Busy Bee building owners enlist assistance of historic renovator

The Landbanc Redevelopment Com-pany LLC, which owns the Busy Bee Building at 324 Park Central West, has enlisted the help of Adam Jones, a Kan-sas City-based historic renovator, for the renovation of the property.

Dennis Radford-Kapp owns the Busy Bee building, formerly known as the Landbanc building, with Bob McCros-key, a Springfield real estate business owner and Reg Cordrey, a commercial real estate appraiser in Kansas City.

Radford-Kapp said the owners have asked Jones to design nine apartments on the top three floors of the building, which eventually will be leased. Com-mercial units will be available on the first floor.

Jones "takes a different approach to historic redevelopment," Radford-Kapp said. "He's involved with maintaining all possible elements of historical integrity.".

For example, he said, the building in-cludes an antique elevator.

"We're going to keep the outside of the elevator, the beautiful antique work, but put modern workings inside it," Radford-Kapp said. "The elevator will be run by a computer and be handicapped accessible, like the rest of the building. Adam is good at taking what's there and making it work."

The building, which was built sometime in the 1920s, has 3,600 square feet on each of its four levels, not including the basement.

Radford-Kapp purchased the building almost four years ago, with McCroskey and Cordrey joining him in ownership at a later date. At the time he purchased the Busy Bee building, it hadn't been occupied for 25 years.

"It had to be completely rewired and have all new plumbing to get it up to code," he said. "It had to be cleaned of 25 years of debris to keep it from being a public nuisance."

The Busy Bee building is a part of the Campbell Street Historic District, and the owners are taking advantage of all the historic tax credit opportunities they can. They'll be using private lending and the city's renovation programs (funded by the state and federal government) to fund this project.

Radford-Kapp said he bought the Busy Bee property because he loves old buildings and the downtown area.

"There aren't many properties available downtown," he said. "I had a business downtown, the Moon City Cafe, and was downtown constantly. I saw the em-pty buildings when I owned the cafe. I want to increase the residential and retail availability downtown. It's been a great experience working with the city and the other people renovating buildings."

There are several phases to be completed before the apartments can be leased out. McCroskey is the leasing agent.

"Phase I is completing the brick work, the roof, the windows, the store front and the interior of the apartments and retail section," Radford-Kapp said. "Phase II is finishing the code work and doing the infill: the flooring, the trim, and so on. We're about eight to 10 weeks away from putting the project up for bid."