Nothing For Dinner

That project took twelve years, Fleming says, but resulted in 150,000 square feet of commercial space, anchored by Best Buy, Ross Dress for Less, Linens and Things and Long's Drugs, with a child-care center and 355 units of housing. "He got the job done here," says Benny Stewart, the executive director of the Marin City Community Development Corporation. "Three or four months after Al left, we had a packed-to-the-hilt appreciation dinner for him, entitled 'The Dream Builder.'"

When Fleming arrived in Kansas City, he read a BEU report that estimated the cost of restoring and redeveloping every building in the 18th and Vine District at about $90 million. Under the Cleaver plan, the city provided more than $20 million, which went toward the construction of the American Jazz and the Negro Leagues Baseball museums, the restoration of the Gem Theater, the rebuilding of water and sewer lines and the repair of 18th Street itself. Cleaver also tapped a federal program, which has provided $14.2 million. Fleming has rounded up between $3 million and $4 million in financing from Sun America, a financial services group that sometimes invests in housing projects; $400,000 in tax credits from the Missouri Housing Development Corporation; and $3 million in grants from the Hall Family Foundation and the Kauffman Foundation. The Federal National Mortgage Association has also pledged as much as $20 million for the back end of the project, promising to buy out some construction loans.

The redevelopment is divided into three phases, which gradually will add new buildings with apartments on the upper floors and stores at street-level. So far, two buildings are complete, one between Paseo and Vine, the other between Highland and Woodland. Apartment renters have already moved in, but no retail space has opened.

Instead of progress, there has been delay. Fleming blames this on city hall bureaucracy. He also blames the weather -- a very cold winter in 2000-2001 and a very hot following summer -- for putting construction behind schedule. "Some of our crews couldn't work beyond 12 o'clock," he says. "Look around the city and tell me what construction projects weren't delayed."

As Fleming tried to get the buildings off the ground, he also began shepherding prospective businesses through the lease process. He says that when he first started at the JDRC, he looked through 144 "so-called business plans." He found 28 that, at first glance, looked viable. So what happened?

"I threw them all out," he says.

Greg Baker is an assistant to the city manager. When he was a kid, he sold newspapers on Friday mornings throughout the bustling neighborhood. "Call! Don't forget your Kansas City Call," he sings, remembering the delivery boys' musical slogan. With his earnings he bought boiled potatoes and boiled crawdads for a quarter.

Back in the '30s, you might have hung out at Lucille's Paradise, a restaurant and bar, or loaded up on ribs at Henry Perry's, named for Kansas City's onetime "king of barbecue." Good food was a given in those days.

Now food is the next big hope for saving the district. The museums haven't done it. New residential projects such as nearby Basie Court, the gated townhome community just south of 19th Street, haven't done it. Employers such as Sprint, which closed its call center in the Lincoln Building last month, haven't done it. But the restaurants will.

That's been a promise for a long time, too.

In 1994, to make way for the museum complex, the BEU moved out Papa Lew's Barbecue and promised owner Dorriss Lyman a chance to come back when the museums were completed. A year later, after Lyman realized she would have to meet financial guidelines that had never been an issue in her old space, she turned down the offer. The BEU contacted established restaurateurs such as Manny Lopez and Ollie Gates about coming to the district. They weren't interested.

In 1997, the year the museums opened, the BEU's Holmes began to court Sylvia's Restaurant and House of Soul, the famous New York City soul-food establishment. Local restaurant owners were not happy that Holmes was courting an out-of-town business. The Southeast Bar and Restaurant Association, an organization of black-owned restaurants, bars and nightclubs formed in 1979, led the charge in favor of a local business instead.

"We felt if nothing else, as a courtesy, you would come to these people first and make an offer," recalls the group's Betty Brown.

The local restaurant owners complained to the press to try to get the BEU to consider working with them. But in 1998, everyone was still claiming the restaurant would come to the district. By June 1999, though, the deal had fallen apart. In the middle of the slow negotiations, Sylvia's had lost its appetite for expansion, having opened a restaurant in Atlanta that did not perform as well as expected.

The Sylvia's experience turned out to be a preview of other efforts to bring restaurants to the district.

At the end of 1999 Fleming began holding monthly meetings. Some of the people who attended were experienced businesspeople; some were newcomers. Everyone, it seemed, was excited about opening a restaurant at 18th and Vine. But during the next two and a half years, negotiating the lease process turned into a nightmare.