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 12, Issue 1 January / February / March 2010   NELSON-ATKINS FINDS FIFTH DIRECTOR - OF INTERNATIONAL RENOWN - IN NEW YORK CITY Julián Zugazagoitia has been named the new director/chief executive officer of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art effective September 1. Zugazagoitia comes to Kansas City from New York where he has been the director/chief executive officer of El Museo del Barrio the last seven years. He will be the museum's fifth Director in its 75 year history. Julian Zugazagoitia In addition to being a museum director, Zugazagoitia (pronounced SZU-ga-sa-GOY-tee-ah) is considered an international scholar, curator and consultant. His work has involved projects around the globe with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles. From 1999 to 2002, he served as Executive Assistant to the Director for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. During his tenure at El Museo del Barrio, a leading museum of Latino and Latin American art, Zugazagoitia led the institution through a $44 million capital campaign and a full renovation, which opened in 2009 to critical acclaim. Marc F. Wilson in the Nelson’s Bloch Building, which opened in 2007. Marc F. Wilson, the Nelson-Atkins Museum's Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell director and chief executive officer for the past 28 years, announced last year that he would retire effective June 1, 2010. During Wilson's tenure, the Nelson-Atkins became a world-class destination that earned acclaim for its $200 million expansion including construction of the Bloch Building, the Ford Learning Center, renovated Kansas City Sculpture Park and dramatic new galleries, including recently opened American and American Indian galleries. Wilson is a founder of Brush Creek Community Partners. TIGER FUNDS COME TO THE GREEN IMPACT ZONE U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood came to the Green Impact Zone Neighborhood Assistance Center in February to announce $1.5 billion in TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) stimulus grants across the nation. Of that, $50 million will be for the Kansas City region with the Green Impact Zone receiving $26 million for improvements to its streets, curbs, and other transportation infrastructure. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood visited Kansas City to make a national announcement, and to sign a $50 million check for the Kansas City region. Of that amount, $26 million will be invested in the Green Impact Zone along the Brush Creek Corridor. The award was one of 51 innovative transportation projects funded from more than 1,400 applications submitted for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act transportation funds. On average, the 51 grantees each received about 30 percent of the funds they applied for; the $50 million awarded to the Kansas City region represents about 60 percent of the $88 million requested. The Green Impact Zone is a 150-square block area in the Brush Creek Corridor east of Troost Avenue. It has been identified as a national model for targeting resources to reverse decades of decline and abandonment by creating jobs, improving energy efficiency and building neighborhood capacity. TIGER funds will support sidewalk, street and transit improvements in the Green Impact Zone. It is anticipated construction work will start later this year, with a good portion of it running into 2011. GREEN IMPACT ZONE DATA RELEASED Data describing the conditions in the Green Impact Zone has been collected to aid in developing strategies and measuring progress on zone initiatives. The University of Missouri-Kansas City's Center for Economic Information (CEI) has prepared a preliminary report, much of it from a parcel-by-parcel Housing Conditions Survey conducted by the center last fall. Results of this survey can be compared with housing conditions as they were evaluated in 2000, when this data was first collected in Kansas City's urban core for the city. Other measures include demographics; housing styles, property ownership, sales and foreclosures; and crime statistics. Data about the Green Impact Zone includes an evaluation of housing conditions as conducted by UMKC's Center for Economic Information. In this map, yellow, orange and red parcels indicate roofs rated substandard or worse. The Green Impact Zone Data Committee is working with neighborhood leaders and residents to analyze this information and talk about what it means for the community, and how it can be used to help make the Green Impact Zone vision a reality. The data can be viewed on the Green Impact Zone's website, www.greenimpactzone.org, which also includes a link to an interactive site maintained by the CEI. This information will be updated, and will ultimately include data about the impact of initiatives to improve housing conditions, particularly the effect of home weatherization on utility consumption and demographic trends. VISION FOR CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY CENTER GROWS Work has begun to determine the feasibility of constructing and operating a Climate Sustainability Center along Troost Avenue overlooking Brush Creek. BNIM has been selected to lead a comprehensive team for a feasibility study that will address the creation of a Climate Sustainability Center. The project is part of the ongoing revitalization of the Brush Creek Corridor, with the study being overseen by the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department. "The center's three components - education and job training, research and a botanical garden - are focused on uniting the area's educational and job training efforts into a practical curriculum of 'green environmental' skill sets," said Kansas City Parks and Recreation Director Mark McHenry. "We want to prepare college bound, non-college bound students and underemployed citizens to be productive members of a green workforce that can transform the Kansas City region." The project team recently kicked off community engagement events through which it will gather relevant input from appropriate parties to help guide and develop the building and site program for the center. (see inset) Communication with stakeholders and interested parties will occur in various formats, with project updates accessible to the community via the project website: www.climatesustainabilitycenter.wordpress.com. The Climate Sustainability Center has the goal of becoming a world-class "living campus" that will generate its own electricity and utilize sustainable design strategies to collect storm water on-site for reuse, utilize natural ventilation and embrace solar exposure for optimum building orientation and performance. "The center promises to be an innovative facility designed by premier architects in sustainability, says Fifth District at-Large Kansas City Councilwoman Cindy Circo, "The combination of the Climate Sustainability Center, the energy it can create and its location in an area that breaks historical boundaries can contribute to Kansas City's world-class city status." The center is proposed as a partnership among the University of Missouri-Kansas City; the area's corporate, institutional and labor communities; and the City of Kansas Cty, Missouri and would be located on land currently owned by UMKC. PARTNER UPDATES Midwest Research Institute is part of two teams that were awarded separate contracts, worth a combined $420 million, to boost better use of fossil fuels and alternative energy. MRI will get about $14 million for its work for the two contracts, which both support the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory, which is managed by the institute. With prime contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., MRI will lead cost-benefit analysis to provide the Department of Energy with strategic energy planning and analysis. Also, MRI is leading research infrastructure support and integration to continue the development of new fossil fuel and clean-coal energy initiatives as part of a team being led by URS Corp. Bob Langenkamp was named assistant city manager of Economic Development for Kansas City in January. With a 21-year career in City Hall, he served as Assistant Director of City Planning and Development for eleven years before this appointment by Acting City Manager Troy Schulte. Langenkamp is a member of the Brush Creek Community Partners Board of Directors. Russell B. Melchert has been named dean of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Pharmacy. He is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. Melchert will begin his duties at UMKC on July 1, 2010. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has launched the Energy Innovation Network, designed to help close the gap between clean energy demand and delivery. The online network will match researchers, entrepreneurs, buyers, investors and decision-makers to support high-growth energy businesses. It also will provide policymakers with information that will help them develop programs that can support clean energy entrepreneurship. For more information, visit the website at www.energyinnovationnetwork.org. UMB Financial Corporation and a DST System, Inc. associate have been recognized by the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City for their extraordinary support of the arts community. UMB supports a five-day Art Week to educate, involve and expose associates to the prevalence and applicability of the arts in daily life while raising the visibility of local artists and arts organizations. Robert Palmer, technical communications consultant at DST Systems was named Arts Council Volunteer of the Year for his instrumental leadership in the development and continued success of Art/Work, Kansas City's first city-wide corporate arts festival. BCCP STAYS IN TOUCH WITH EMAIL NEWSLETTERS In January Brush Creek Community Partners began a new way of keeping in touch and sharing information. Email newsletters will be sent out at the end of each month to share even more information about activities happening in the Brush Creek Corridor, and with BCCP members. If you would like to receive these newsletters, give us your email address by sending an email to kathy@bccp.org. Please include your name, organization and contact information so we can add you to the database. FINANCES AND NEIGHBORHOOD ISSUES COME TOGETHER FOR BCCP TREASURER JOANNE BUSSINGER For Brush Creek Community Partners Treasurer Joanne Bussinger, the power of the organization is the collaboration it allows between its various members. Her own organization, Blue Hills Community Services (BHCS), focuses mainly on housing issues in the Blue Hills Neighborhood. But Bussinger says it's important for her, as BHCS’s executive director, to sit at the BCCP table. "It takes government entities, universities, financial institutions and all kinds of organizations to engage everyone. We all need to collaborate on all the needs," she said. Joanne Bussinger Bussinger finds through collaboration, the various stakeholders in the Brush Creek Corridor share their expertise and ideas. "It's a diverse group of people," she said, "and a group like that has a way of finding the most creative solutions." Blue Hills Community Services, founded in 1974 as Blue Hills Homes Corporation, focuses on housing, economic revitalization and improving the quality of life around the Blue Hills Neighborhood. BHCS also owns and manages multi-family properties and supports community revitalization. "We try to comprehensively address issues on a block level," she said. Bussinger said that neighborhood stabilization and dealing with homes in foreclosure is a key activity right now. "We need to preserve existing housing, but also deal with foreclosure because where there are vacant properties, there is crime," she said. Her organization also is becoming a demonstration area for efficient energy practices. Bussinger took an unusual path to her role as leader of BHCS. She comes from an accounting and financial background and joined the organization as its Chief Operating and Financial Officer in 1999. But, she said, just because she was overseeing the financial systems didn't mean she wasn't involved in the neighborhood work, and in 2004, she was named Executive Director. Now Bussinger contributes both her financial talents and her neighborhood insight to BCCP. This mix of skills serves her well as the organization tackles some new funding-related challenges. Stimulus funding and Green Impact Zone dollars present a huge opportunity to BCCP area. But "additional federal stimulus money comes with huge barriers," Bussinger said. "There's a very quick timeline to apply. The funds aren't immediately available, but you have to spend them quickly." She sees a great opportunity for BCCP to play a role in the Green Impact Zone, helping to "focus people and resources in a concentrated area."