Seventeen members of our community traveled to St. Louis to meet with top officials at McCormack Baron Salazar, a nationally renowned community redeveloper. This is what they say about themselves, "Our mission is to rebuild urban neighborhoods in central cities across the United States that have deteriorated through decades of neglect and disinvestment. In partnership with communities, we bring vision, experience, and commitment to the challenge of community revitalization.
We believe in the future of urban America."
What did I take away from the trip? I should manage my expectations. There is a clear interest in coming to Pensacola but everything must fit. That MBS is interested in no way means that this is a done deal.
So I asked the take-away question at our final meeting, "What must we do as a community to get MBS to come help with our redevelopment?" They said, the city and county governments must work better together, petty political posturing must stop, the school board should come on board.
When asked what it is the local governments are doing right, they said cooperative funding for moving the waste water treatment facility was extremely positive, plans for opening up our waterfront, our new CRA plan, and that such a broad base of community leaders came to meet with them (more than double than normally get).
Their biggest criticism was the school board operating in a vacuum, working on strictly a business model and not an organic community model.
I really like this group. When they invest in a community, they come with money and they come to stay. They have three components of their group. One does development, another management, and the third ties the first two together with a multiplier in that it goes after multi-level government funding from outside the community, foundation grants, and local investment into community centers, schools, libraries, arts centers, etc.
Below is a description of one of their redevelopments:
Quality Hill Kansas City, MO
52,000 Commercial Sq. Ft.
496 units
Total Development Investment $54,594,000
The Quality Hill neighborhood of Kansas City has a colorful – and odorous – history. Quality Hill was settled by New Englanders in the 1850s. These 19th century entrepreneurs sought fortune in the Midwest’s booming railroad, banking, and meatpacking industries.
Successful almost immediately, the new elite built mansions, hotels, and private clubs along a bluff that provided vistas to the west. But success had its drawbacks, as well – most notably the “smell of money,” the odors from the vast stockyards that filled the West Bottoms area below the bluffs of Quality Hill. Soon the noxious odors from the teeming herds of cattle and hogs drove the neighborhood’s residents to more pristine settings outside the city.
Quality Hill began a precipitous decline that continued even after the stockyards were removed in the 1950s. Following a wave of development in the eastern edge of downtown Kansas City – including a convention center, hotel, and theater district – there was an impetus to investigate the hidden potential of Quality Hill as a residential neighborhood. At the same time, existing residents and advocates of affordable housing feared that new development would leave no place for lower-income households. A solid partnership and creative financing ensured that Quality Hill could be renewed while maintaining a supply of affordable apartments.
Richard Baron toured the neighborhood in the early 1980s at the invitation of Tony Salazar, then Director of the Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance (now President of West Coast Operations for McCormack Baron Salazar). Baron and Salazar recognized the historic significance and attractiveness of the remaining Quality Hill mansions, hotels, and clubs. Three years of persistence, lobbying, and coalition building bore results: in 1985 McCormack Baron Salazar began an historic rehab and new construction development creating over 300 apartments and condominiums, and thousands of square feet of commercial space in Quality Hill.
McCormack Baron Salazar arranged an intricate and complex financial structure to make the development possible. The company brought historic tax credits, foundation support (led by the Hall Family Foundation), bank loans, and City funds to the deal. The development won designation as an Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. New construction matches the stately historic buildings, and calls out the New England architectural traditions of the founders of Quality Hill.
The grand hotels and clubs have been renovated for commercial and residential use. The Coates House Hotel, which hosted Presidents Cleveland, Hamilton, McKinley, and Teddy Roosevelt, and survived a devastating fire in the 1970s, is now an apartment building with the original marble staircase, eleven-foot ceilings, and original oversized windows. Affordability and diversity have been maintained. Stockbrokers, teachers, hotel workers, police officers, and lawyers all reside in meticulously restored or brand new apartments. Red brick, stone trim, bay windows, and wrought iron railings are just a few of the architectural features that make Quality Hill so special. Its grandeur restored, Quality Hill today is a place for all Kansas Citians.
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