By Joe Jarosz
Northeast News
May 6, 2015

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — The folks behind the Hardesty Renaissance rehabilitation are getting closer to achieving their dream.

Hardesty Renaissance is an 18-acre complex at the corners of Hardesty and Independence avenues in the Northeast. After remaining vacant and unused for nearly 15 years, adding to neighborhood blight and economic distress, the site was purchased through public auction in 2011 by Hardesty Economic Development Corporation (HREDC), a Missouri non-profit corporation created by Asian Americans for Equality, Inc. (AAFE) a 40-year old, highly respected non-profit community development organization in New York City to redevelop and reactivate the site.

Dan Karan, senior development officer for AAFE, said since they’ve last checked in, there have been two developments. The first, with the support of the city, a Brownsfield Commision grant has been awarded in the amount of $400,000 for building 11 on the site. That grant will help with the clean-up of the building, which Karan expects to be complete by the end of July.

“These developments put us far ahead of schedule,” Karan said. “We were initially told it could be up to a decade before site could good to develop on. This is especially important because we were recently beginning to receive environmental findings for the site and buildings 10 and 11 had not environmental issues on the grounds, just building issues like lead paint and such.”

The other development, Karan said, was AAFE petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to bifurcate the site, which would help them begin development for buildings 10 and 11 sooner. Their understanding was the EPA never did that before. But they petitioned anyway, based on preliminary reports and the EPA formally agreed to bifurcate the site.

“We also learned buildings 10 and 11 have been designated unrestricted use, which includes residential and food usage,” Karan said. “Those are major developments. I don’t think we had a clear idea on how long those would take.”

Built in 1940, the Hardesty Federal Complex originally served as an Amry Quartermaster’s Depot and was transferred to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) in 1960. The first building on the property (constructed in 1920) included a power plant that also supplied electricity to buildings northwest of the property. Fifteen additional buildings were added between 1940 and 1943, and two more were built after 1943. Today, the complex contains six buildings, four of which are substantial (100,000 + sq. ft.) and several acres of fully developable land surrounded by a community containing mixed commercial, light industrial and residential use.

The vision of AAFE and HREDC is to work in partnership, with the support of a team led and driven by, local Kansas City non-profit, for-profit, private and public entities to redevelop and reactivate the Hardesty Renaissance site. Through this partnership, the site would help create living-wage job and career opportunities for local residents; provide innovative, affordable live-work housing; and, serve as a hub and catalyst for broader economic development and revitalization.

Specifically, the vision for Hardesty Renaissance includes:

• Creating a local international foods hub that supports local farmers and food entrepreneurs by providing aggregation, distribution and fast freezing capabilities, on-site farmers market, food vendors, kiosks and restaurants, and shared commercial kitchen space.

• Incubation of new local entrepreneurs and businesses though technical and financial assistance; training and education programming; and, product development, marketing and value-added services.

• Providing badly needed access to affordable, fresh, healthy, foods to local residents.

• Supporting the creation of worker-owned cooperative businesses as a strategy for wealth-building and democratizing capital by giving people not just a job but an ownership interest and stake in their workplace.

• Manufacturing space that helps revitalize this sector.

• Creation of unique live-work space for artists, craftspeople and other entrepreneurs and their families.

• Environmental remediation to the highest standards (food and residential or “unrestricted use”).

• Environmentally friendly and sustainable design and state of the art green building principles, practices and technologies that maximize energy and water efficiency and conservation.

• Producing a replicable model and template for the redevelopment of similar former federal sites (including brownfield sites) nation-wide.

Karan said there is a commercial business interested in becoming a tenant. He didn’t want to say who the tenant might be, but noted it’s a local business and entrepreneur who may be known in the Kansas City area.

“We’re still waiting to hear on the full scope of what needs to be done, but we’re doing everything we can to get the building turned on and ready,” Karan said, adding they’re hoping for an early 2016 opening.

The next step, Karan noted, is community feedback. After the initial purchase, they reached out to the community to let people know their plan for the site. From the start, there has been tremendous interest in what gets developed.

“We’re based in New York and while Hardesty Renaissance is local to Kansas City, it’s still not our turf,” Karan said. “Whatever development that goes on, it needs to respond to the needs of the community and local residents.”

With this project, Karan said they’re trying to help build a healthy community. What they’re looking to complete is a comprehensive community economic development approach.

“Really trying to adhere to the needs of everyone in the community,” Karan said. “Hardesty Renaissance has to be a partnership with other local organizations, the city and its residents. We are very consciously working with all of those but are also looking to model the kind of community development we’re trying to bring.”