The Kansas City Star Northland Neighborhood News March 17, 2007
By Bill Graham and Jason Noble
Extreme Makeover – Crowds fill Northland neighborhood to watch house rise
If You Build It, They Will Come
The Jacobo family’s new house is scheduled to be finished by Sunday.
Hollywood came to the Winnwood-Sunnybrook neighborhood this week, and residents knew just what to do.
They unfolded lawn chairs, fired up barbecue grills, grabbed their cameras and enjoyed the spectacle as crews for “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: destroyed one house at 4132. Spruce Ave. and set to work building another in its place.
“I think it’s awesome,” said Maria Love, a resident of Jackson Avenue, one street over.
She was among the many area residents frequenting the street where television cameras and construction equipment operated side by side. Several hundred people pressed up against barricades each day to watch progress and to get a glimpse of the show’s stars.
The Jesus and Michelle Jacobo family, which includes nine children and a grandparent, missed most of the action. They’re in Florida on an all-expense-paid vacation.
It’s their 912-square-foot house that was torn down Tuesday by “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” led by Kevin Green, a Parkville-based home builder, are constructing a 5,100 square-foot house to replace it by Sunday.
The Jacobo family is well like in the community, said neighbors, teacher and school officials. So the community is thrilled for the family.
But the whole neighborhood is benefiting as well, from both television exposure and a $100,000 playground installed this week at Winnwood Park by the show’s volunteer crews. All materials and labor for the projects are donated.
Crews are using Kansas City park land as a staging area for equipment and construction materials. The park gets the new playground in return, and out of respect for the Jacobo children.
“It’s fantastic, because this was on the drawing board as a wish for the neighborhood,: said Jim Rice, executive director of Northland Neighborhoods Inc. “This is a total bonus of a first-class playground, and it’s going to be done in a week.
But most eyes this week have focused on the rapid-fire construction underway on Spruce Avenue, as a large home gets built in a week and television stars such as Ty Pennington walk the street.
Only local residents and construction equipment could drive into the immediate area as police and private security guards staffed barricades to prevent parking problems.
Onlookers stood in neighbors’ yards. Big equipment rumbled up the streets.
The Jacobo home is part of the Sunnybrook Addition, built in the early 1960’s just east of the former Winwood Lake area.
“It’s a very good neighborhood, very peaceful,” said Bertha Gates, who has lived there for 43 years. “I raised my four children here with no problems.”
People in the working-class neighborhood generally know one another, Gates said.
But only a few families remain from when the homes first were occupied, she said.
That’s contributed to problems for what’s organized as the Winnwood-Sunnybrook Neighborhood, Rice said.
Some homes have become rundown with time, he said Northland Neighborhoods has provided grants for more than 100 remodeling projects in the neighborhood.
Sometimes it’s hard to convince Kansas City leaders that the Northland has distressed neighborhoods and needs city money to improve them, Rice said. The exposure from “Extreme Makeover” will help.
“But the people in that neighborhood are working hard to get things stabilized,” he said.
Such a large investment in an older neighborhood has got to be good for residents there, Rice said. Perhaps it will spur more improvements too.
“These are good, hard-working people, who want to do the right thing,” he said.
Anthony Lombardo, whose Jackson Avenue home is just around the corner from the Jacobos’, said he was happy to see something happen to such a deserving family. But he worries that the new house might raise property taxes.
“I know it’s good for the area,” Lombardo said. “We’ve been here over 43 years. The only thing I’m concerned with once they build new homes like this I don’t know if there’s going to be any more, but they’ll probably reassess the area. And that’s my concern because we’re on limited income and we just can’t afford higher taxes.”
The Frank and Tammy Cihak family’s front yard held tent shelters and a steady stream of volunteer, media and the show’s staff.
Andrew Cihak, 20, grabbed his camera off a TV tray set up beside their front steps, as Pennington walked by during a break from taping.
“Hey Ty, say cheese,” he shouted. |