‘A good day for Kansas City’: 18th & Vine will finally land a new place to live, play
A new development in Kansas City’s 18th & Vine Jazz District has finally been given the go-ahead.
After nearly two years of conversation, a proposal for apartments and retail space that comes with promises of revitalization in the historic area was approved by the Kansas City City Council with an 11-1 vote on Thursday, including a yes vote from a council member who previously opposed the proposal, citing concerns about gentrification.
“It’s a good day for Kansas City,” said Councilman Lee Barnes Jr., District 5 at-large, who sponsored the legislation with Mayor Quinton Lucas. “I’m pleased to be on the right side of history on this.”
Development ‘long overdue’
The district, 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 entertainment districts have flourished, despite millions in city subsidies.
“The city’s blighted and dangerous buildings have been choking the life out of the district for decades,” Henry Service, the owner of the Historic Lincoln Building at the corner of 18th and Vine streets, said Wednesday before the Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee. “We’ve been promised development in the area for decades.”
Much of the property in the 18th & Vine neighborhood is owned by the city. This includes the parcel of land chosen for the development, bordered by 18th Street to the north, Vine Street to the east, 19th Street to the south and The Paseo to the west.
“It’s unconscionable what’s been happening down there,” Service told committee members, adding that the development was “long overdue.”
But Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, District 3, which includes 18th & Vine, said Monday she feared the proposed agreement with 18th & Vine LLC didn’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.
In an interview with The Star prior to Thursday’s council vote, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said he trusted the Black development team to be sensitive to concerns of nearby residents and rejected claims that the project would raise rents for residents or businesses.
“I think it is necessary that we get things moving,” he said. “I know that no one is actually being displaced because there’s nothing occupied in the area that’s actually subject to the RFP.”
Lucas, who was raised on Kansas City’s East Side, noted that he spent most of his adult life living in the 18th & Vine district. He says residents there have watched as the city has invested in big projects like a city-funded $36 million soccer complex in the Northland.
Yet residents at 18th & Vine have put up with blighted and dangerous properties for years, which this development would reverse, he said.
The mayor said the council has raised more questions about this mixed use development than it did on controversial projects like the city’s $7.5 million incentive package for an insurance company looking to move one mile into a new Crown Center office tower or the city’s ongoing subsidies of the Loews convention hotel downtown.
“I think sometimes development at 18th and Vine is death by a thousand cuts,” he said. “We ask more questions, create more obstacles, create more impediments here than I think we do elsewhere.”
Councilwoman Robinson was still critical of the development on social media, but she ultimately voted in favor of it. District 3 at-large Councilman Brandon Ellington was the only council member to vote against the ordinance.
18th & Vine LLC
In June 2020, the city issued a request for proposals for residential and commercial construction on that piece of land in the heart of the district.
The 18th & Vine LLC set its eyes on the development. Three months later, the 18th and Vine Development Policy Committee recommended a project proposed by the group. The following month, the Kansas City Council accepted that recommendation, allowing the city manager to begin negotiating an agreement.
The city has said it will sell the property for $1. The property was appraised at $0.
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.”
The mayor isn’t too concerned with the developer’s $8 million financing gap. Because the property is still owned by the city, developers have yet to make a formal request for incentives, which will likely fill some or all of that gap. Incentives will also ensure that the development includes affordable housing units, thanks to new city rules regarding incentives.
If the 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.
If construction doesn’t begin within three years after closing, the city can choose to buy back the property for $1.
The mayor’s office said the developer must also 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.
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. The developer is expected to apply for incentives after acquiring the property.
A provision was added Wednesday that shows the city’s intent to “develop a program to support small businesses in the district by providing funding to support start up costs” as part of the project to help address barriers to entry for entrepreneurs.
The project also requires that the existing facades be preserved.
“We understand the importance of the district and understand that it’s really the heart and soul of the African American community in Kansas City,” Leonard Graham, one of the developers, said of himself and Kelvin Simmons, a former Kansas City councilman and state economic development director who is part owner of the LLC and developer on the project.
This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 5:59 PM.
