The site of the former Jewish Community Center, and later the Paul Robeson Middle School, has been abandoned since 2006 and has been in a state of disrepair for well over a decade.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas announced legislation “mandating ownership change to rehabilitate or raze the long vacant and blighted structure,” according to a Facebook post on Sept. 18.
The building, located at 82nd St. and Holmes, was the site of the JCC for more than two decades before being sold to the Kansas City School District after the current center was built in 1984. It later became the Paul Robeson Middle School before closing and falling into disrepair.
“For too many years, the site of the former Robeson Middle School (and former Jewish Community Center) has blighted the Holmes and Troost corridors and neighborhoods around them with unkempt weeds, crumbling structures, trash build up, vandalism and graffiti,” Lucas said in the Facebook post.
According to KSHB, current owner Sean Pickett purchased the property in 2018 with plans to demolish the building and create a community pool, basketball courts and retirement homes. As of now, the building still stands in disrepair, covered in graffiti and with broken windows.