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THE BRUSH CREEK BULLETIN Volume 5, Issue 8 September 2003   TEN YEARS OF PROGRESS Significant Investment, Community Cohesion Realized Since 1993 Formation of Brush Creek Community Partners Former Kansas City Mayor Emanuel Cleaver says no one imagined in 1992 that a drive from 63rd Street down the Paseo around Brush Creek, Rockhurst College and the University of Missouri-Kansas City would one day be one of the most scenic drives in the metro area. Today, current Mayor Kay Barnes takes visitors along that route to show off more than $1 billion in investment that has all happened in the past ten years. She’s able to point out new businesses such as the H&R Block Service Center, the new Gates Bar-B-Q restaurant and Valencia Place on the Plaza. She’s able to point out healthy neighborhoods with new homes in Troostwood and Mount Cleveland Heights. She’s able to show visitors a cluster of new institutions and amenities including the Kauffman Foundation, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, and the Ewing and Muriel Kauffman Memorial Garden. Mayor Kay Barnes Barnes says the revival of the Brush Creek Corridor is a very important ingredient in the revitalization of Kansas City. “It provides the most visual and dramatic evidence of success from east to west, and across Troost, which used to be a racial barrier in the city.” And she says the progress has been made possible by Brush Creek Community Partners, a group that has brought together neighborhood leadership and institutional partners. “It’s an example to the rest of the community about what can happen when people and organizations work together,” Barnes says. Brush Creek before 1993 Many people and organizations that today make up Brush Creek Community Partners were already in the Corridor ten years ago. But back in 1993, the rest of the city associated one thing with the name Brush Creek – the 1977 flood that killed 25 people and did $100 million worth of property damage. It was a devastating event for the entire city, and especially for the neighborhoods that surrounded Brush Creek. As Blue Hills Neighborhood President Pat Keeling remembers it, “Brush Creek created a lot of problems for neighborhoods back then.” 1977 Brush Creek flood at the Plaza The rest of the city may have visited the area to attend classes at UMKC or Rockhurst or visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Many of the city’s cultural institutions were clustered in the Corridor. Yet few ventured east of Troost Avenue, the symbolic dividing line between the prosperous Country Club Plaza to the west and the struggling neighborhoods to the east. In a sense, the rebirth of Brush Creek today grew out of that 1977 flood. The city appealed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the corps agreed to put in a new bridge and widen the channel. As part of the so-called “Cleaver Plan,” the city used the opportunity to add new fountains, concrete walkways and other beautification features. The $50 million in federal and local improvements began in 1991. Around the same time, scattered improvements came to the Corridor. The Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center opened in 1989, and the Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts opened in 1992. The decade-old Swope Parkway Health Center (now Swope Health Services) broadened its scope to include neighborhood reinvestment through its Community Builders program. The Founding Years of Brush Creek Community Partners: 1993-1998 The time was right for a new organization to bring together the stakeholders in the Brush Creek Corridor. The realization began with a group of cultural institutions around Brush Creek who came together for quite a different reason. On September 18, 1993, then-UMKC Chancellor Eleanor Schwartz called a meeting to introduce the university’s master plan to the cultural institutions around it. Representatives from Midwest Research Institute, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Kauffman Foundation and others discussed the plan. C. Lee Jones, president of Linda Hall Library, says those in the room began to see they had common issues. “A series of light bulbs were going off,” Jones says. “We realized we had a common interest that, if we could address collectively, would make all of us stronger.” If any single moment can be defined as the “birth” of Brush Creek Community Partners, it was that meeting. The institutions decided to form an organization, to work together to develop “a world class cultural and research district.” The group defined its boundaries as 39th Street to 59th Street, Swope Parkway to J.C. Nichols Parkway. Founding members included the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Rockhurst College, Midwest Research Institute, Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City, Health Midwest, Linda Hall Library, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Kansas City Art Institute and Gates Management Corporation. BCCP Leaders (from left): Bob Rogers, chairman, Brush Creek Partners, 1997-1998; David Welte, president, Brush Creek Community Partners since 2002; E. Frank Ellis, president, Brush Creek Community Partners, 1999-2001. Soon after its formation, E. Frank Ellis, president of Swope Parkway Health Center was invited to meet with the group. His group was working on ideas for development and neighborhood improvements east of Troost. Other institutional partners were located west of Troost. In 1994, they began to talk about bridging development plans across Troost. “We began to talk about crossing the dividing line, “ says Ellis, who is now chairman of Swope Community Enterprises. “It was exciting. “ The Neighborhoods Come to the Table The cultural and redevelopment plans moved forward rapidly. The partners were excited by their new strategies for working together, spurred on by Father Thom Savage, then the president of Rockhurst, and Bob Rogers, then the chairman of the Kauffman Foundation. Savage was the first chair of Brush Creek Partners. He was succeeded by Rogers who chaired the group in 1997 and 1998. It was Rogers who suggested that in addition to the original partners, the neighborhoods of the Corridor needed to be invited to the table. “If all you are doing is putting up walls between you and your neighbors, you don’t get anywhere,” Rogers says. “It is important to sit down together and break bread together.” Rogers says it was critical to build trust between all the partners before planning for the future could begin. As neighborhoods came, it wasn’t immediately easy for the neighborhoods and the institutions to find their common areas of concern. Jones says the group actually took several steps back, as they realized they had made their plans without including the neighborhoods. But the institutions and the neighborhoods continued to meet. The relationships have paid off for everyone. “Now, my sense is there is no more we and they,” Jones says. “There is a healthier us, as healthy as any group I’ve ever been associated with.” Brush Creek Partners amended its mission statement to read, “to develop a world class cultural and research district surrounded by healthy neighborhoods.” Neighborhood leader Keeling says in addition to developing relationships with the institutions, the neighborhoods along Brush Creek had to learn to work together. “I feel the relationship between neighborhoods is stronger in the Brush Creek Corridor than in any other part of the city,” Keeling says. “That’s a result of what Brush Creek Community Partners has done.” She believes the biggest success has been the ability to keep all the partners coming back to the table month after month, without losing enthusiasm or becoming burnt out. The Formalization of Brush Creek Community Partners: 1998 to Today By 1998, Brush Creek Partners was moving forward. The group had broadened its focus from safety, neighborhood enhancement and community development to include economic development and public policy advocacy. The Kauffman Foundation provided a $175,000 seed grant to Brush Creek Community Partners that year. The newly-formed permanent board set a dues structure and hired project manager Carol Grimaldi as the group’s full-time executive director in 1999. Frank Ellis was elected president in 1998 and served in this capacity for three years. U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez met with Brush Creek Community Partners and other city leaders in 2001. Buildings began rising up on both sides of the Corridor and on either side of Troost. Such important developments as the Kauffman Foundation and the Stowers Institute on the west were mirrored by the H&R Block Service Center and the FirstGuard Health Plan Building on the east of Troost. As the buildings were built, the city, institutions, organizations, businesses, faith groups and neighborhoods of the Brush Creek Corridor were putting together plans for the future. The Brush Creek Corridor Land Use and Development Plan was initiated in 1996, setting a course for future development. The City’s Tax Increment Financing Commission prepared a comprehensive plan for the Corridor to spur private investment in the area. Recently, the Parks Department prepared a master plan for the area that will guide improvements over the next decade. The opening of Stowers Institute for Medical Research at 50th Street between Troost Avenue and Rockhill Road in 2001 represented a tremendous boost tot he community's life sciences efforts. The success in the Brush Creek Corridor today is a direct result of the time and energy all those groups put into developing those plans. Assistant City Manager Vicki Noteis says the plans that the city and Brush Creek Corridor stakeholders worked out have made today’s new development possible. “It didn’t just happen. All of the improvements you see today relate back to plans the public produced,” Noteis says. The relationships that had been formed in the early days of Brush Creek Partners, and the many hours the members put into developing plans and strategies are now paying off. The 88-unit Mount Cleveland Heights duplex village along Cleveland Avenue at 51st Street opened in 1999. Bob Rogers, who served as chairman of Brush Creek Partners in 1997 and 1998, agrees. He has watched Brush Creek Community Partners as people with common interests came together. He says things did not change overnight and for some people, that was frustrating. But today, he says, “Brush Creek Community Partners serves as a national model for how to do these things.”   BCCP Leader Looks Forward To Ten More Years of Progress Brush Creek Community Partners (BCCP) President David Welte has seen the organization grow and change since he got involved in 1996. He says the young organization was informal and not very structured, but still managed to accomplish a lot. Today, a more grown up BCCP has developed a very clear focus. Welte says three years ago, the BCCP board took some time to really think about what it was trying to do. “The board concluded we are a facilitator, a catalyst. We need to help maintain relationships” between cultural institutions, businesses, the faith community, government entities, neighborhoods and other stakeholders in the Brush Creek Corridor. David Welte Welte, shareholder in the law firm of Polsinelli Shalton & Welte, represents the Stowers Institute for Medical Research on the Brush Creek Community Partners Board of Directors. As BCCP President since 2002 he chairs the partnership board. “The main focus right now is pushing economic development east beyond Troost Avenue, removal of blight, and the development of retail and other commercial business necessary to support healthy neighborhoods,” Welte says. At the same time, BCCP is staying involved with the Brush Creek flood control as well as its beautification as the Parks Department’s master plan for the parkway is being implemented. “We have to do everything we can to erase Troost as an economic barrier. And, we need to promote viable business and healthy neighborhoods east of Troost and north and south of Cleaver Boulevard,” he added. A significant tool to accomplish this is BCCP’s development of the Brush Creek Corridor Economic Development Plan. Welte says he pushed for that plan because he wants to be able to show developers what opportunities are available in the Corridor. Welte says the most valuable thing the organization has achieved over the past ten years has been the credibility and the working relationships it has developed with City Hall, the Parks Department, the federal government and its own stakeholders. Over the next ten years, he hopes BCCP can enhance that credibility and broaden its relationships. The reconstruction of Blue Parkway and Brush Creek flood control and beautification work on the east end of the Corridor in the mid-1990s has been essential to the overall success of the redevelopment effort. Brush Creek Community Partners works closely with government agencies in their work on the public investment being made along the Corridor. The early decision to bring neighborhoods to the table has paid off, Welte says. Even the economic development plan points out the importance of healthy neighborhoods. The neighborhoods also deliver an unusual diversity of opinions to the board. “At our meetings, everyone feels very comfortable speaking their opinions. They know they will be respected. We get some of our best perspectives from people who do not run large businesses or institutions. The disparity of our members is one of our strengths,” Welte says. The BCCP President believes the next ten years will present the partnership with a new set of challenges and opportunities. Initially funded by the Kauffman Foundation; it is now independent, supported by 58 member organizations. Welte says he is proud of the independence. As BCCP continues to make progress, Welte is aware the group will have to keep members from thinking their work is done. He attributes the early success of the organization to the power of having the chief executive officers of many of the city’s top cultural, educational and research institutions personally at the table. He says those long-time members and supporters are important, but he also believes BCCP will be more vital as the Corridor develops and new members come to the table.