EPA Region 7 – Westside
Business Park, Kansas City, Missouri
The Hispanic Economic Development Corporation identified
redevelopment of the Kansas City Terminal Railway rail yard
as key to revitalizing the largely Hispanic Westside district
of Kansas City. The 22-acre site, challenged by its legacy
of industrial use, has been transformed into more than 240,000
sq. ft. of office space in the new Westside Business Park.
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| Before
Redevelopment |
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| Interior
of Building Before Redevelopment |
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| During
Construction |
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| Business
Park - After Redevelopment |
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| Business
Park - After Redevelopment |
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| Business
Park - After Redevelopment |
The Kansas City Terminal Railway rail yard was built in 1914
to serve Kansas City’s Union Station. Once proclaimed
as the “Great Gateway to the West” by President
Woodrow Wilson, the rail yard provided support for thousands
of passenger trains and locomotives. In 1917, nearly 80,000
trains passed through Union Station and its yards. During
World War II, half of all soldiers deployed stopped here.
The rail yard was the center for a bustling Westside district
economy. In the 1960s, the Postal Service stopped using passenger
trains as its primary way to move mail across the country,
and the once strong economy of the Westside district declined
along with the passenger rail service. The need for support
services decreased, the number of jobs shrank, and the rail
yard and maintenance facility were well on the way to becoming
a brownfield.
In the mid-1990s, the City of Kansas City, Missouri and the
Hispanic Economic Development Corporation (HEDC) planned to
revitalize the largely Hispanic Westside district by redeveloping
the old rail yard. HEDC formed the Westside Industrial Redevelopment
Corporation (Westside) hired The Forrester Group, Inc. to
evaluate environmental site conditions and prepare a cleanup
plan. The Forrester Group secured approval of a remedial action
plan from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Voluntary
Cleanup Program and also secured insurance coverage to protect
Westside from unknown environmental conditions.
The contaminants identified through environmental investigations
were asbestos-containing materials, lead-based paint, lead
contamination in small areas of soil, and petroleum contamination
in soil from years of locomotive fueling activities. The asbestos-containing
materials were removed using traditional abatement techniques.
Removal of lead-based paint while preserving the original
character of the underlying brick and mortar in the historic
buildings to be preserved required pilot testing a number
of techniques. Westside, The Forrester Group, and state historic
preservation authorities determined that sand blasting provided
the best combination of paint removal and substrate preservation.
Remediation of the soil contaminants proceeded by excavation
and off-site disposal until two site conditions not previously
discovered were identified.
During the final stages of the petroleum excavation, a buried
rail car was found containing petroleum wastes. The impact
of this previously unknown condition was eclipsed, however,
by the discovery of arsenic contamination at the site. Subsequent
investigations showed that arsenic was ubiquitous at the 22-acre
site. Discovery of these issues not only delayed completion
of the project, but required additional agency negotiations,
work plan development, and additional remediation. The extent
of contamination and the magnitude of the necessary remediation
required careful consideration of remedial alternatives and
implementation techniques.
Ultimately it was the introduction of Boulevard Realty Company,
Inc. to the Westside team that provided the certainty necessary
to finalize the remediation and redevelopment plans and move
the project forward to completion. Participation in this project
is consistent with Boulevard’s long-term commitment
to revitalization of downtown and inner city Kansas City.
Sharing Westside’s vision for the site, Boulevard was
willing to invest in the redevelopment, including transforming
the former roundhouses used to service railcars and locomotives
into office space. With Boulevard leading the Westside team,
the remediation of petroleum and arsenic contamination was
completed by excavation and off-site disposal. Over 50,000
tons of arsenic-impacted soil and approximately 3,000 tons
of petroleum-impacted soil were removed from the property.
This option was chosen to preserve flexibility for Boulevard’s
use of the site and protection of its occupants, including
the potential for development of an employee daycare facility.
This project was partially funded with a $7.1 million HUD
Community Development Block Grant and a $7.1 million HUD Section
108 Loan. The project also received $100,000 from the State
Department of Economic Development to be used for environmental
due diligence and participated in the state’s Brownfields
Program pursuant to which the project received a $640,000
loan from the State Department of Economic Development secured
solely by state tax credits. State and federal historic tax
credits for the renovation of the preserved historic structures
totaled $4 million with the balance of the project being funded
solely by the redeveloper and its parent corporation.
The Westside Business Park is now the home to Output Technology
Solutions, Inc., a corporate affiliate of Boulevard. The redevelopment
of this once proud site has brought new industry, 600 new
computer processing service jobs, and new life to a community
that long suffered the impacts of life in a brownfield. The
rail yard was once the center of the Westside economy. Now,
with the reclamation and development of the site, the Westside
Business Park promises to be once again the center of the
Westside economy and provides a long-term anchor to the revitalization
of this community.
The Westside Business Park redevelopment is the successful
culmination of local, city, state, and private interest efforts
to achieve a common goal. The Hispanic community has a new
economic “engine” driving the economy of its neighborhood
where previously stood an abandoned, contaminated eyesore.
City and state officials can point to the protection of human
health and the environment of a site cleanup up to a level
with no restrictions on future uses. A private sector tenant
added a beautiful, renovated and newly built facility in which
to provide 600 employees a unique work environment in an ethnically
diverse, revitalized neighborhood.
For further information about this project, contact Joel
R. Mosher at (816) 374-0551 or via e-mail at jmosher@stklaw.com
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