By Paul Thompson

Northeast News

August 18, 2016

KANSAS CITY, Missouri – The Historic Northeast’s Kessler Park has been included among a group of Kansas City parks and boulevards that are now officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Kansas City Parks and Recreation held a press conference on the morning of Wednesday, August 17, to announce the listing of “The Kansas City Parks and Boulevards Historic District” on the National Register. In addition to Kessler Park, Penn Valley Park and Parade Park are also included in the register, along with seven boulevards: Independence, Gladstone, Linwood, Armour, Paseo, Benton, and Broadway.

“Their contributing features include a variety of buildings, structures, and fountains. In fact, there are actually 41 of them that comprise what is in the historical register,” said Parks Commissioner Mary Jane Judy. “Twenty-eight structures, four sites, eight objects, and one building.”

The recognition is an honor, said Parks and Recreation Director Mark McHenry, but it can also provide opportunity. McHenry called the listing on the Historic Register “another tool in the toolbox” as the city looks to preserve the parks and boulevards into the future.

“What this will allow us to do is to make some grant applications. We still have to go through the process, but by being able to check that box on the national register, it would be a leg up,” said McHenry. “An example of that would be when the Black Archives building was renovated; it got historic tax credits. It had to be on the historic register to get historic tax credits. It can help you in that regard.”

According to the Parks and Recreation department, the Kansas City Parks and Boulevards Historic District’s journey towards official listing in the National Register has been years in the making, as the nomination’s first draft was submitted to the State Historic Preservation Officers in June of 2014. After clearing a couple of early hurdles, a revised nomination was sent to the National Park Service in September of 2014. Subsequent revisions were sent over the next couple of years, until the district’s place on the National Register of Historic Places became official on August 9, 2016.

Lisa Donnici, a resident of the Scarritt Renaissance neighborhood which borders Kessler Park, told the Northeast News that the historic designation can only help the area. With Scarritt, Indian Mound, and Pendleton Heights all surrounding the park, Donnici sees an opportunity; along with a host of new questions.

“I don’t think I can speak for what they’ll give us now. I hope it will be able to give us more clout to be able to put a checkmark in that box,” said Donnici. “Grant-wise, what else can we do with it? What kind of impact does it have on the immediate neighborhood?”

Still, Donnici says that being included in a historic district is a feather in the cap for the whole community.

“Having 300-plus acres of park that is on the historic register speaks volumes to the neighborhood – not just for Scarritt but for the entire Northeast,” said Donnici.