Will something finally get built on empty site in Kansas City’s 18th & Vine District?
After nearly two years of conversation, a proposal for apartments and retail space that comes with promises of revitalization for Kansas City’s 18th & Vine Jazz District may soon be one step closer to breaking ground.
But with gentrification concerns across the East Side, there is debate about how the plan could affect residents and businesses.
Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, District 3, which includes 18th & Vine, said Monday she fears the proposed agreement with 18th & Vine LLC doesn’t safeguard against displacement and gentrification.
“The protections just aren’t strong enough,” Robinson said. “Oftentimes, we just allow developers to set the agenda for the benefit of seeing a structure go up. But it’s people that are going to be impacted by the structure; it’s people that are going to use the structure. And so our responsibility is to our taxpayers, not the developer.”
Robinson said the project would bring only market-rate apartments to the area. But the mayor’s office said the developer must abide by the city’s new affordable housing policy, which requires projects seeking incentives to set aside a certain number of units for lower-income individuals.
Robinson acknowledged that no one will be immediately displaced by the development, which will bring new life to an area residents view as blighted. Neighborhood groups, including the 18th & Vine Community Council, are urging City Hall to approve the deal, calling the vacant property “the most important corner”of the historic district.
Robinson said this and other developments could still push housing costs up. The more funds private developers pour into the area, the more difficult it will be to control rents in the future.
Aside from this project, she hopes to include language that would ensure affordable housing remains in the district long-term, after the expiration of tax credits that were used to subsidize construction of many units in the area. Those properties are scheduled to transition from affordable to market rate rents after the tax credit ends.
“In the next 10 years, you could have a scenario in which all of the developments are market rate, and those people who live there now won’t be able to afford to live there, and the new properties that the city is incentivizing … will not have any affordable units,” she said.
18th & Vine, LLC
The 18th & Vine neighborhood, a historic section of Kansas City’ Black east side and home to the American Jazz Museum, the Gem Theatre and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, has struggled to thrive while other other entertainment districts have flourished, despite millions in city subsidies.
The city owns many properties in the area. In June 2020, it issued a request for proposals for residential and commercial construction on a piece of vacant, municipally-owned land in the heart of the district.
Three months later, the 18th and Vine Development Policy Committee recommended a project proposed by 18th & Vine Developers LLC. The following month, the Kansas City Council accepted that recommendation, allowing the city manager to begin negotiating an agreement.
The 18th & Vine, LLC development, with apartments and retail space, is set to be constructed on property bordered by 18th Street to the north, Vine Street to the east, 19th Street to the south and The Paseo to the west.
The convergence of the right plan with the right developer has been a long time coming, Councilman Lee Barnes Jr., District 5 at-large, told The Star.
“We are really attempting to clean up the blight and I think this project will invigorate the district from the standpoint of bringing in market rate housing and completing the retail aspects,” Barnes said.
The city plans to sell the property for $1. The cost of the project, which will include 54 apartments and 33,000 square feet of retail space, was set at $23 million. But the developer has identified and the city has acknowledged an $8 million gap in the project’s financing.
It’s unclear where that funding will come from. The proposed agreement calls for the city to “work collaboratively” with the developer to identify and secure the extra funding needed.
“The current agreement before council doesn’t directly include any funding,” said City Manager Brian Platt, “but should the development project agreement receive council approval the City is committed to making a good faith effort to assist where needed with any and all available sources of financing,”
If that additional funding can’t be secured within 18 months, the proposal allows either party to back out of the plan. If 30 months go by without the additional funding source, the whole agreement will be terminated.
One of the developers, Kelvin Simmons, a former Kansas City councilman and state economic development director, declined to comment Monday.
The development agreement notes that the project sits within an area drawn by the Planned Industrial Development Authority, one of the city’s economic development incentive agencies. But developers will have to apply for any tax incentives separately, officials said.
Gentrification fears
Robinson and District 3 at-large Councilman Brandon Ellington have filed legislation to reject the project, which is sponsored by Barnes and Mayor Quinton Lucas. The District 3 Council members want to entirely restart the RFP process.
She worries that long-term, residents and business owners in the overwhelmingly Black district could later be pushed out by higher housing costs or other expenses.
“A position of strength would be ‘Yes, you could have this for $1, but we have to protect the public in the process. Yes, you could have this for $1, but we’re also going to invest to ensure that it’s not gentrified,’” she said.
In 2016, the city approved nearly $28 million in funding for infrastructure and improvements to buildings in the district. But few renovations or projects have been approved since then.
The Kansas City Call, the city’s historically Black newspaper that’s housed in the 18th & Vine District, published an editorial Friday stating that while both sides of the argument have valid points, the development has faced continued delays while other businesses, like the Loews hotel, have risen in that same time.
“The one project that could make a difference in the economically depressed area is stalled in the starting blocks over issues that simply don’t make sense,” the piece reads. “I commend the noble attitude for all involved looking out for the Black Community’s interest, but that interest has to come full circle and include economic development as well.”
The city’s Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee is set to discuss the development agreement at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. The committee could advance the ordinance to full council for a vote as soon as Thursday.
Robinson, despite her desire to spend more time considering the proposal, said she is not against the development.
“I’m hoping that the 18th & Vine district will be returned back to its original glory,” Robinson said. “I’m hoping that we will have a rich, diverse set of retail and a strong economy in the district, where it’s diverse racially, diverse economically.”
While 18th and Vine is a “crown jewel,” she said, the current conditions it’s been left in are “beyond bearable, beyond embarrassing.”
The Star’s Cortlynn Stark contributed.
This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
