- July 28, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Blighted properties in the Kansas City, Missouri, Jazz District prove the area has been “purposefully neglected” by the city, according to a recently filed lawsuit that seeks to compel the city to bring the properties up to code.
Henry Service, who owns the Historic Lincoln Building at 1601 East 18th Street, filed the suit July 2 in Jackson County Circuit Court, alleging that the condition of the properties violates city and state laws and is the city’s way of “weaponizing their blighted properties” to ultimately own all Jazz District properties.
“As has been the pattern, businesses in the city’s blighted areas fail,” court documents state. “When potentially viable businesses fail, their vacant properties are often sold at a low cost. The said formerly blighted areas then experience gentrification.”
A push to restore these properties was renewed after a building, called the House of Hits and built around 1900,…
