The old Greyhound bus depot in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, takes another step toward its demise this week.
On Thursday, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will consider a nearly $2.2 million contract to demolish the eyesore at 12th and Holmes, as well as an old fire station. Both buildings sit inside the East Village redevelopment plan.
The city condemned the former Greyhound station in 2007. Its owner, tobacco wholesaler and quarry operator Anthony Barber, agreed to sell it for $5 million a year later. Surrounded by razor wire and caked in bird shit, the building went to show that the only thing more desperate than a bus station is an empty bus station.
Greyhound vacated the spot in 1988. A sporting-goods company made a go at the site for a few years before MAST, the city-funded ambulance company, considered it as a possible headquarters. But Barber, who runs his tobacco business in a nearby building, swooped in before MAST could muster enough support for the purchase.
Covering an entire block, the depot sat empty for years. Barber neglected the property to the point that the city, last summer, hired a company to board up its broken windows.
Kingston Environmental Services submitted the low bid to abate the asbestos and demolish the buildings.
UPDATE: A city spokesman says work should commence in July.
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So MAST wanted to take over a decrepit building, actually bring some life and income to the area, and this schmoe store owner craps in the salad? Great idea.
Ask anyone who lives in Eastwood hills area. They were delighted to have that crappy old Kmart turned into something productive.
I think that McDonalds clears $50,000 a year just on MAST employees eating there. No kidding about that.
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