The nonprofit developer of a troubled grocery store on Prospect Avenue is suing Kansas City, Missouri, alleging the city’s neglect of crime around the Linwood Shopping Center caused the store to close.
Community Builders of Kansas City, an African American-led nonprofit developer, and its subsidiary Midtown Grocers LLC brought the lawsuit against Kansas City on Tuesday in Jackson County Court.
The Sun Fresh Market closed last August, after struggling to combat crime and attract enough customers. The lawsuit says the city undermined the store and forced it to close. According to the lawsuit, Community Builders incurred “extensive damages” that exceed $5 million.
The lawsuit alleges that, in owning the building, Kansas City applied “blatant double-standards,” and enabled “rampant criminal misconduct” that included racial discrimination. The lawsuit says the city’s conduct undermined the store and, in the process, Community Builders incurred “extensive damages” that exceeded $5 million.
A city spokesperson said the city will vigorously defend its interests in response to the claims.
Kansas City first purchased the property in 2016, with plans to redevelop the Linwood Shopping Center and lease the space to a grocery store operator. The city spent nearly $18 million revitalizing the grocery store and shopping center.
Lipari Brothers first took over the Sun Fresh in 2018, but the company eventually approached Community Builders of Kansas City about selling the grocery.
“It became apparent to CBKC, as well as to the City, that if CBKC did not step up and try to save the grocery store at the Shopping Center, nobody else was going to do so,” the lawsuit states.
Community Builders began operating the Sun Fresh at the Linwood Shopping Center in 2022. The lawsuit alleges the city did not provide any financial assistance to Community Builders to operate the store.
Community Builders made a profit of $300,000 from the grocery store in 2022, which the lawsuit says it reinvested back into Sun Fresh. But because of the city’s “repeated and continuous breaches of the lease,” the lawsuit says, the nonprofit lost money on the investment ever since.
“Despite their best efforts to mitigate damages, CBKC and MG incurred substantial and increasing financial losses in connection with the Grocery Store until they were finally forced to close it in August 2025,” the lawsuit reads.
Business at the Sun Fresh declined quickly through the second half of 2022 because of a “dramatic increase in criminal activity,” according to the lawsuit, and other safety concerns that included people with weapons, threats of violence, drug use, prostitution and indecent exposure.
The lawsuit says Community Builders informed the city of these problems, but officials “remained indifferent and nonresponsive.”
After Sun Fresh closed last summer, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said, while he was disappointed, he believed taxpayer money was well spent.
“We've fixed up the building,” Lucas told KCUR in August 2025. “We kept that from becoming yet another decaying structure in the heart of our city.”
CBKC’s lawsuit attributes the increase in crime around the shopping center to the lack of a city jail, the city’s failure to police bus stops nearby and the policies of former City Manager Brian Platt, who was fired in March 2025.
According to the lawsuit, Community Builders paid about $5,000 to $6,000 per week for private contractors and off-duty Kansas City Police officers to provide security. The lawsuit alleges off-duty KCPD officers demanded to be paid in cash at the end of each week, which eroded the company’s financial condition.
Last May, Kansas City Council approved $750,000 in emergency funding to try and keep the store open, but it was ultimately not enough.
“The circumstances continued to worsen, both with respect to criminal misconduct at the Shopping Center and with respect to the resulting decline in the Grocery Store’s financial performance,” the lawsuit says.
After the store closed, Kansas City Council member Melissa Robinson, whose district includes the Linwood Shopping Center, said the city’s financial support was too slow to keep the store from closing.
“How do we make sure that we create less harm, putting the residents of the city first,” Robinson said. “And then, looking toward, what do we need to do to support this nonprofit, who really, really put themselves out there to address this need?”
The lawsuit says the city breached its commitment in the lease to manage the shopping center “in a first-class manner,” and accuses the city of violating its own laws around chronic nuisance conditions.
In January, city officials chose United Market KC to operate the shuttered grocery store. The company is an affiliate of Associated Wholesale Grocers.
