The fight to save a historic yet abandoned Northeast Kansas City School EARNED A 6-MONTH EXTENSION at the KCPS School Board Meeting last night.
Save Thacher advocates are excited that their pleas for more time proved successful . . . Meanwhile, this offers just a bit more evidence that the KCPS Repurposing Plan has failed and neighborhoods are looking to take over the process.
Not so fun facts:
- There is no interest from commercial developers.
- "The school district didn't even have an assessed value on the property."
- Significant repair costs has piled up
Also, this wouldn't be a problem if there wasn't a mass exodus from the KCPS over the past 30 years.
So typical of most cowardly school districts. The people who want to save the building have no money, no backers, and their only "plan" is to turn it into a community center where they can hang around and make crafts.
ReplyDeleteThere is no commercial interest because the building is too far gone and there's no chance that you could ever come close to recovering your costs.
All this little group has to do is to come up with around $10 million and find some tenants who can actually pay rent enough to operate and maintain the building.
In other words, the district needs to have the guts to tell thses folks "no" and tear the buiding down. The group will find another "cause" to march around for within a week.
D 9 Dozer. Bring it down.
ReplyDeleteHeard from someone that Brian Stalder hyperventilated during his comments and stormed away from the mic in hyperventilation.
ReplyDeleteStand up, or shut up! This effort is the first "real" effort by citizens to hold the school board accountable for anything. I applaud this group for organizing and calling the district on their BS! The only way for things to change in this district is for the residents of KCMO to care enough to do something about it and hold their officials accountable.
ReplyDeleteThere are less than a dozen people who really care about this. Tear the building down. There is not enuf money in the world to preserve all the historic derelict buildings in KC.
ReplyDeleteThere are less than a dozen people who really care about this. Tear the building down. There is not enuf money in the world to preserve all the historic derelict buildings in KC.
ReplyDeleteTrue, this is only a handful of people. Look at the Thacher fb page for crying out loud. No one responds to any of the posts and stuff.
ReplyDeleteI am confident I could make Thacher a beautiful, useful building again...if you'd give me several million free dollars from Uncle Sam.
ReplyDeleteI envision a payday loan office and a tattoo parlor on the first floor, and a porn theater on the second floor.
It could work. I know it could.
No, no, no!!
ReplyDeleteStrip club on first floor, home for destitute single mom on second floor.
Lodging AND job training.
Yea let me yell you what happened. Last month we had a petition of 200 signatures and I nicely asked the board for six months to a year. They gave us one month.
ReplyDeleteSo one month later (last night) I called BS on all of their reasons for why they had to tear Thacher down and gave specific examples of how their past decisions to tear down houses displaced people and destroyed blocks.
There's only about a dozen of us working hard to save Thacher, but there are hundreds of northeast residents past and present who recognize the importance of historic preservation, specifically for northeast, that support our efforts.
It's not realistic to expect these people to all drop everything and come to school board meetings downtown on Wednesday nights.
It's not unrealistic to believe that Thacher could be repurposed or that we could find a developer. Dozens of schools in Kansas City have been repurposed. If you're not interested in it, that's fine, but it is significant in our neighbhoods effort to improve things and attract new residents.
Last nights victory was because of the hard volunteer work of many many people.
Here's an overhead view of this building. Look closely. It's right in the center of the picture. Google Maps
ReplyDeleteLook at it.
IT'S A BURNED UP PIECE OF SHIT. IT HAS NO ROOF. IT HAS FALLEN APART. WHEN IT BURNED, THE FIRE DEPARTMENT FLOODED THE BUILDING WITH HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF GALLONS OF WATER.
It's done.
It can't be saved.
Tear it down.
The "repurposing" button is broken. All older cities and suburbs have had to close schools. Only in Kansas City does it seem to be an impossible task. I have watched the SM District and KCK District sell buildings in a heartbeat, and they have a policy of NOT selling to private or parochial schools.
ReplyDeleteSpeculators always say "Your first loss is your best loss." In other words, it doen't get better with time.
It is just another example of the total incompetence in the District.
The overview shows the annex has burned and we've agreed from the beginning to tear that part down. Your picture also shows the original structure has a solid roof. That's the part we're committed to saving. If our architect believes he can save the annex, we are not opposed to it, but are willing to compromise with the school district.
ReplyDeleteSure, suburban school districts have had to close schools, tear them down, and rebuild. But this is a 114 year old building on Independence Avenue in Historic Northeast.
One of the main reasons new people move to Northeast is because of the Historic Buildings. This is one of the oldest buildings on Independence Avenue, and one of school district's oldest schools.
We are not suggesting that students should ever go to school here. We only ask that the building be saved, and turned into something that WELCOMES people to Northeast, and let's them know that we are serious about Historic Preservation.
I don't expect everyone to care; history museums are boring to some people. But the "tear the piece of shit down," people baffle me. Our history is important whether you're interested in it or not. People collect and compile pictures and artifacts and put them in museums. Historic Northeast is a history museum of Kansas City, and Thacher is an important artifact.