Swope Health announces a new edition of its podcast, One on One with Swope Health, featuring Emmet Pierson Jr., president and CEO of Community Builders KC, a non-profit urban core development organization.
Eric Wesson, founder and publisher of The Next Page KC, a newspaper focused on the Black community, hosts the show’s conversations with Kansas Citians about issues of importance to the community’s health and wellbeing.
In this conversation, Pierson discusses CBKC’s approach to investing and development as a means of building equity, access, opportunity and advocacy for Kansas City’s urban core.
Pierson, a native of Kansas City, grew up in the Blue Hills neighborhood and found his career in development “by accident.” He started working with his brother-in-law in finance and real estate, and learned more about community development from several mentors, including Rochester “Chuck” Gaston, one of the founders of Community Builders, and Don Maxwell, a former president of the Community Development Corp. of Kansas City.
Economic development, in Pierson’s definition, encompasses residential housing, workforce development, and opportunity development – anything necessary to bring economic life and vitality to a community, often one marginalized and under resourced. It also includes being a good steward of the community.
What’s missing is often the sustained investment, he said. There has been sustained investment in downtown, Power & Light District, River Market, and the Crossroads, but not the city’s East Side, he argues.
CBKC has largely led the development along the Brush Creek corridor, or the 47th Street/Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and Pierson notes this area has not received the kind of catalyst funding that has been invested elsewhere in the city.
One exception is 18th and Vine, the three block area, that is seeing continued progress with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and campus and Parade Park developments, he said.
The conversation also addressed the city-owned Linwood Shopping Center at 31st and Prospect, an area that has been a focus for crime, drug-dealing, panhandling, and prostitution. The city and police department committed to additional attention to the area, including a $750,000 investment in the grocery operated by CBKC. Pierson noted that the commitment, made in August, has not materialized.
Pierson talks about his management practices, his 34 years of development and management experience, the need for safety and security at the center, as well as the need for sustained investment to maintain the neighborhood – and the grocery.
Listen to the conversation: https://youtu.be/6ZGLrg7MmfI
