Fire consumes vacant Parade Park town homes during KC redevelopment
Firefighters battled another blaze at an apartment complex Thursday that has been troubled by multiple fires in recent months.
Crews responded around 5:41 p.m. on Thanksgiving to the 1800 block of E. 15th Terrace in the Parade Park town homes complex.
Upon arrival, firefighters reported smoke and fire from both stories of a two-story vacant building, according to Battalion Chief Riley Nolan, a fire department spokesman.
Nolan said crews went inside the building with three hose lines to fight the blaze. They searched the building and no one was found inside.
The fire was brought under control just before 6 p.m., Nolan said.
No one was injured in the incident.
Nolan said in an email that firefighters have responded to multiple fires at the Parade Park complex over the past several months.
The complex, situated in Kansas City’s 18th and Vine District, was one of America’s first Black-owned cooperative housing developments. Over the years, it faced financial woes, structural issues, and worsening living conditions that forced residents to move out.
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development took over the property in 2022 and foreclosed on it in 2023. Kansas City then bought the property in that foreclosure sale and transferred ownership to Flaherty & Collins and Twelfth Street Heritage Corporation for redevelopment.
In October, the city broke ground for a $300 million redevelopment project at the complex, which aims to create 1,100 affordable homes in the mixed-income neighborhood.
Nolan said the cause of the fire that happened at the complex on Thanksgiving is under investigation.
This story was originally published November 28, 2025 at 7:28 AM.
