Walking in Kansas City’s 18th and Vine jazz district right now isn’t easy.
“If you go outside, it’s messy. There’s construction everywhere,” said Third District city council member Melissa Patterson Hazley at a recent news conference.
A stretch of 18th Street, from The Paseo to Woodland Avenue, is set to become a pedestrian plaza. The historic Parade Park neighborhood is being demolished for redevelopment. The city is erecting a new parking garage at the intersection of 18th Street and Lydia Avenue. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum will build a new campus and hotel at the origin site of Black baseball.
These are just a few of the 14 development and improvement projects currently underway in the city’s historic jazz district. In total, more than $400 million will be spent on public and private development projects in the area — all with a goal of revitalizing the area for residents and tourists alike. The city has dubbed the initiative “Revive the Vine.”
“People often ask me, ‘Why do you guys keep investing in 18th and Vine?’” Patterson Hazley said. “And my answer is, ‘Well, would you stop investing in your home?’”
The Negro Leagues campus
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum revealed earlier this month its vision to build a new museum and adjoining hotel. The project, which has been in the works since 2023, will add nearly 40,000 square feet to the Buck O’Neil Education and Research Center — the site where the Negro National League was founded in 1920.
“It will be the gateway into historic 18th and Vine, and an international headquarters for both Black baseball and social history,” said Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
The new campus will allow the museum to expand significantly. It originally opened in 1990 as a single-room office in the Historic Lincoln Building at 18th and Vine, and now fills 10,000 feet next to the American Jazz Museum.
“We've just simply outgrown our current home,” Kendrick said. “And we need space to continue to grow from an exhibit standpoint, but also administratively, because Negro Leagues baseball right now is as hot as it has ever been, and we want to continue to elevate that story.”
Kendrick said the expanded museum campus will be able to add new exhibits and space for educational programs.
“I’m excited to expand on some of the existing stories, but there are still a number of other stories that we want to bring to the forefront, including the story of Black baseball and the military,” Kendrick said.
The adjoining hotel will be named The Pennant, a nod to the pennants currently on display at the museum and the city’s winning sports culture, said Michael Collins, managing partner and CEO of Grayson Capital, the developer of the project.
Mayor Quinton Lucas said the new hotel will be instrumental in bringing more tourism to 18th and Vine. The area doesn’t currently have a hotel.
“You'd see people go somewhere else to eat. You'd see somebody stay somewhere else. You'd see all of those things flee our community. We are done with that in the Third District. We are done with that on the east side of Kansas City,” Lucas said.
Other cultural institutions
The Kansas City Council also recently allocated $3.2 million to the American Jazz Museum. The funding is the most the museum has received from the city in 25 years, and aims to build the institution into a community hub for jazz.
The Blue Room, a music venue, will be renovated. New lighting, sound and acoustics will improve performance quality, and the space will be relocated to accommodate more people.
The museum will also reorganize its exhibit spaces, introduce a changing gallery, build a new cafe and retail area, and create operational efficiency. Eventually, the whole museum space will be fully renovated.
The project will be “transformational,” museum leaders said.
“The American Jazz Museum has a powerful story to tell about the history, impact and future of jazz, and this effort will help us tell it in the way it deserves to be told,” said Stephenie Smith, board chair, in a news release.
Restoration of the Boone Theater, which started in 2024, is also ongoing, and is set to be completed this summer. When it’s open, the theater will feature the Black Movie Hall of Fame.
Other projects
In addition to the 18th Street pedestrian plaza and parking garage, the city is also adding a variety of street improvements to the area.
A larger median will eliminate a lane on Paseo Boulevard from East 17th Terrace to the railroad tracks. A shared-use path will be installed on the same road, between Admiral Boulevard and 18th Street. The city will add a fountain and statues, and construct a roller skating rink at Blues Park. It’s working with the state to redesign and reconstruct the section of Interstate 70 near the district.
Other private projects include mixed-use developments and redevelopment of the Parade Park neighborhood, which could take as many as 10 years to build.
Most of the construction is slated to wrap up by the end of 2028, though some projects could be completed as early as June.
The Kansas City Streetcar Authority is also studying whether to build an east-west streetcar line connecting Main Street to the jazz district.
It’s a new beginning for the district, Lucas said at the news conference announcing the vision of the new Negro Leagues campus.
“We are the ship that will build a future for the next 100 years, when people are talking about the Negro Leagues, and they are in one of the greatest facilities ever,” Lucas said. “Where they are spending money at a hotel, where there is no trip to Kansas City where you can't stop through 18th and Vine.”
