By Melissa Wharton
Northeast News
Concourse Park, located in the Scarritt Renaissance neighborhood of Northeast Kansas City, won the inaugural LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation) award for best use of public space on the evening of Thursday, September 28.

The award was received by Leslie Caplan, Lisa Donnici and Tracy Gardner. LISC received 40 applicants, and six were chosen to be honored at the first annual Thrive event. The Concourse Park renovation team was one of those six honorees.

“It was great. We were really pleased to be chosen,” Caplan said. “It’s an acknowledgement of our investment in the community with the slide and our playground, and how it’s meeting a need in the community.”

Concourse Park was converted from a barren basketball court, known for being a place of drug use and loitering, to a space for children and families to enjoy safely.

“If you’ve ever driven by it you will see that it’s used constantly,” Caplan said. “It’ a thriving area. Everyone on the committee keeps remarking on how good it feels to drive by there and see it being used in a greater capacity than we ever dreamed.”

The next thing on Scarritt’s radar is their annual SCARE-IT Halloween event. Caplan says that the annual event attracts roughly 7,000 people to the Northeast Kansas City neighborhood. The event will take place Oct. 31 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Police and firefighters will be present, and the neighborhood organization will provide safe trick-or-treating, a haunted house, and other activities.