PASEO YMCA
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, MO
Cleanup Grant
Paseo YMCA Cleanup Preserving History
ADDRESS: 1814 Paseo Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri 64108
PROPERTY SIZE: I acre
FORMER USE: YMCA and meeting space
CURRENT USE: Future expansion home of the Negro Leagues Baseball
Museum
EPA GRANT RECIPIENT:
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
received a$ 165,047 EPA Cleanup Grant
for hazardous substances.
PROJECT PARTNERS:
City of Kansas City, Missouri,
Kansas State University, Senator
Kit Bond
V
• Kansas City
MISSOURI
PROJECT BACKGROUND:
For additional data and geographic information for this and other
Brownfields Grants, please visit EPA's:
Envirofacts - www.epa.gov/enviro/html/bms/bms query.html
Enviromapper - www.epa.gov/enviro/bf
Negro league baseball started as early as the 1880s, however, it was not until 1920 in a meeting room within the
black men's YMCA that the Negro National League was founded. Located just outside of the 18th and Vine district,
the Paseo YMCA building served as a temporary home for black baseball players, railroad workers, and others making
the transition to big city life in the Midwest. In recent years, the Paseo YMCA building, which was abandoned as an
active YMCA years ago, became blighted and an eyesore within the community. However, despite its declining
condition, the YMCA building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. Recognizing the
importance of the historic building to its history and needing additional space, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
bought the building from the City of Kansas City in late 2005.
KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Removed contamination which allowed architects and engineers to
enter the building and begin work.
Reviving a blighted, historically significant property.
Received $500,000 federal earmarked funding from Senator Kit Bond.
Providing additional archive and educational space to the original
museum.
i
The former YMCA facility.
OUTCOME:
Utilizing a $165,047 EPA Cleanup grant, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum was able to address the building con-
tamination, which included aviary waste, asbestos, and sludge. Prior to cleanup, the building was unhealthy to enter,
prohibiting architects and building engineers from entering the building and starting work. With cleanup complete, the
fundraising campaign to raise $15 million for the historical renovation and redevelopment of the property into the
Buck O'Neil Research and Education Center will begin. Currently, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is receiving
significant historical information and artifacts from families of the players. The new property will create additional
archive, exhibit, education, and research space for all museum materials.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Visit the EPA Brownfields Web site at http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/ or call EPA Region 7 at (913) 551 -7646
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