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Negro Leagues Baseball Museum plans $30 million development project on The Paseo

A man wearing a plaid sports jacket stands in front of a brick entryway. Above the entryway is a sign that reads "NLBM, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum."
Carlos Moreno
/
KCUR 89.3
Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is planning a $30 million expansion in the Historic 18th and Vine district that will allow it to add more museum offerings and also include a seven story hotel, a rooftop bar and a restaurant. The Kansas City institution was also featured on the video game "MLB The Show 25."

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and its president, Bob Kendrick, are incredibly busy these days.

Kendrick is telling the story of the Negro Leagues in a new way, as a part of the "Storylines" series on the popular video game "MLB The Show 25." Kendrick says the collaboration is a way of increasing interest in this history among younger generations.

Meanwhile, the Kansas City museum is pushing to expand dramatically by building a new $30 million complex on The Paseo.

Kendrick told KCUR's Up To Date that the museum will create what he calls the nation's "first Negro Leagues campus" as a gateway into the Historic 18th and Vine district.

"(The museum) started in a one room office (and was later) recognized as America's National Negro Leagues Baseball Museum after we built our current home," Kendrick said.

"Now, of course, it's the realization of a dream to build a brand new, 30,000+ square foot, state-of-the-art Negro Leagues Baseball Museum that will be anchored adjacent to the former Paseo YMCA — now the Buck O'Neil Education and Research Center — the very building where the Negro Leagues were established in 1920."

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