Second fire reported in 2 days at historic KC housing complex under redevelopment
A second fire in two days once again scorched buildings in the Parade Park town homes complex, the site of an ambitious redevelopment project which aims to provide affordable housing in Kansas City.
Firefighters responded around 11 a.m. to a reported fire in the 2100 block of E. 15th Terrace, said Battalion Chief Riley Nolan, a fire department spokesman.
Crews saw heavy smoke and fire from a two-story vacant building. They went inside with four hose lines, Nolan said.
When firefighters searched the apartment and surrounding units, nobody was found inside.
Crews put the fire out within 15 minutes of their response, Nolan said.
No injuries were reported.
The fire marks the second in as many days at the Parade Park complex. Crews also responded around 5:41 p.m. to put out a fire in the 1800 block of E. 15th Terrace on Thanksgiving.
Firefighters reported smoke and fire from both stories of a two-story apartment Thursday. Searches of the building that evening also came back clear, and no one was injured. That blaze was extinguished by 6 p.m., Nolan said.
The Parade Park complex is the site of an ambitious $300 million redevelopment project, which aims to create 1,100 affordable homes in a mixed-income neighborhood of Kansas City’s 18th & Vine Jazz District.
The complex was one of America’s first Black-owned cooperative housing developments. Over the years, deteriorating living conditions 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.
Two days before the project broke ground last October, a fire damaged one of the vacant buildings. No injuries were reported at that time.
Since then, the fire department has devoted a number of resources to putting out several fires in the complex over the last few months, Nolan said in a phone call Friday.
The city’s dangerous buildings department and city planning office has been called to the scene several times, Nolan said.
As of Nov. 28, the complex does not appear on the city’s dangerous buildings list.
“...Those are vacant for the most part now, or should be vacant,” Nolan said of the Parade Park homes. “There’s nothing really inside, so (the fire) kind of gets into the structure. There’s not a lot of contents that are catching fire. It’s more the building that has started to burn.”
In the past, the fire department requested the Kansas City Police Department’s Bomb and Arson unit to assist investigating fires at the complex, Nolan said.
Investigators with the fire department and KCPD were not immediately available Friday to provide an update on past fire investigations at Parade Park.
The fires on Thanksgiving and Friday are still under investigation, Nolan said.
“We’ve sent a lot of resources over that way over the past several months, for sure,” Nolan said. “It’s definitely something we’ve been working with... through our fire prevention office, and hopefully we’ll get something going with it before long.”
