BCCP 4743 Troost Suite 200 Kansas City, MO 64110-1727 Ph: 816-523-2991 Fax: 816-523-2281     ARCHIVED NEWSLETTERS                                 TOP                                                                                                                         TOP                                                   TOP

THE BRUSH CREEK BULLETIN Volume 11, Issue 2 April / May / June 2009   PUTTING “COMMUNITY” IN BRUSH CREEK COMMUNITY PARTNERS Fifteen Years of Successfully Working Together: Brush Creek Community Partners Rely on Focus and Flexibility Almost 16 years ago, a handful of representatives of cultural, educational and research institutions along Brush Creek had a "light bulb moment." In September 1993 they began to discuss banding together for common goals, and went on to formalize a process to collaboratively build a "world class cultural and research district." In June of 1994, then Brush Creek Partners invited neighborhoods, churches and other community based organizations in the expansion of its vision to encompass a cultural and research district "surrounded by healthy neighborhoods." Community leaders meet with then U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez, 2001. In the 15 years since Brush Creek Partners became inclusive of the community, the organization has worked on three levels: land use planning, and the promotion of economic development and neighborhood improvement to pursue its goals. The main tool for all these efforts has been a partnership between the various institutions, businesses, non-profits and churches, neighborhood associations and city agencies. In 2003, an article in the Brush Creek Community Partners newsletter highlighted the first ten years of the organization's existence. Looking back over a decade of activities, then-Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes called BCCP "an example to the rest of the community about of what can happen when people and organizations work together." The first ten years The years 1993-1999 are remembered as the "formalization" of BCCP. The organization broadened its focus from safety, neighborhood enhancement and community development to include economic development and public policy advocacy. Using a $175,000 seed grant from the Kauffman Foundation, the group hired Executive Director Carol Grimaldi, and did a land use plan. BCCP helped Kansas City Art Institute students secure resources and support to design and build a 150-foot rain garden along Brush Creek, 2007. In 2003, then Assistant City Manager Vicki Noteis said the strategic plans that the city and Brush Creek Corridor stakeholders worked out in those early years had made new development possible. "It didn't just happen. All of the improvements you see today relate back to plans the public produced," she said of the improvements that were springing up as BCCP crossed the decade mark. The past five years: Brush Creek Finds Its Role But Remains Flexible Looking now over the five years since the tenth anniversary of Brush Creek Partners’ founding, BCCP leaders say the organization has learned both that it must keep its core mission in mind, and that it must retain the flexibility to change as the world changes around it. As current President Rob Givens puts it, "We constantly wrestle with our value proposition." For Givens, that means, in part, that BCCP has found its role as a convener rather than as a group that directly provides services to the community. "Frequently, we had a role to play in a project, but someone else did the work," he says. Givens is president and chief executive officer of Mazuma Credit Union. Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council Executive Director Margaret May echoes the importance of BCCPs role, which she sees as a "connector." "For an organization like Ivanhoe," she says," capacity is derived from the opportunity to interact with other people." She says the relationships developed among Brush Creek board members have allowed "friendly connections" that have lead to important projects getting done. May is also a member of the BCCP Board of Directors. Making the neighborhood piece work One of the keys to the success of BCCP, and also one of its biggest challenges, has been bringing neighborhoods to the table as equal participants. The group began with a focus on land use and economic development, but early on determined the community had to be involved. "Neighborhoods are the soil where we plant economic development and land use seeds. They won't grow if the soil is not robust," Givens says. Historic Manheim Park, Hyde Park and Rockhill Homes neighborhood organizations plan for a better future, 2009. BCCP has grown to see the need for investing in people as well as buildings, according to Bill Hart, vice president of the Blue Hills Neighborhood Association and a member of the BCCP board. "We had a tendency at first to worry about demolishing dangerous buildings. You can keep refurbishing houses but if people don't take care of them, the houses will wear down again." Getting the neighborhoods to the table was not always as simple as inviting them. "Some of the neighborhoods were well organized; others were not," E. Frank Ellis remembers. Ellis was BCCP’s first president, elected in 1998; he is chairman of Swope Community Enterprises. Just as CEOs need to be at the table, neighborhood leaders needed to be able to see the big picture issues and to be able to express their interests to their institutional and business partners, so BCCP has invested time in leadership development. Recently, the organization has gone a step further, offering the citywide neighborhood leadership training from the now-defunct Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance last fall. As BCCP matures, the challenges continue On its fifteenth anniversary of becoming a community partnership, BCCP has a flexible roadmap for the future. It has collaborated on land use and economic development plans, and has gained respect for bringing a uniform voice to the concerns of institutions, businesses and neighborhoods. UMKC seniors plan 20-year vision for the Brush Creek Corridor, 2005. "The city knows right away that everyone is on the same page," Hart says. "The city is very aware of us." And board members concur that the Executive Director has been an important element of their success, bringing credibility to the group at city hall and in the community. In 2009, however, the lingering economic downturn is presenting a new set of challenges. One of those is keeping essential partners at the table at a time when resources and budgets are strained. Givens says flexibility will be key to future success, because BCCP needs to continue to remain relevant. And the current board is also watching for ways it can once again find opportunities in a difficult situation. "When you have schools and neighborhoods struggling as they are, organizations like Brush Creek Community Partners have to work even harder to be part of the solution," Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Director and Chief Executive Officer Marc Wilson. Wilson was a founder of Brush Creek Partners and a member of the first Board of Directors elected in 1998. Missouri State Senator Yvonne Wilson, BCCP President Rob Givens and other officials and partners hear "The State of the Corridor" on the 15th anniversary of BCCP's founding, 2008. The BCCP board is excited about the Green Impact Zone, another plan by now-U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver to focus $200 million in federal stimulus money. That green zone overlaps part of the Brush Creek area. "There's an opportunity for Brush Creek Community Partners to fill a niche with promoting green efforts," says Ellis. "We can take advantage of the topography for things like rain gardens and solar energy." For several, the original goal of erasing Troost as a racial dividing line in Kansas City has not been completely accomplished. Development across the country has slowed during the recession. When it returns, Brush Creek members hope to continue working on new ideas for redevelopment, especially moving east. CONGRESSMAN CLEAVER GOES GREEN ALONG BRUSH CREEK Green Impact Zone Promotes Training, Jobs, Weatherization For 2,500 Corridor Homes Plans to "green up" some of Kansas City's poorest neighborhoods are being designed to provide job training, employment and housing weatherization opportunities in the Brush Creek Corridor. U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, II of Kansas City has proposed targeting up to $200 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (federal stimulus) funds to create green - or environmentally leading-edge - jobs, encourage environmental innovations and enhance five Corridor neighborhoods that have significant environmental, housing and infrastructure needs. All of the Historic Manheim Park Association and portions of Ivanhoe, Troostwood of the 49/63 Neighborhood, Blue Hills, and Town Fork Creek are in the 150 square blocks designated as the Green Impact Zone. The Green Impact Zone involves five neighborhoods and three City Council districts. Since March, the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) has been coordinating with several groups to develop a unified strategy to meet Green Impact Zone goals. This includes working with neighborhoods in the zone, the community development corporations that serve them and Brush Creek Community Partners to develop an aggressive plan to inform every one of the 2,500 homes in the zone about the opportunities available to them. In addition to weatherization, other training and housing improvement services will also be promoted. Kansas City Power & Light has committed to deploying a “smart” electricity grid in the zone. The zone's infrastructure needs are also being evaluated while planning is underway to improve energy efficiency and promote the use of renewable energy for commercial and industrial properties. The University of Missouri-Kansas City's Center for Economic Information will serve as a data source for the strategic planning, leading to the development of a data base to track zone activities and their outcomes.   Sustainability Center Proposed for Troost Overlooking Brush Creek In observing Earth Day this spring, U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, II announced the resources have been secured to plan a $50 to $70 million Climate Sustainability Center in the heart of the Brush Creek Corridor. The Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department has been awarded a $350,000 grant from the Economic Development Administration (EDA) to study and plan for the center's development. It is to be located on the east side of Troost Avenue, north of Volker Boulevard overlooking Brush Creek. It signals a significant federal investment in an anchor project for what is now known as the Green Impact Zone. The proposed Climate Sustainability Center would be located on the east side of Troost overlooking Brush Creek. Planning resources include a local match and the proposed center is part of the ongoing revitalization of the Brush Creek Corridor and a continuation of the "Cleaver Plan." The EDA award puts the project in line for a potential construction grant from that agency. The Kansas City Congressman says the center's mission will be to develop a sustainable workforce for green jobs, environmentally friendly applications and products, and research for the 21st Century. It would include a green small business incubator and a botanic garden. He envisions significant partnership between the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the area's corporate, institutional and labor communities, and the City of Kansas City. The building itself will be planned to go beyond LEED platinum and be a "Living Campus," generating its own electricity, and performing on-site storm water collection for reuse or treatment through green practices. "I cannot think of a more exciting place to be than right here, right now," said Cleaver. "There is nothing like this project anywhere in the country and I am proud it could be sited east of Troost. We have an opportunity to both change the way the world thinks about green and change the way we have historically seen the east side."   NELSON-ATKIN'S WILSON TO RETIRE Marc Wilson in the museum’s Bloch Building. Marc F. Wilson, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell director/chief executive officer will retire effective June 1, 2010. Wilson has held the position since 1982. During Wilson's tenure as the museum's fourth director, its collection has been greatly deepened, and curators have reached exceptional levels of scholarship and presentation of works of art. Wilson has been recognized for leading the way during three decades to raise institutional standards for collecting and conserving works of art, building membership and financial support, reaching out to the community with education programs, and building what has become one of the country's finest public art reference libraries. A $200 million museum expansion was completed in 2007, opening to wide acclaim. Upon his retirement, he plans to remain active in his profession, perhaps pursue an entrepreneurial adventure, and tend to his farm in Weston, MO. A trustee committee has been formed to conduct an international search for Wilson's successor. PARTNER UPDATES The University of Missouri-Kansas City is the recent beneficiary of gifts totaling over $10 million. The UMKC School of Dentistry will receive $8.2 million from 1949 graduate Robert Cowan and his wife Lucille through a provision in their estate plan. In recognition of one of the largest gifts ever to a school of dentistry in the United States, the school will name its public service and student training clinics - the entire first floor of the school - the Dr. Robert and Mrs. Lucille Cowan Center for Clinical Care. Also, BioMed Valley Corporation (BVC) has awarded $2.3 million to UMKC to create a Chancellor's Endowed Chair for Life Sciences. BVC is a supporting organization to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research and other research partner organizations in the greater Kansas City area. Kansas City's Parks and Recreation Department has been reaccredited by the Commission for Accreditation of Park and Recreation Agencies (CAPRA), an independent body sanctioned by the National Recreation and Park Association. The Parks and Recreation Department operates with 300 employees, 6,500 volunteers, and more than 100 community partners. It is one of only 78 CAPRA accredited agencies nationwide. Saint Luke's Hospital of Kansas City was recently named one of the top 125 hospitals in the country by a Consumers' Checkbook survey, as reported in the May/June 2009 issue of AARP The Magazine. Consumers' Checkbook is a non-profit consumer information and service resource. The University of Missouri-Kansas City is welcoming two new deans in August. Teng-Kee Tan has been named dean of UMKC’s Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration. He is currently the Director of the Nanyang Technopreneurship Center at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), in the Republic of Singapore and Director of the China Strategy Group, the Lien Chinese Enterprise Research Center and the Lien Legacy Fellow program at NTU. Marsha A. Pyle joins UMKC as dean of the School of Dentistry. She is currently the Vice Dean of the School of Dental Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She is also a staff member at the Carl Stokes Veterans' Hospital.