For 38 years, Steve Frisbee has done something few have accomplished: He has held on to a business on Prospect Avenue.
At its peak, City-Wide Auto Repair had eight employees on its payroll and kept three bays busy with repairs. "We used to do more inspections than anybody in the state of Missouri," he boasts.
Now his business has become a dumping ground.
Frisbee steps out of the bright-yellow building on a recent Thursday morning and surveys the cracked pavement that people often heap with debris overnight. But the businessman doesn't blame the predictable mess on vandals. And he knows that his block looks abandoned.
"I'm in the middle of no-man's land," he says. "There are only three businesses left between 59th and 63rd, and each one is slowly going out of business."
If promises had been kept and contracts paid out, Frisbee would have been long gone, too.
By now, the area was supposed to be home to a sprawling shopping complex. The $106 million Citadel Plaza, proposed by the Community Development Corporation of Kansas City (CDC-KC), promised a supermarket and niche amenities such as a day spa. There were to have been jobs by the hundreds and new hope for a depressed neighborhood.
The city of Kansas City bought into that vision. In 1994, it tagged the area as part of a massive tax-increment financing plan. Such a tactic promises developers a portion of future tax revenues as an incentive to rebuild blighted areas. The CDC-KC was tapped as the developer, using private, federal and city funds to clear the way for the shopping complex.
Frisbee's business stood in the path of progress.
In early 2007, representatives from the CDC-KC told Frisbee that the group needed his land. He had two options: Negotiate a sale or let the CDC-KC wrest it from him through eminent domain. Frisbee bargained and got what he considered a fair price: $220,000.
"I've got three contracts," he says.
Frisbee keeps the contracts and letters from William Threatt Jr., then president of the CDC-KC, in a smudged folder on his workbench. In June 2007, Threatt wrote that the purchase of Frisbee's shop would be complete within the next 30 days. As that closing date came and went and two others followed, Threatt made similar pledges in letters sent in January and February 2008.
Meanwhile, Frisbee found a good deal on a new location in Raytown. He dismantled the pricey overhead lift that he used for repairs and prepared for the move. "We talked all the way along, until the time came for closing, and then I couldn't get them on the phone," he says of the CDC-KC.
He never received a cent. The building in Raytown went to another buyer. Now Frisbee is stuck, and business is bad. He has trimmed his staff to three mechanics, two of whom are his sons. He has lost the liability insurance on his building; no carrier will cover him in this increasingly unsettled neighborhood. Since the CDC started demolition in the area, Frisbee has fallen more than $45,000 into debt keeping his business alive.
"I'm surprised I made it through the winter," he says. "This has put me so far in the hole. And, you know, I've only been here for 38 years."
Frisbee isn't the only one who has been stiffed. Business and property owners say somebody has to pay for the dismantling of their neighborhood.
The city trusted the CDC-KC despite numerous warning signs.
In the early 1990s, big-name developers weren't interested in an ambitious project in the bull's-eye of gang violence and blighted housing stock. By nature of its mission, the CDC-KC stepped in.
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This is why you dont want the govt. involved in business. If you dont have skin in the game what is your incentive to see things profitably through? What a bunch of idiots the city council and mayor are. That poor neighborhood and those poor business owners. I hope a judge somewhere sticks it to Kansas City.
This is why you dont want the govt. involved in business. If you dont have skin in the game what is your incentive to see things profitably through? What a bunch of idiots the city council and mayor are. That poor neighborhood and those poor business owners. I hope a judge somewhere sticks it to Kansas City.
i think kc should be ashamed-this man needs to sue them for breach of contract-kc was a great city at one time due in fact to all the small business owners politics and there own grred took over and see where it landed-kc looks like a dump driving through and all the neighborhoods-looks like a futuristic show-no one left behind its a shame im glad i dont live there or work there its a creepy run down town
i think kc should be ashamed-this man needs to sue them for breach of contract-kc was a great city at one time due in fact to all the small business owners politics and there own grred took over and see where it landed-kc looks like a dump driving through and all the neighborhoods-looks like a futuristic show-no one left behind its a shame im glad i dont live there or work there its a creepy run down town
Oh yeah, rest assured the business owners will indeed get the short end of the stick!
Chad
www.true-privacy.es.tc
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