including baseball player Reggie Jackson and Bruce R. Watkins, a former Tuskegee Airmen and the first African American person elected to Kansas City’s City Council.
Lucas’ mother also lived there until recently when she, too, moved out to escape the decay.
“The Parade Park cooperative serves as one of the few examples in the country of housing built by private enterprise that is truly within the reach of families of moderate income,” a city report said.
Reporter Anna Spoerre contributed to this article.
This story was originally published December 14, 2023 at 7:30 AM.
