A landmark piece of Emporia history will be getting a new life when Kenyon Hall is renovated in a project that has spanned years.
The building, which has been empty since its last occupant vacated about five years ago, will be renovated into affordable housing for the elderly after an investor has been secured to finance the project. Despite many delays and setbacks, work is finally set to move forward thanks to federal housing tax credits through the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation.
When all is done, Kenyon Hall will have a new name — Kenyon Heights — and a new purpose.
The fate of the 60,000 square-foot building has been uncertain since it was purchased by Mitchell-Markowitz LLC in 2006. At one point, Kenyon Hall was in danger of being demolished. Shortly after purchasing the building the owners applied for a demolition permit, saying restoring it would be too expensive.
“When Dave and I bought the building in 2006, we didn’t really feel like it could be restored,” said Rick Mitchell of Mitchell-Markowitz. “And really, there hadn’t been anything done to the building since the late 70s. No one had repaired it.”
An objection to the permit was filed by the Kansas State Historical Society because of the location of Kenyon Hall next to Anderson Library. The library, one of two Carnegie libraries in Emporia, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The objection sent the demolition permit before the city commission.
A vote by three of the commissioners in favor of demolition led to a grassroots effort to save Kenyon Hall by people who had memories of the building and its history. Its proximity to the Anderson Library led to a lawsuit by the Lyon County Historical Society, which claimed the demolition would pose dangers to the library.
Next came a drawn out process in the Lyon County District Court, with then-Judge John Sanderson issuing a temporary restraining order on the demolition permit in September of 2006. The court process continued until February of 2007, when the historical society withdrew its lawsuit, saying that the owners of Kenyon Hall were making a good-faith effort to use tax credits to renovate Kenyon Hall.
A storied past
Begun in 1917 and completed in 1928, Kenyon Hall was built to replace Stuart Hall, the College of Emporia’s first building, which was destroyed by fire in 1915. It became the Presbyterian school’s main campus building, containing offices, classrooms, a chapel and an auditorium.
When completed, Kenyon Hall was a featured part of Emporia’s architectural treasures, with its gothic style and high, stained-glass windows. The building also contained a browsing library courtesy of Gazette publisher William Allen White and a music conservatory for the college’s music program.
The building rose to the national stage in a photograph that ran in a 1944 issue of Life Magazine showing the funeral of William Allen White.
For decades, Kenyon Hall served a school that was well-known for its academics, sports and music programs. By the late 1960s, a dwindling enrollment and financial problems spelled trouble for the College of Emporia. It closed its doors in 1974. The building and campus were then taken over by a religious group, The Way International, which operated it as The Way College until the late 1980s.
The building was then obtained by the C of E Development Co., which hoped to find a new use for Kenyon Hall. When the company offered to donate the building to the city, the offer was turned down because of estimated high costs of renovation and maintenance.
In 1993, Kenyon Hall was purchased by the Rock of Life Church for $15,000. The church operated out of the building until it was forced to close because of the high operating costs. It was sold to Mitchell-Markowitz LLC in 2006.
For years, while the new owners sought avenues to find new uses for the building, Kenyon Hall sat vacant and unkempt. Trespassers broke in and vandalized the interior, and those with memories of the building were dismayed by its condition.
A new beginning
Following the court hearings, owners Mitchell and Dave Markowitz announced that they were looking to qualify for housing tax credits to keep Kenyon Hall from being torn down. They applied for tax credits through the Kansas Housing Resource Corporation, a state agency with the authority to award the credits.
The credits were necessary in order for work on the building to move on. Mitchell-Markowitz missed out on the 2008 round of awards, primarily because of the disasters in Greensburg and Coffeyville the previous year. Mitchell said in a 2008 interview with the Gazette that they would continue to file applications with the KHRC.
In January 2009, the KHRC announced that it would award Kenyon Hall credits worth $507,357 a year for 10 years to go toward renovating the building. The shaky financial market following the 2008 crash led to delays in the project, however, as Mitchell-Markowitz and the KHRC had trouble finding investors.
“After the market tanked in 2008, getting investors into a smaller town was difficult,” said Fred Bentley, KHRC rental housing division director. “Getting them into a building like this that’s going to take a lot of work to restore, that’s problematic.”
The delays caused headaches for the owners, and Mitchell said they got somewhat of a bad rap in the community from people who felt like nothing was getting done.
“We didn’t promote it much because it seems like that always backfired on us, but we’ve spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours to get to this point where we can restore it,” Mitchell said. “It’s a great building and it’s a great asset to the community, and that’s why we stuck with it.
The project was kept alive from a funding perspective to allow time to find a developer and an investor for the restoration, Bentley said. Last year, he set up a meeting between Mitchell-Markowitz and developer Manske & Associates LLC out of Wichita. The developer agreed to take on the project.
“We met with Rick Mitchell and Dave Markowitz to see what the process was all about and what they had on the drawing board,” Jack Manske of Manske & Associates said about his approval of the project. “We met with them and toured the building. It needs a lot of care, but it has a lot of potential, too. So we submitted an application to update it, to renovate it the way we’d like to see it done.”
The only step left was for the group to find someone willing to invest. That last piece of the puzzle has finally fallen into place.
“At first they tried to find local investors, but it’s a big development in terms of the amount of credit,” Bentley said. With no luck, they began to search all over the country. They recently found an investor in WNC & Associates Inc. out of Irvine, Calif.
The next step
Once the investor was secured, Manske said a crew went to clean up the interior of Kenyon Hall to prepare for a visit by representatives of WNC.
“The building has been vacant for quite some time now,” Manske said. “It was a substantial cleanup because there was a lot of debris on the auditorium floor and in the entryway.”
If all goes as planned, the 12-month construction process will begin in February, with units coming available in 2013. The result will offer affordable housing for people 55 years old and up, with 23 one-bedroom and 24 two-bedroom apartments. The total cost of the project will be $7,696,000, Manske said.
The KHRC and Bentley deserve credit for keeping the project alive, Manske said, because it wouldn’t have been possible without them.
“This is an extremely competitive program,” he said. “We were able to be competitive primarily because the state does not like to see old buildings that have potential being torn down and replaced with a strip mall or something of that nature. They are essential in seeing this happen.”
Such renovation projects are important to the KHRC, Bentley said.
“We wanted to make this investment because of the significance of the building,” he said, “It’s really an example of architecture and things that we don’t want to lose. I think it will be a great thing for Emporia to be able to show off.”
When the project is done, Kenyon Heights will fill a need for the community while remaining a piece of Emporia’s history.
“It’s kind of like the Granada and Kress Center,” Mitchell said. “They have maintained some history in the community. It’s going to be one of those landmark properties that will really be an asset to Emporia.
“There was a point when it would have been easy for us to walk away,” he continued. “But Dave and I stuck with it. It was a long process, but we stuck with it until it finally came through.”
Steve_Corbin (anonymous) says...
WOW Great news for Emporia.
Shoot, if it's done in 2013 i might be interested in a 2 bedroom apartment, myself. Keep us apprised of the work, please?
November 21, 2011 at 11:39 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
sail (anonymous) says...
This is a good shot for EMPORIA... HMMM might be of intrest too if my property tax keeps going up......
November 21, 2011 at 3:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
jamesbordonaro (James Bordonaro) says...
I want to thank Fred Bentley for responding to my letter back several years ago urging him to keep faith with the developers. At that time, Mr. Bentley acknowledged the historic value of the property but stated that it wasn't likely to be worked on because there were many other properties that ranked above it in terms of historical value and the Legislature had only appropriated so much money. This is a beautiful building and an asset for our town.
I also want to congratulate Rick Mitchell and Dave Markowitz for sticking with the project as each year that went by appeared to only bring deadlock and disappointment.
November 21, 2011 at 5:59 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
reddog (K. B. Thomas Jr.) says...
LIFE MAGAZINE-The William Allen White story......C of E FIGHTS
http://ehub.journalism.ku.edu/history...
November 21, 2011 at 7:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
scarlett01_98 (anonymous) says...
steve corbin,
this was in the wichita paper. he was one of my dads friends. really nice guy.
www.legacy.com/obituaries/kansas/obit...
November 27, 2011 at 2:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )