Northeast News
February 27, 2012

A target area has now been chosen for the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s Urban Neighborhood Initiative (UNI).

Earlier this afternoon, the Chamber, along with the United Way of Greater Kansas City, announced that the Troost Corridor has been chosen as the first area for this unprecedented neighborhood revitalization effort.

After careful consideration, the UNI leadership group decided to focus its initial efforts in the area between Troost and Highway 71, from 23rd Street to 51st Street. This corridor approach will include portions of several neighborhoods with strong partnership capabilities. In addition, the multi-neighborhood approach will expand the leadership and capacity building potential. By focusing in this area, UNI leaders hope to also align with other Chamber Big 5 projects which focus on entrepreneurship and commercial investment.

This corridor is intended to be the first of many areas that will be impacted by the Urban Neighborhood Initiative. As improvements are made in the Troost Corridor, successful strategies may be replicated in other areas of Greater Kansas City.

A new, nonprofit
Urban Neighborhood Initiative Co-Champion Terry Dunn of JE Dunn Construction also announced that a new nonprofit will be formed to oversee and operate the initiative. Called the Urban Neighborhood Initiative, Inc., the nonprofit will be overseen by a governing board comprised of representatives from the Chamber, United Way, Truman Medical Centers, Kansas City Power & Light, Rockhurst University, Kansas City Southern Industries, Metropolitan Community College, Swope Community Enterprises, the Kansas City Police Department, the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, among other organizations.

Next steps
On March 6, United Way will host a stakeholder meeting to gather input from corridor residents to discuss what’s currently happening in their neighborhood and the changes they’d like to see. The UNI leadership will also work with its community partners to develop an action plan for moving forward.