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July 05, 2005 | Kansas City Star
Jazzing up the district |
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Kansas City has the right stuff to become a national destination for African-American tourists and conventioneers. The city's key attraction isn't polished enough yet for national exposure, but its prospects appear to be improving. Kansas City's 18th & Vine Historic Jazz District features the American Jazz Museum and Negro Leagues Baseball Museum - unique tourism magnets that transcend racial boundaries. But since the mid-1990s the rest of the six-block district has been slow to develop and remains blemished by boarded-up storefronts and graffiti. Retailers have steered clear of the district. The Red Vine Cajun Restaurant & Jazz House, one of the district's few restaurants, can't pay its rent and could be forced to close after 14 months. "I don't know why they call this the jazz district," said retiree Clyde Wirrie, who lives nearby. "This is a ghost town. ... Somebody needs to step up to the plate." Somebody has - lots of people, in fact. Over the past decade, urban infill and new housing projects have sprung up, sprucing up and repopulating the area. Barbecue baron and civic activist Ollie Gates is the force behind the nearby 12th Street Heritage District, which is being revived with shops and housing. A new park being developed at 12th and Vine streets, set to open this fall, aims to turn the area at that long-gone intersection, immortalized in the song "Kansas City," into a tourism icon and outdoor music venue. Developers of 18th and Vine say their time in the spotlight is coming. "We're working on it," said H. David Whalen, president of the nonprofit Jazz District Redevelopment Corp., which is marketing the urban renewal project. He said residential expansion is building toward the critical mass that could jar loose a flood of private investment into the neighborhood. It all seems at the brink. "Retail follows rooftops," Whelan, a banker who grew up in the area, said as he cited the neighborhood's growing inventory of nearly 1,000 residential units. From apartments atop storefronts to new housing developments such as Centennial Villa, the Basie Court Apartments and the Vine Street Lofts, the neighborhood where Kansas City jazz was born is being reborn. "For a number of people the progress is very slow," said Juanita Moore, director of the jazz museum. "But things like this don't happen overnight. That critical mass is building. "There are times when traffic is not what you'd like to see. But there are other times when you're just amazed {hellip} when the streets are full of people and there's nowhere to park. "The district's rich history is a natural for tourism. That was the dream eight years ago when then-Mayor Emanuel Cleaver helped form the nonprofit development group to bolster the neighborhood around the city-built museums. Some Kansas Citians might have had their first glimpses of the district last month at the inaugural "Rhythm & Ribs" festival. Thousands attended, and Whelan is confident many will be back - as visitors and, perhaps, investors. "People loved being down here," Whelan said. He added that the crowd included "white families that brought children and had a good time. That's a big deal. "We had a diverse crowd enjoying themselves with no incidents. That momentum is carrying over. {hellip} This is a district for everybody." Room to improve Whelan acknowledged there still is a long way to go. "We have to be better at attracting private dollars," he said. "We can't expect the city and the government to always provide us with the dollars we need." Investor and entrepreneurial confidence eventually will blossom, Whelan said. He argues that 18th and Vine is years ahead of similar historic and entertainment districts being developed in other cities. "Nobody has anchors" like the jazz and baseball museums and the Gem Theater, which have attracted crowds for years, he said. Executive Director Don Motley said the baseball museum drew 55,000 visitors last year. "We're running slightly ahead of that this year," he said. He recalled the 1997 opening of the permanent museum facility, when 10,000 people visited the first month. "There was a stereotype that people wouldn't come down to this neighborhood to see this," he said. "We get people from all over the world, and they tell us how great it is. The people of Kansas City don't realize the jewel they have here." Jazz museum spokesman John O'Connell said the two museums combined drew about 300,000 visitors last year, including those who took in free exhibits and a visitors' center. O'Connell said that about 40,000 people a year attend concerts, jam sessions and private events at the Gem and the museum's jazz club, the Blue Room. However, the district needs more than baseball and jazz, Motley said. "I remember how it was years and years ago," he said. "Now you have families moving in, and the people that live down here say they can't buy a loaf of bread anywhere nearby. "We need more retail businesses, like it used to be years ago." Yes, said Whelan, storefronts are boarded up. He declined to discuss the Red Vine and whether the jazz district's board - the restaurant's landlord - will force the struggling eatery to close its doors. Another restaurant in the district closed recently because of the operator's ill health. Whelan said he was confident a new restaurant tenant will be announced within weeks. "It doesn't look good right now," he said of the periodic setbacks that occur against the district's backdrop of blight. "We're working on those things. Most want to judge us on the retail success. One of the things that is always challenging is having the right people down here to make it go. It's slow, but it will get there. "We are where we are. We can do better. We've got to be positive and persevere ... and evolve into a great district." Red Vine owner Sebrina McCrainey said there will be no breakthrough for the district until it entices more entrepreneurs with sweeter incentives. For starters, "they need to lower this rent," McCrainey said of her $5,000 monthly tab. "This is Plaza rent. It's too high for this area and is based on what it could be, but it's not there yet. The traffic is just not here right now." McCrainey said she spent her life savings and 18 months of hard work getting the Red Vine ready to open. "I just need a break to stabilize my business," she said. "I still believe in this district. I don't want to leave. I want to make it here." Ethnic travel boom Waiting in the wings are the nation's ethnic travelers - a growing vein of tourism gold. The Travel Industry Association of America calculates that annual growth in Hispanic, African-American and Asian traveler volume is outpacing general travel in the United States.Research from 2002, the latest year for which data were available, found minority travelers made up 18 percent of all domestic travelers and 19 percent of domestic travel spending, totaling $90 billion that year. "Every sector of our industry - hotels, theme parks, city visitor bureaus - has begun to reach out to the minority traveler through targeted advertising, minority travel guides and special ethnic promotions," said William S. Norman, association president. Three years ago the Missouri Division of Tourism hired a St. Louis-based marketing firm that since has developed multimedia ad campaigns using music contests, a special Web site, www.whatuneedmo.com, and other techniques aimed to attract minority travelers. Last week, Kansas City-based Cultural Convention and Visitors Services won a $24,000 state contract to stage a fall tour for the nation's jazz and minority news media to promote 18th and Vine and Kansas City's other jazz heritage attractions. Anita Dixon, president of the 10-year-old firm, is working on broader cultural tourism projects, including a comprehensive catalog of the area's ethnic attractions - from 18th and Vine to the Croatian and Slavic heritage of Strawberry Hill in Kansas City, Kan. "It's not a black thing," she said. "Kansas City has a multicultural identity, and we can make this identity work for all of us. "First we've got to show everybody what we've got ... from Boss Pendergast to jazz. It's all connected." What's missing, but perhaps starting to coalesce, Dixon said, is citywide cooperation on a common vision and a lot more funding for attractions such as 18th and Vine, which are struggling "just to keep the lights, gas and water on." Cathy Keefe, spokeswoman for the Travel Industry Association, praised Kansas City's jazz district and its ethnic marketing efforts. "It's money well spent," she said. "These are growth markets." Business heats up Competition for niche markets is growing. For instance, Keefe said St. Louis and Washington, D.C., aggressively court the family-reunion business. Minority and niche markets such as jazz fans are too large to be ignored, said Lori Simms, the Missouri Tourism Division's manager of special markets. A recent study by the University of Missouri-Columbia found that African-American tourists made up 3.7 percent of the state's 37.7 million visitors last year. If their spending habits were typical, they poured $872.6 million into the state's economy. Keefe said there are a few tricks to attracting ethnic tourists. Association surveys find minority tourists embrace mostly typical travel interests - but also show higher-than-national-average rates for car rentals, group tours and interest in cultural events and festivals, as well as nightlife and gambling entertainment. Marketing to minorities can be a delicate political task, said Kim Dooley, multicultural and religious group specialist for the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association. "We've lost some business because we don't have enough minorities in sales roles at major hotels," she said. "Selling Kansas City as a cosmopolitan, metropolitan location ... is an education process. They want to know what the makeup of the city is, the diversity of your visitors' bureau, your hotel community and your off-site attractions." Kansas City appears to be measuring up, with modest but steady increases in ethnic convention bookings in recent years. About 20,000 conventioneers are in Kansas City this week. The annual ministries convention of the Church of God in Christ ranks as the city's third-largest convention this year, consuming more than 11,700 hotel-room nights. The predominantly black Pentecostal denomination has more than 5 million members in 50 countries and has 67,000 U.S. churches. The church held a national gathering here in 1998, and the Rev. Isaac Patrick, a church spokesman, said returning to a city within a decade was a rare decision for the group. Kansas City's affordability, family-friendly attractions and the church's strong membership here brought the group back, he said. "Everything is contingent on what is in the best interest for families," he said. "We could not go to New York City. It's just too expensive. "It's also a family vacation time for us," Patrick added. "People do sightseeing tours and the historic things. That's important for our people." Bishop Roy Dixon of San Diego was a member of the group that selected Kansas City for the 2005 event. "You can get the same hotel breaks and other inducements in every city," he said. Those discounts and deals are an important part of the mix, but Dixon said a bigger reason the group returned to Kansas City was that he and many others recalled their 1998 experience here. "We remember that convention and the way we were treated with courtesy ... the beauty of the city," he said. "And there's nothing like Kansas City barbecue. "We're big eaters, and we're big shoppers," said Dixon, who noted that Kansas City offers plenty of both. Dixon said that during a visit to Kansas City before the selection, he sampled the soul food at the Peachtree Restaurant in the 18th and Vine district. "That's the first place I'm going back to," he said. Reproduced with permission of The Kansas City Star © Copyright 2006 The Kansas City Star. All rights reserved. Format differs from original publication. Not an endorsement.
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