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Kansas City

Kansas City-area named pilot city in effort to curb environmental injustice

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KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The goal for Aurora Pantojo Conejo, a native of Kansas City, Kansas’ Quindaro neighborhood seems pretty simple.

“I want to live long and healthy,” Conejo said.

A study by We Are Wyandotte, a locally-based organization working to improve health outcomes of Wyandotte County residents, found that residents in the Rosedale, Amourdale, Riverview and Kensington neighborhoods can live on average 20 years less than residents in neighborhoods to the west of them in Wyandotte County.

As part of the effort to improve health outcomes, organizations like CleanAirNow are working to highlight environmental injustice by showing officials first-hand what neighborhoods face every day.

Conejo was part of a group of community members that came together with federal, state and local officials for a bus tour of toxic sites in Wyandotte County.

On Thursday morning, a bus full of environmental justice non-governmental organization representatives and Kansas City-area community members left the transportation hub in Argentine on a guided tour through Argentine, Armourdale, Riverview and other areas of KCK visibly affected by environmental injustice.

Following the tour, federal, state and local officials joined the tour attendees for a conversation focused on the Justice40 Initiative, an executive order President Biden signed just days after taking office in early 2021.

“Because of the Biden Administration, we have more dollars available to reverse all of the harm humans have been doing than we’ve ever had in history …,” U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D – Missouri) said at the event.

Lily O’Shea Becker

Kansas City, Kansas, Mayor Tyrone Garner, U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver and other officials took turns speaking during the press conference that followed the toxic sites tour.

The initiative calls on the federal government to strive to allocate 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal investments toward disadvantaged communities that are “marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution.”

“Our eastern portion of our city has been disinvested, disenfranchised for so long, so these kinds of conversations are really important to our residents and to the people that call Wyandotte County home,” Kansas City, Kansas, Mayor Tyrone Garner said at the event.

As part of Thursday’s event, We ACT for Environmental Justice, a membership-based organization that mobilizes low-income communities of color to make environmental change and helped organize the toxic tour event, announced Kansas City as the first city in the country to be awarded funding through its new Justice40rward Pilot Cities program. The program will select one nonprofit in five metropolitan areas, and CleanAirNow was awarded $100,000 for work in Kansas City.

“This program creates accountability to maximize federal funding allocations, educates local and state officials about the Justice40 Initiative and adds needed capacity to community-based organizations to advance meaningful projects designed to address environmental justice directly,” said Dana Johnson, senior director of strategy and federal policy for WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “We are thrilled to collaborate with CleanAirNow, and to recognize them for their efforts.”

Garner represented the Unified Government of Wyandotte County, and Kansas City, Kansas, at the event to proclaim April 13, 2023, “CleanAirNow Environmental Justice Day” in Wyandotte County.

“We’re not talking about air pollution, we’re talking about environmental racism,” Beto Lugo-Martinez, co-executive director of CleanAirNow, said while on the toxic sites tour.

The tour drove participants through historically Hispanic communities of Wyandotte County. Nearly 33 percent of Wyandotte County identifies as Hispanic, a population that continues to grow as it saw a 34.1% increase between 2010 and 2020, according to the University of Kansas.

Attendees saw communities surrounded by rail yards, scrap yards, industrial plants, EPA designated Superfund sites and previous toxic waste sites. Many former and current facilities in the area have contaminated the soil, air and groundwater of these communities, according to CleanAirNow and the Center for Science and Democracy.

A report co-written by CleanAirNow and the Center for Science and Democracy looked at how the history of redlining in the Kansas City area has contributed to the ways in which local marginalized communities are affected by environmental injustice.

“Historically, communities of color overburdened with cumulative impacts have resided closer to the industrialized sections of Kansas City because they have been blocked from living in other areas and because industries were allowed to be sited in or near their neighborhoods,” the report’s authors said.

Days after a rainfall, days-old rain water remained standing on the streets of Argentine due to the absence of stormwater drains. Approximately 80 percent of homes in Argentine have rotted frames because of regular flooding, according to CleanAirNow co-executive director Atenas Mena.

argentine water

Lily O’Shea Becker

Days-old rainwater stands on the streets of Argentine due to a lack of stormwater drainage.

Joshua Tapp, office director of intergovernmental affairs of the Environmental Protection Agency Region Seven, attended the toxic sites tour. Tapp said he saw some concerning things on the tour, including witnessing a scrap metal facility near Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, burning metal in an “alarming” manner.

“We’ve worked with CleanAirNow for many years now on different projects and every time we have a meeting or go on a tour we learn something new,” Tapp said. “There’s a lot of work ahead, and already there were some specific things that were identified (on the tour), like the scrap metal facilities that we’re going to take a closer look (at) once I head back to the office.”

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Originally Appeared Here

The Keys To A Successful Historic Renovation

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226 West Jackson Blvd.

Much has changed around 226 West Jackson Blvd. since the stately masonry-clad office building in Chicago’s Loop was built in 1904. Its original tenant, the Chicago and North Western Railway, is long gone, and the building’s neighbors today include Willis Tower, which for a time was the world’s tallest building.

Yet the 15-story building’s exterior looks virtually unchanged from when it was constructed more than a century ago. That is no accident.

Two years ago, architectural and structural engineering firm Klein & Hoffman was hired by the building’s developer, Phoenix Development Partners, to restore the historic building’s exterior to its original glory for two new Hilton properties in the 248K SF location. Klein & Hoffman worked with a team of experts who combined a range of talents with an attention to detail.

“If someone who is walking by comments, ‘Oh, that’s a pretty building,’ and they never realized that we worked on it and repaired the exterior, then that’s when we know we’ve done a good job,” said Allison Toonen-Talamo, an associate with Klein & Hoffman, which completed the work in 2021.

Toonen-Talamo said that her firm’s goal for 226 West Jackson — as with any of the company’s historic building restorations — was to restore it as closely as possible to its original appearance. That required many hours of studying the building’s original plans followed by painstaking work to repair or replace its terra cotta, cast iron, granite and other historic elements.

Because the property was getting a city of Chicago Class L property tax incentive for locally designated landmarks and was in a historic district, she said, the team had to be very mindful of the repairs it was performing and the materials it selected for the facade repairs.

“We didn’t want to further alter the building’s facades and we wanted our repairs to be pretty much invisible,” Toonen-Talamo said.

Such work doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Klein & Hoffman worked closely with teammates including contractor Leopardo Cos., whose project manager on the job, Baris Gocmen, said the team had several advantages on its side. One was the early involvement of stakeholders to share their expertise during the pre-construction phase. Then, to keep track of all of the moving parts of this complex job, the team followed a tracking spreadsheet created by Toonen-Talamo and her colleagues with the city.

“That was our bible and it made our life way easier than I thought it would be,” Gocmen said.

Also making life easier, Toonen-Talamo added, was the support of the city of Chicago, which is determined to avoid the indiscriminate demolition of historic buildings it and other cities experienced in the 20th century.

Lawrence Shure, an architectural historian who worked on the project in his former role as a historic preservation planner for Chicago, called 226 West Jackson “exactly the kind of project that the city really encourages.” He said the owners sought local landmark designation after they determined the restoration work penciled.

“And then they employed people with expertise in the field who understood what was or was not possible with that property,” Shure said.

Some building owners might be reluctant to take on historic renovations because of misperceptions about their costs or technical difficulties, said Lisa DiChiera, director of advocacy for Landmarks Illinois. However, she added, such projects can be a win-win for everyone with the right people involved from the start.

“Owners are often nervous that owning a Chicago-designated landmark building will cost them more money when the extra step of project review with the city’s historic preservation division staff is required,” said DiChiera, who has worked with Klein & Hoffman on several historic preservation projects. “But I find that city of Chicago staff is always trying to work with the owner cooperatively to find the best design, materials and cost compromise.”

Toonen-Talamo noted that she’s seen a dramatic change in how people regard historic properties even in the 15 years since she came to Chicago to earn her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

“The conversations and the dynamics of preservation have changed significantly,” she said. “I feel like a lot of people are becoming more aware of our city’s buildings and trying to appreciate what’s there, especially if it has historic, cultural or social significance.”

The challenge, she added, is to educate building owners about how to address historic buildings and to take advantage of the various incentives and talent pools available to help them. The participation and expertise of players such as those on the 226 West Jackson project are key to the success of these types of renovations, she said.

“When it comes to historic properties, the care and love needs to be coming from all facets of our profession,” Toonen-Talamo said. “It requires input from a great team of people who wear different hats, everyone from the general contractor to the architect or consulting engineer.”

One indication of owners’ growing embrace of historic preservation can be seen in his company’s workload, Leopardo’s Gocmen said. In recent years, he noted, most of his projects have involved historic buildings, adding that he expects the trend to continue as more owners embrace restoration.

Meanwhile, 226 West Jackson reopened last year as the dual-branded Canopy by Hilton Chicago Central Loop and Hilton Garden Inn Chicago Central Loop. The city is hoping the building will serve as a beacon to business and leisure travelers returning to Chicago after the pandemic.

To Toonen-Talamo, the building is “an example of the care and love a historic property restoration requires and how to achieve it.”

This article was produced in collaboration between Studio B and Klein & Hoffman. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.

Originally Appeared Here

How A 40 Year Old Company Built a Multigenerational Empire from Scratch

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How A 40 Year Old Company Built a Multigenerational Empire from Scratch

Starting a successful company is one thing. Making the right decisions to ensure that the company will thrive 100 years down the road is quite another. In many cases, business owners are so consumed by the daily grind of running a business that they don’t have time to work on the future of their business.

Many business owners are operating under the assumption that the next generation will have the same leadership capabilities as the founder. Succession requires careful planning as flying on a wing and a prayer and changing the engine on the plane at 30,000 feet is a less than ideal scenario.

“Each generation has unique abilities. Paving the way for the next generation to succeed requires a thoughtful approach to the smooth transfer of roles and responsibilities,” said Dan Loiacono, Managing Partner at DLA Companies, a Kansas City-based mergers and acquisition specialist.

It is far from a foregone conclusion that after future generations take the reins, the company will continue to be as successful as it was with past generations.

But the companies that do succession well are winning.

Case in point, Ben Romans started his tiny window, doors, and siding business back in the late 1960s, and from the very beginning was planning to build something that his whole family could grow into the next century and beyond.

When he passed the proverbial leadership “torch” to his daughter Brenda Walters, she picked up where he left off without missing a beat. The rest is history. Brenda has presided over one of the fastest-growing, largest locally-owned home improvement companies in Kansas City for the past 15 years.

“Now my talented daughter, working side by side with me for over a decade, has stepped up to take our company to new heights for the next 20 years,” said Brenda, who manages an average of over 500 home improvement projects a year for her family’s company.

One of the few women in a male-dominated industry, Brenda entered into this field with aspirations of following in her father’s footsteps, Ben Romans. She then promptly proceeded to transform Cornerstone Home Improvements into a woman-owned business by bringing her daughter into the fold in the most strategic way possible.

Me’Shelle Bishop, the granddaughter of founder Ben Romans and daughter of company president Brenda Walters, has been with the company since 2004. She paid her dues and moved up the ranks from front desk to Co-Owner in 2019.

Her mission is to be true to the original values that made the business successful in the first place. “We deliver to the homeowners a premium product at an affordable price with installation and service second to none,” said Me’Shelle.

Now that’s continuity.

This original feature story was written by Andrew Ellenberg, President and Managing Partner of Rise Integrated Marketing. To learn more about Cornerstone Home Improvements email meshelle@chi-kc.com or visit them here.

Lykins neighborhood battles blight with plans to build 15 houses

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Diana Graham’s first home was a two-bedroom Craftsman house in the Lykins neighborhood in northeast Kansas City. Its design plans came from a Sears catalog.

That was in 1947. Graham, now 74 and vice president of the Lykins Neighborhood Association, later lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, for nearly 30 years but returned to Lykins in 2010. She lives in that same house, near Seventh Street and Monroe Avenue. And Graham owns the house right next door, also a two-bedroom Craftsman.

Graham loves her neighborhood for its diversity. Her block has “probably 10 different countries represented,” she said. But like other aging Kansas City neighborhoods, Lykins struggles with problems like blighted and abandoned housing and crime.

What sets Lykins apart at the moment is a ground-up strategy for rebirth. The neighborhood, named after Johnston Lykins, considered Kansas City’s first legal mayor, is seeing the results of a concerted effort known as the Lykins Focused Community Development Project.

Lykins stretches north to south from Independence Avenue to the railroad tracks that run diagonally from Truman Road to Ninth Street. Benton Boulevard borders it to the west and Hardesty Avenue on the east.

Before and after the renovation of 4401 E. Ninth St. in the Lykins neighborhood.
(Courtesy photos from Gregg Lombardi)

Late last month, the neighborhood association announced it was seeking proposals to build at least 15 new homes on more than 2.5 acres of vacant lots surrounding Lykins Square Park as the project’s next step. The association has more than 40 project partners, including the city of Kansas City.

Gregg Lombardi coordinates the project. He is executive director of both the neighborhood association and Neighborhood Legal Support of Kansas City Inc. and is a former executive director of Legal Aid of Western Missouri.

“This is an exciting moment for Lykins,” Lombardi said in a news release. “There was a time when the park was used more by drug dealers than by children. Now we have five youth soccer teams playing here and the drug dealers are pretty much gone. Positive development of blighted properties has made a big difference.”

Lombardi said in an interview that the request for proposals was distributed widely, including to about 10 builders who have been active in Lykins or expressed interest in building in the neighborhood.

He expects the winning development proposal to be chosen by the end of June. After that, one of two timing scenarios is likely: the start of a multifamily housing development by the fall; or a more extended process if the winning applicant seeks low-income housing tax credit funding from the Missouri Housing Development Commission. In that case, groundbreaking would probably be delayed until spring of 2023.

Before and after the renovation of 3223 E. 6th St. in the Lykins neighborhood (different angles).
(Before photo courtesy of Gregg Lombardi) (After photo by Zach Bauman/The Beacon)

The community development project started in 2018 when Lombardi used Neighborhood Legal Support’s resources to partner with the neighborhood association and take advantage of Missouri’s Abandoned Housing Act.

The state law provides a tool for places like Lykins to make a small dent in Kansas City’s vast backlog of blighted and abandoned houses.

As of March 9, Kansas City has 407 properties classified as a dangerous building, and 85 — more than 20 percent — are in ZIP codes 64124 and 64127, which include Lykins.

A Beacon investigation last year found that dangerous buildings sometimes are left standing for years as evidence of blight and disinvestment. These properties often become magnets for illicit activity like illegal dumping.

Using the Abandoned Housing Act, the neighborhood association began taking ownership of blighted homes from absentee owners, saving the buildings from the wrecking ball and preventing more vacant lots.

How the Missouri Abandoned Housing Act works

The Abandoned Housing Act enables not-for-profit groups, including many neighborhood associations, to sue in civil court for ownership of dilapidated properties.

The property must fulfill three requirements, Lombardi said: It’s delinquent with code violations, it’s been empty for six months and it’s not legally occupied. A property does not have to be on the city’s dangerous buildings list to be an Abandoned Housing Act case.

If the not-for-profit group is successful in taking ownership, it  signs a contract with someone who will renovate the home. The remodeler will own the property when the work is complete.

Affordable housing is key

While renovating blighted houses beautifies neighborhoods, attracts new residents and invites reinvestment, providing affordable housing is also a major part of the Lykins project’s mission.

The project’s partners aim to make one-third of the housing affordable (30% of the neighborhood’s area median income is Lombardi’s rule of thumb), one-third workforce (“highly affordable for people who are in regular workforce jobs,” Lombardi said) and one-third market rate.

“Our sense is, having that financial diversity is also really healthy for the neighborhood,” Lombardi  said.

Census data shows Lykins’ median household income is nearly $24,000, which is less than half of the median income for Kansas City overall.

How to increase affordable housing and avoid gentrification of a neighborhood “is a really tough thing,” Lombardi said.

A boundary map of the Lykins neighborhood in Kansas City’s northeast neighborhood. (Courtesy of Lykins Neighborhood)

The project partners prefer to work with rehabbers and builders who build affordable housing, including Habitat for Humanity of Kansas City, Westside Housing Organization and Healing House Inc., a  housing provider for people recovering from drug and alcohol dependency.

Lombardi said it costs about $80,000 to restore a “seriously blighted” house in a neighborhood like Lykins, not counting the acquisition price. A new house of the same size typically would cost an average of $200,000 to $225,000 to build, he said.

“We’re talking about a pretty humble, 1,300-square-foot, two- to three-bedroom house,” Lombardi said. “Right now, it is a real challenge to be able to build a house for that amount and sell it for that amount. It is much more cost-efficient to rehab blighted properties.”

Partners are crucial to the Lykins neighborhood effort

One of the Lykins Neighborhood Association’s  partners is the nonprofit Trust Neighborhoods. It has been working with the association to support renovations of blighted buildings and prevent the displacement of residents. The nonprofit’s goal is to develop about 40 Lykins properties in the next 18 months and make 70% of those affordable in perpetuity, Lombardi said.

Trust Neighborhoods CEO David Kemper said his organization helped the neighborhood association form a mixed-income neighborhood trust. He expects it to close on a new, $1.15 million round of capital this summer to expand renovation work, separately from the association’s recent request for proposals to build new houses on 2.5 acres.

“I think it’s exciting to see a neighborhood being deliberate about both rebuilding into places where there has been deep disinvestment and a loss of a lot of neighborhood fabric, but (also) being thoughtful about making sure that also maintains affordability as investment continues to come into neighborhoods like Lykins,” Kemper said.

He said the approach in Lykins can be an alternative to the dilemma of either having disinvestment or displacement in a neighborhood, which Kemper called “a false choice.”

“With the right tools, you should be able to have neighborhoods finally have the investment they deserve as well as have (the) benefit of current residents and not create displacement and more injustice.”

As the Kansas City codes inspector for the area that includes Lykins, Craig Straws plays a big part in helping the project’s partners achieve those goals.

“When I first began inspecting in that area, I can’t even tell you how many vacant and run-down properties there were,” Straws said. “You just can’t compare what the neighborhood looks like today compared to six, seven, eight years ago.”

Karen Reilly shares the goal of increasing affordable housing in Lykins and elsewhere in Kansas City. Reilly is an independent contractor and co-owner of Kansas City-based CORE Urban Renew. Her for-profit company rehabbed five houses for the Lykins project last year and has six more underway, and it has rehabbed houses in the city’s east side.

“Our belief is that the urban core would be best served by quality housing development and redevelopment of homes that are blighted, as well as good educational opportunities,” Reilly said. “That is really our interest. This is our hometown. We have a passion for the urban core and for improving these houses. … It’s a long road to take, but it’s a road you have to enter to get this process going.”

That road pleases Diana Graham, because the project’s partners are working hard to bring Lykins back to its “former glory.”

“Anybody who knows me knows how much I love the Lykins neighborhood,” Graham said. “It feels like a community. … We want to be held up as an example of what a (committed) neighborhood can do.”

Originally Appeared Here