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THE BRUSH CREEK BULLETIN Volume 7, Issue 6 November/December 2005   SHOPS ON BLUE PARKWAY OPEN Anchored by the 55,000 square foot Baron’s Foods, the $31 million Shops on Blue Parkway opened this fall. Benesther Davis (left), resident of the Vineyard Neighborhood and Fannie Milsap, Vineyard Neighborhood Association president, were the first customers at the October 28 opening of the long-anticipated grocery store. The 156,000 square foot retail and office complex along Blue Parkway at Elmwood was developed by Swope Community Builders of Swope Community Enterprises. CORRECTION A front page error deserves a front page correction, at least in The Brush Creek Bulletin. In the September/October edition of the Bulletin, it was stated, “Almost $1.04 billion has been spent on the flood control and beautification project since construction on it started in 1991.” The accurate figure is $104 million. We apologize for both the writing and editing errors that caused this mistake. The recognition of the error, however, gives us the chance to point out that the public investment in the Brush Creek Corridor has leveraged $1.197 billion in private investment along the Corridor, or more than ten times as much in private spending for commercial, retail, housing and institutional projects. 2006 BCCP BOARD IN PLACE Priorities for New Year Established The Brush Creek Community Partners elected nine new members to the board, celebrated accomplishments of the last year and set its course for 2006 at the organization’s Annual Membership Meeting in December. New to the BCCP Board of Directors are: Gary Brown, vice president, Legal Affairs, Swope Community Enterprises; Linda Cook, director, Communications, Midwest Research Institute; James Corwin, chief, Kansas City, Missouri Police Department; Abby Freeman, vice president, Stowers Institute for Medical Research; Elizabeth Levin, vice president, Charity Care, Saint Luke’s Health System; Margaret J. May, executive director, Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council; Sarah McElwee, vice president, Service Center, H&R Block, Inc.; James Stacy, president, MC Lioness Realty Group/DST Systems; and, Joy Wheeler, board chair, FirstGuard Health Plan. They join the 2006 officers and continuing board members who include: President Stan Archie, president, Christian Fellowship Ministries; Vice President Rob Givens, president and chief executive officer, Mazuma Credit Union; Secretary Maurice Watson, partner, Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin, L.L.P.; Treasurer Jim Sangster, president, UMB Bank; Brian Ball, AIA, past president, Rockhill Homes Association and architect, Gastinger Walker Harden Architects; Helen Bryant, board member, Swope Parkway/Elmwood Neighborhood Association and owner, Bryant Real Estate; Kathleen Collins, president, Kansas City Art Institute; Rachael Blackburn Cozad, director, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art; William Downey, president and chief executive officer, Kansas City Power & Light; Gloria Eurotas, executive director, Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance; William Hart, vice president, Blue Hills Neighborhood Association and president, Hart Financial Associates, Inc.; C. Lee Jones, president, Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology; Tim Kristl, commissioner, Kansas City Board of Parks & Recreation and partner, Mitchell, Kristl & Lieber, P.C.; Bob Langenkamp, assistant director, Kansas City Planning and Development Department; Steve McDowell, FAIA, principal, BNIM Architects; Paul Schofer, vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, Kauffman Foundation; Guy Swanson, vice president for Finance and chief financial officer, Rockhurst University; Linda Gill Taylor, director, Center for the City at the University of Missouri-Kansas City; and, Carol Grimaldi, executive director, Brush Creek Community Partners (non-voting). BCCP President Stan Archie thanked Marc Wilson, director and chief executive officer of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for his service to Brush Creek Community Partners since its inception in 1993. Wilson is a founder of the organization and served on its Steering Committee or Board of Directors through this year. Other departing board members include: David Welte, general counsel and assistant secretary, Stowers Institute for Medical Research; Sandra Lawrence, former senior vice president and treasurer. Midwest Research Institute; Mark McPhee, senior vice president and chief operating officer, Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City, and E. Wynn Presson, former senior vice president, Swope Community Enterprises. Progress on Strategic Priorities Going into 2005, the BCCP Board of Directors adopted a set of strategic priorities to guide decisions made about the organization’s activities for the next three-to-five years. At the Annual Membership Meeting, the group recognized gains made in: involving greater numbers of associates of BCCP member organizations in the partnerships’ activities; developing the basis of a physical rendering that creates a long-term vision for the Corridor; actively supporting efforts of Swope Community Builders to advance development plans along the Brush Creek Corridor; and promoting community health through the work of The Paseo Collaborative, which has achieved removal of drug paraphernalia in stores and established a security patrol in a targeted area of the Corridor. In 2006, BCCP will: plan and convene forums on leadership involving the breadth of the Corridor’s leaders and stakeholders; continue to support world class development and planning in which the community is engaged; pursue development of a tennis complex along Brush Creek; use the rendering of the vision created this year in actively marketing the Corridor as a location of choice; and support Corridor neighborhoods by exploring formation of a community improvement district in a targeted area, attack predatory mortgage lending, and execute the residential tax increment financing overlay in Corridor neighborhoods. BCCP will also coordinate efforts to catalyze programming along Brush Creek that supports activities of partner organizations and enhances the Corridor’s potential as a destination location. Further, the partnership will participate in a community-based activity to enhance Kansas City’s discussion of race relations.   PLANS FOR CORRIDOR DEVELOPMENT EMERGE Swope Community Builders Secures Development Rights Swope Community Builders (SCB) has secured the development rights for the area immediately south of Brush Creek between Cleveland Avenue and Bruce R. Watkins Parkway. Its development that could result in as much as $165 million of new investment in the area. The Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Commission of Kansas City and the Kansas City City Council approved SCB’s development plans this fall. SCB partnered with Brush Creek Community Partners to convene several public meetings last summer designed to inform the community of the plans and elicit suggestions for the Brush Creek Area Redevelopment Initiative and the use of TIF revenues that will be generated from initiative. Development plans for the Corridor began in 1996 when Brush Creek Partners commissioned the Brush Creek Corridor Land Use and Development Plan. The Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City used the land use plan as the basis for a proactive corridor TIF plan that identified 14 potential project sites along the Corridor between Elmwood Avenue and Main Street. The Brush Creek Corridor Tax Increment Financing Plan was adopted in 2000; three project sites have been activated. The purpose of SCB’s latest effort is to achieve full realization of the city’s economic objective for the Brush Creek Corridor. Three development concepts under consideration for six project sites along this area of the Corridor include new construction of: 1.4 million square feet of office space and the construction of 450 housing units for a single use/institutional campus; 237,000 square feet of office space, 39,450 square feet of retail development and 66 units of housing for mixed-use office and condominium development; or between 227,500 and 275,000 square feet of office space, 63,000 square feet of new retail space and 605 residential units for different uses among various development sites. As the master developer, SCB can bring other developers into the Corridor’s development through a variety of partnering deal structures including: co-ventures as partners; the sale or lease of cleared sights to other developers; negotiated assignment of the TIF revenue stream; and the sale of development rights. Tens of millions of dollars in TIF revenues may be available to put back into the community. SCB and BCCP plan to continue their dialogue with the community concerning development proposals for the area and the community benefits TIF should finance in the Corridor. A HOME FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD The Vineyard Neighborhood Resource Center opened this fall at 43rd and Spruce Streets. The center will serve as a site of neighborhood meetings and a hub for activities including a food pantry for needy residents and activities for neighborhood youth. The Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance spearheaded the project with funding support from U.S. Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Sunderland Foundation and funders of the Kansas City Community Development Initiative. PARTNER UPDATES Stowers Institute for Medical Research co-founder, James E. Stowers Jr., has received the nation’s top financial services entrepreneur award for 2005. The recognition is part of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards program co-sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Mr. Stowers founded the American Century mutual fund family in 1958. He and his wife, Virginia Stowers, have devoted their personal fortune to establishing combined endowments of $2 billion to support the Stowers Institute. The Stowers’ gift of stock in American Centuries Companies constitutes most of the endowment of the Stowers Institute. Annual dividends from this stock support research conducted at the institute in Kansas City and provide funds for planned expansion of the laboratory facilities. Researchers from the University of Missouri-Kansas City are part of an international collaboration that recently received a $4.4 million, four-year grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicines, a division of the National Institutes of Health. U.S. research teams from UMKC, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri Botanical Garden, University of Texas and Georgetown University will partner with the South African Herbal Science at the University of the Western Cape, University of Cape Town, University of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa, and South African traditional healers. Together, they will study the medicinal properties, safety and effectiveness of several African plants in use today by traditional healers. Other projects will focus on Artemisia afra, which is widely used to treat respiratory infections and is thought to be useful in treating Tuberculosis. Another project will examine the plant’s potential for preventing or treating cervical cancer. Saint Luke’s Hospital’s Mid America Heart Institute has been named in the 100 Top Hospitals®: Cardiovascular Benchmarks for Success. It is the only Kansas City area hospital named to the list developed by Solucient, an Illinois-based health care industry information company. The annual study on cardiovascular services objectively measures performance against key criteria at the nation's top performing acute-care hospitals. Midwest Research Institute staff was part of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security project to develop a prototype Portable High-Throughput Integrated Laboratory Identification System. Up to 30 MRI employees, including interns, worked with Hamilton Sundstrand, ENG Mobile Systems and Agilent Technologies last summer on the first of its kind mobile laboratory capable of analyzing hundreds of samples a day to identify areas that may be contaminated by dangerous chemical compounds. MRI developed protocols to accurately test for dozens of chemicals in samples from a spill or attack. The Helzberg School of Management at Rockhurst University has created the new Center for Leadership and Ethics with a primary focus on improving the quality of life for the community through the development of principled leaders. The center embraces ideas such as strategic philanthropy, in which organizations respond to real community needs in a way that aligns with their organizational mission and is good for business. The center will engage individuals and area businesses, governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations on several levels, ranging from speaker series, workshops and colloquia, to consultation on sustainable economic development for the common good. The Kauffman Foundation recently launched Kauffman eVenturingTM a new web site that provides growth-oriented entrepreneurs a convenient way to access current, practical information on how to start, manage, and grow their businesses - contributed by entrepreneurs who have "been there." The site is organized around key subjects such as finance and accounting, people and human resources, sales and marketing, products and services, operations, and the entrepreneur. The website address is www.eVenturing.org. PARTNERS PART OF DOWNTOWN ART "Uplifted Arms" by Kansas City Art Institute graduates Dylan Mortimer and Davin Watne is the latest contribution to downtown art. Sixteen, life-sized, diverse figures on glass panels represent the community’s bus riders. The installation at the KCATA Plaza at 10th and Main Streets is the first of the Art in the Loop Foundation’s first project, which involves BCCP members the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation and the Kansas City Art Institute. THANK YOU, STUDENTS! By Carol A. Grimaldi BCCP Executive Director I’ve been working for Brush Creek Partners/Brush Creek Community Partners since May 1996. It’s a great gig! I have the privilege of working with some Kansas City’s finest leaders on behalf of some of the community’s greatest organizations. To be able to work with dozens of people on realizing a shared vision for the Brush Creek Corridor is demanding, rewarding and compelling. But as much fun as this job can be on a day-to-day basis, I sometimes get to work on something even more fun. Like when I get to work with students. And that’s what happened this semester. Earlier this year, I approached faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Architecture, Urban Planning and Design program about BCCP and UMKC collaborating on a map of the Brush Creek Corridor through which prospective investors would see a vision for the area’s future. Several economic and neighborhood revitalization initiatives are underway that will change the face of the Corridor, but it’s hard for anyone to visualize the big picture of change, especially the potential. It was immediately determined designing a 20-year vision for the Corridor by the seniors in the program’s Design Studio III class this fall was the perfect project for both BCCP and UMKC. UMKC’s Studio Design III class, which worked this semester on creating a 20-year vision for the Brush Creek Corridor (from left): Christopher Hughey; Mark Price; Renata Alomari; Jared Paulsen; Instructor Richard Wetzel, AIA; Bart Rudolph; Jawairia Sial; and Venessa Spartan. From late August through early December, this project gave seven very talented students the chance to work with real world professionals, many of whom have worked on Brush Creek, practical experience and direction. Members of the stakeholder and expert Steering Committee looked forward to late afternoon/early evening meetings with the student group. The students made us proud at the recent “final exam” public presentation of a semester’s work. What we have now is a picture of what the Brush Creek Corridor could be, grounded in reality, enhanced by fresh thinking and unfettered by common practice or routine. The class’ vision includes neighborhood centers, connectivity along and across the creek, and improved recreational, housing, retail and institutional uses consistent with the dreams we all have for the Corridor. Solutions to seemingly intractable problems were offered. Will we ever see a three-tied transportation hub at the juncture of Brush Creek and Bruce R. Watkins Parkway as proposed by the students? Probably not in my lifetime, but it’s a great point to jump off in thinking about how to better connect Corridor residents, employees and visitors to jobs, services and amenities along Brush Creek. I personally want to thank UMKC’s College of Arts and Sciences and its Architecture, Urban Planning Design faculty, and the members of the volunteer Steering Committee, all of whom were dedicated to the project. And I will speak for the Steering Committee in publicly thanking the students, who reprogrammed our way of thinking so we can consider new possibilities and make us that much more excited about the future. Hang on to your fresh perspectives. We know your futures are very bright!