08/30/2016
"Halls of Brookfield Senior Apartments"
Today I had the pleasure of visiting with Marcia Cunningham and Becky Clark Cleveland about the rally at the old school tomorrow (Wednesday) at noon - remember the public is invited and encouraged to be there - where information about the project will be shared along with creating a promotional video to accompany the application required for winning this project for Brookfield.
After seeing the accompanying materials, I can tell you I was so "over the moon" at the prospect of this lovely facility replacing the old school, that I easily said "Yes!" when Becky asked me if I'd be willing to write a letter of support for the project to go along with their application. In addition, I scanned the image of the building - I think it has beautiful potential compared to the wrecked ruin I drive past every day - and the two site plans showing how it will be situated on Main Street.
If any other local friends seeing this on Facebook would like to write a supportive letter, contact Marcia or Becky at 258-7278 to express your interest and get details from them on what they would like you to say. My letter covers some points from the proposal and my own unique perspective of being a former BHS teacher associated with the old building yet having an obvious future interest in seeing "Halls of Brookfield" become a reality for our town. But don't dawdle; the application must be turned in sometime next week.
August 30, 2016
Mr. Frank Quagraine
Missouri Housing Development Commission
920 Main Street, Suite 1400
Kansas City, MO 64105
Dear Mr. Quagraine:
I am writing to encourage you to approve a plan being submitted to MHDC by Turnberry Developers, LLC that will give them tax credit to complete a project titled “Halls of Brookfield Senior Apartments.” As I understand it, the project will entail the demolition of the old Brookfield High School building on North Main Street in Brookfield, Missouri, and replace it with a new three-story, 42-unit complex that will provide affordable senior citizen housing for Brookfield citizens in the coming years.
I cannot emphasize enough what a welcome plan this is to me for both personal and public reasons. First, the personal benefit to me is that I live four houses north of the old school which is an empty, neglected, and vandalized ruin, with windows imploding into the building, and bricks falling off the structure. It’s the same old story that occurs in countless towns across the country when an old school is replaced with a new one and no successful purpose is found for the old structure, until it is long neglected, ruined, and ultimately demolished.
I have lived in my home for 35 years, and I’ve watched the old school gradually “fall down around itself” since it closed in 1989. I understand people’s “memory attachments” to old schools – I taught at BHS from 1976 until I retired in 2014, so I have my own personal feelings about the old building - but as a realist who owns a house in the same neighborhood as this unsightly wreck, I want to see it gone and replaced with something that will be of benefit to the town and to area citizens who will favor an alternative in living accommodations when they reach an advanced age and decide to sell a house or a farm and move to a smaller ADA accessible facility such as “Halls of Brookfield” features in its design plans. And at 63 years of age, I have already entertained the idea that my wife, or I, or both of us together, may wish in our elder years to downsize from our 13-room Victorian house and move into an apartment in such a facility. Having often visited my 94-year-old aunt who lives in a similar establishment in Carrollton, Missouri, I am aware of the benefits that senior apartments like “Halls of Brookfield” would offer its residents.
From the public perspective, this plan offers the town the prospect of increased tax revenue from a viable apartment complex instead of only wasted opportunity and a neglected eyesore that rests in the ruined school building along with bats and stray cats that inhabit it now. In its current condition, Old BHS is a blight on the landscape, a burden on the town, and a dead weight affecting the value of all the surrounding real estate. On the other hand, the new “Halls of Brookfield Senior Apartments” would be a wonderful addition to our town – this coming to you from a man who has attended the last 41 Brookfield High School graduations where the whole audience sings the school song – “Halls of Brookfield” – just before the recessional. Like the lyrics of that old song, the condition of the old school is enough to make me weep when I think about it, but the possibility of seeing it replaced with new Senior Apartments would make me want to cheer the town and celebrate the “Blue Pride” for which our school is noted in its official blue and white colors. I encourage you and MHDC to help us make this vision a reality for the town of Brookfield.
Sincerely,
James Hart
920 N. Main Street
Brookfield, MO 64628
PS. It may not mean a thing, but I felt it was good karma that MHDC and I share the same street number "920" on our Main Street addresses in Kansas City and in Brookfield. Fingers crossed!
