Kansas City Receives EPA Grant To Aid Redevelopment In Opportunity Zones

Press release from the City of Kansas City:

May 6, 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 6, 2020

The City has received an $800,000 EPA grant to clean up brownfields in Opportunity Zones. This will help us create new jobs and economic opportunities in struggling communities across the City.

The EPA grant was awarded to the City's Brownfields Program. “Brownfields” are any properties where cleanup and reuse are affected by environmental contamination. The grant is aimed at cleanup and redevelopment on brownfields sites with the following in mind:

• A focus on creating jobs and new investment on brownfields in the city's Opportunity Zones
• Helping communities that lack physical and economic mobility by revitalizing older commercial corridors and connecting sites and people with enhanced public transit services

“I am pleased that EPA has awarded Kansas City an $800,000 grant to help make sites safe and ready for new affordable housing, amenities and jobs, just as we did with previous EPA Brownfields funding for several redevelopment projects like Gateway at 39th, the DeLaSalle Education Center and the ALDI store on Prospect Avenue,” said Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas. “I thank EPA, our regional partners and our City Planning and Development Department that worked to secure this funding to make Kansas City communities cleaner, healthier and more equitably prosperous for all of our residents.”

Since 1997, EPA brownfields grants have facilitated more than $461 million worth of redevelopment projects across Kansas City, Missouri, assisted 171 projects and helped create 1,416 new jobs and retain 1,766 jobs, mostly in disadvantaged neighborhoods. But, this is the first time the EPA has focused grant funding on opportunity zones and enhancing mobility in our region. City Planning and Development Director Jeffrey Williams says KCMO has led the way with those ideas in for forefront of redevelopment efforts on brownfield properties for many years.

"We are very proud of the past work the City has completed utilizing brownfield funds and are grateful for this opportunity to utilize these funds to expand mobility and economic opportunity for residents- especially in historically under-invested corridors," said Williams.

Examples of Kansas City’s past brownfields redevelopment successes include:

• The Gateway at 39th Street duplexes and senior cottages on the site of a former elementary school filled with asbestos and lead paint
• The DeLaSalle Education Center expansion on Troost Ave., replacing a gas station, garage, and carwash
• The ALDI store at 39th & Prospect Ave., replacing a former gas station
• The Alamo Drafthouse Theater in the KC Live! Power & Light District, once a crumbling and contaminated historic movie palace

The city grant was paired with a $600,000 regional grant awarded to the Mid-America Regional Council for the investigation of other local brownfield sites. Together, $1.4 million of new EPA funding has been made available in Jackson County and Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas marking the first bi-state brownfields revolving loan fund in our region.

Visit the KCMO Brownfields Program web page for more information about the city's program.

For media inquiries please contact Beth Breitenstein, Public Information Officer for City Planning and Development at 816-945-2560.

This press release was produced by the City of Kansas City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.