Nearly 150 new apartments coming to vacant Kansas City lot near Crown Center
A long-vacant city-owned lot near Crown Center and Hospital Hill will soon have nearly 150 new apartments, including more than two dozen units set aside as affordable for residents with lower incomes.
Riverstone Platform Partners announced plans on Thursday for The Ascent, a mixed-income project that will add 144 units at 25th and Campbell streets on what is now an empty lot. It could bring at least 165 new residents to midtown’s Longfellow neighborhood within walking distance of local businesses and two streetcar stops.
The project aims to create workforce housing for nurses, technicians and other workers in the area, offering homes to those who work in the area as the Royals plan a $3 billion-plus stadium district around Crown Center, and Children’s Mercy plans a $1 billion tower for its campus.
About 29 units, or 20% of the building, will be affordable for renters making up to 60% of the area median income, which in the Kansas City area is $53,520 for a household of two per federal data. The remaining units will be geared toward those making between 60% and 120% of the area median income.
“The Ascent is the only proposed affordable workforce housing project within a one-mile radius of $5 billion in development,” Kelley Hrabe, founder of development firm 25 Campbell Partners, said in a statement. “It will be critical for employee retention and recruitment for the major employers in the corridor — not to mention addressing the city’s affordable and attainable housing goals.”
The site once contained automotive service structures that were demolished in 2004, according to city documents, and has environmental contamination that the developer will be responsible for cleaning up before construction.
The $34.6 million project will include 48 studios, 82 one-bedrooms and 14 two-bedrooms. Construction could begin in early 2027, and leasing could start in late 2028. Amenities for residents will include a pool, a clubhouse, a fitness center and co-working areas.
The developer is expected to ask the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority, part of the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City, for property and sales tax incentives later this month to help support the project and its affordable units.
The property has generated zero property tax revenue for years because it’s owned by the city and would be expected to bring in new tax dollars with development. Hrabe told The Star that the incentives are needed to keep rents lower and that they would otherwise have to rise by $300 on average to meet lender and investor requirements.
Hrabe said city officials have been supportive of the project and that it’s great timing.