The Tuscawara Apartments on Benton Boulevard sit completely vacant, their windows and doors boarded up, with exterior fire damage still visible after two separate fires in the past year. Just across the street, the Dorson Apartments still have a few occupied units, but both buildings now carry the designation of endangered historic property, named to Historic Kansas City's newly released 2026 Most Endangered Places List.
First Full Update to the List Since 2021
Historic Kansas City has released its 2026 Most Endangered Places List, marking the first comprehensive revision of the program since 2021, according to Historic Kansas City. The nonprofit has operated the Most Endangered Places program since the late 1980s, and this year's selections draw on nominations submitted or supported by 11 neighborhood associations and community organizations. As KSHB 41 reports, the list features historical housing sites across Northeast Kansas City, with the Tuscawara and Dorson apartment complexes among the most visibly distressed.
The two buildings sit across from one another on Benton Boulevard, according to KSHB 41's reporting, and together represent 42 potential housing units. The Dorson Apartments, at 912-918 Benton Blvd., and the Tuscawara Apartments, at 1013-1019 Benton Blvd., were built in the early 1900s and are early examples of the colonnade apartment style, per The Kansas City Star. Both buildings saw reinvestment in the 1980s while providing affordable housing for decades, the paper notes.
Vacancy and Fire Damage Define the Threat
Apartment housing in Northeast neighborhoods is at risk primarily because of vacancy and deterioration, and the KSHB 41 report notes that Northeast Kansas City has more than 2,100 vacant parcels. Vacant buildings deteriorate further each year, reducing housing opportunities and diminishing the city's living history, the station's report states. The Historic Northeast was the most represented area on the full 2026 list, according to KCUR, reflecting the extent of vacancy and deterioration affecting its historic multifamily housing stock, as Historic Kansas City describes it in its own release.
Historic Kansas City Executive Director Ethan Starr has pointed to colonnaded apartment buildings like the Dorson and Tuscawara as a signature piece of the city's architectural identity. Starr described the colonnade style to KCUR as “a major, signature building typology of Kansas City that, in many ways, is found nowhere else.” Dylan Van Gerpen, president of the Northeast Neighborhood Coalition, has said he envisions a Historic Northeast Kansas City that is full, lively, culturally rich and diverse, and even better than it is today, according to KSHB 41's reporting.
Nomination Process and What Comes Next
Historic Kansas City's endangered-places list is compiled through nominations, including submissions from neighborhood associations seeking recognition for historically valuable buildings, per the station's report. Historic preservation is incentivized at state and federal levels, and loss of historically significant building components or entire buildings prevents a community from benefiting from those preservation incentive programs, KSHB 41 notes. Missouri's historic rehabilitation tax credit statute allows an eligible taxpayer to receive an amount equal to 25% of total rehabilitation costs and expenses incurred after Jan. 1, 1998, according to the Missouri Revisor of Statutes.
If interested parties do not step in, the buildings could face demolition, the KSHB 41 report states. Under Kansas City's municipal demolition review process, a property found eligible for historic listing can be presented to the Historic Preservation Commission, which can institute a 45-day delay on demolition to allow the public to consider alternatives, according to the City of Kansas City, Missouri. Historic Kansas City has said preservation efforts can improve housing stock, especially affordable housing, and that its incentive programs can help save buildings like the Dorson and Tuscawara before deterioration goes further.
Other Endangered Properties Beyond Benton Boulevard
The Benton Boulevard apartments are not the only Northeast-area properties drawing attention on the list. The former Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City at 925 Grand Boulevard has sat vacant since 2008, KCUR reports, while preliminary plans for the vacant Carmen Building include 31 residential units, according to The Kansas City Star. Plans are also advancing to redevelop the vacant Belmont Hotel with about 100 apartments, including units affordable for lower-income residents, the Star reports.
Historic Kansas City's thematic listings this year also include colonnaded apartment buildings, bungalow neighborhoods, and historic neighborhood corner stores or groceries as categories of concern, according to KCUR. The nonprofit's materials emphasize that the list draws attention to the loss of existing housing stock, particularly historic apartment buildings that have long provided comparatively affordable housing. Reporting on the exact count of properties on the list has varied, with some accounts citing 16 individual properties and three structure types, and Historic Kansas City's own materials describing 17 individual property listings alongside three thematic listings.
