End of an affordable era in Volker: Midtown KC apartments sold, surprising tenants

The best apartments in the city — the best cheap ones, at least — aren’t typically listed on Craigslist or Zillow or Apartments.com. They’re shared by a friend of a friend on Facebook, or recommended by a kindly coworker, the low rent quoted in hushed, reverential tones. You can’t really search for them. All you can do is make sure you act fast when the universe propels one into your field of vision.

That’s how bartenders, teachers, kitchen workers, artists and journalists have for years landed at the Muehlebach Apartments, seven brick buildings that wrap around the north side of 41st Street between State Line Road and Bell Street in Kansas City’s Volker neighborhood.

Owner Sherry Baker doesn’t advertise her vacancies online. There’s a green sign with her office phone number planted in the grass between two of the buildings, but it’s barely visible from the street. New tenants tend to arrive bearing references from existing or departing tenants. And once they’re moved in, they tend to stick around.

The units themselves are nothing special. No modern fixtures, no granite counters, no dishwashers. The windows are drafty. The on-site laundry room is dank and dark, a bit of a dungeon. Two concrete craters make for treacherous driving in the parking lot.

But there are hardwood floors, and every unit has its own porch, and you’re two short blocks from the shops and restaurants on 39th Street West. Most importantly, in a city where tiny studio apartments often start at $1,000 a month, the Muehlebach’s roomy one-bedrooms, about 750 square feet apiece, are priced like it’s 2009.

“I’ve been paying $565 a month since I moved in here nine years ago,” said Nina Fardipour, a Plaza hairstylist.

“I’m at $585,” said Kitty Mitchell, a bartender at RecordBar. “Since 2014.”

Alas, not for long. Baker’s selling.

“Old is the word,” Baker, who’s 75, told The Star. “I’m old, the apartments are old. We’ve been able to keep rents low because we’ve had the buildings for almost 50 years. They were long ago paid off. But they need work. There are big, structural issues that need to be done, like stabilizing the foundations of all the buildings, which are 100 years old. It made more sense to sell to someone than go through that whole process at my age.”

And so, on Monday of this week, Fardipour, Mitchell and the residents of the Muehlebach’s 26 other units woke up to a letter from Baker informing them that on Dec. 1 the buildings would officially have new owners and a new management company. The same was true for residents of Baker’s other Volker property, Bakers Corner, which comprises 16 similarly affordable one- and two-bedroom apartments across two buildings on the northeast corner of 39th and Wyoming streets.

Uncertainty about what the sale would mean for residents’ living situations lasted but a day. On Tuesday, they received a letter from The Tiehen Group, the property’s new management company.

“Unfortunately, due to the extensive renovation we are going to make to your community, it will be necessary for everyone to move out,” read the note from CEO Jim Tiehen. “We would love to have you back once renovations have been finalized, but rents will be considerably higher than what you are currently paying.”

Muehlebach residents who’ve lived in their unit for more than a year are on month-to-month leases, per their original rental agreement, which makes it easier for management to clear them out. Six unlucky residents have only 60 days to vacate, owing to the fact that The Tiehen Group intends to renovate the Muehlebach Apartments one building at a time and their building is first up. Four others have 90 days. The rest will need to pack up at some point in the next six months.

Bakers Corner, at the intersection of 39th Street and Wyoming
Bakers Corner, at the intersection of 39th Street and Wyoming

The new owner of the Muehlebach and Bakers Corner is an investment group based out of Illinois, according to state filings. Tiehen, whose company brokered the deal and will manage the properties, told The Star he’s worked with the group on several Kansas City projects over the past seven years. One of those, Tiehen said, is Plaza 209, a nine-story high-rise on Emanuel Cleaver Boulevard. A 536-square-foot one-bedroom there goes for $950 a month.

Tiehen said they won’t be tearing down any of the buildings at the Muehlebach or Bakers Corner or changing the floor plans. They’ll replace the roofs, plumbing and electrical; deal with some wood rot and siding issues; and add gated secure parking, among other things. As for the rent on the renovated Muehlebach, Tiehen wouldn’t get into specifics. “It will be competitive with other units in the area in comparable condition,” he said.

That’s not exactly a persuasive pitch for most of the current tenants.

“Where am I supposed to go?” Fardipour said. “The places in Midtown I’ve been looking at since I found out, they’re two or three times as much as I’ve been paying. Some of them, my whole paycheck wouldn’t even cover my rent.”

The sale of Baker’s properties seemed to catch the Volker Neighborhood Association by surprise. President Patrick Faltico told The Star that because his group hadn’t received any direct communication from the tenants or owner it would be premature to comment. Diane Capps, the membership committee chair of the Volker Neighborhood Association, then wrote in an email to The Star that she “highly disapproved” of the short notice some Muehlebach tenants received. She compared the situation to what happened in October at Armour Flats, a Midtown apartment building whose new owners initially gave tenants only 30 days’ notice to vacate while announcing their intention to nearly double rents once renovations were complete.

“Something needs to be done about these redevelopment predators!” Capps wrote to The Star, copying the Volker Neighborhood Association board in the email. Faltico then responded to the email, emphasizing that Capps did not speak for the neighborhood association and adding that his group “still had no comment at this time.”

Baker, who said she’s received at least one offer per week on her buildings for the last 10 years, said she felt good about her decision to sell to The Tiehen Group, a local company she called “competent and respectable, good people.” She anticipated that news of the sale would be a blow to many of her tenants, but emphasized that rents were going up regardless of who owned the buildings.

“Our property taxes have quadrupled over the last six years,” Baker said. “They’ve been appraising my properties in line with brand-new properties in the neighborhood — places that have washing machines in-unit and things like that. And those increases are a big deal when you have seven buildings. That, plus all the major repairs the buildings needed, would have required us to remortgage the properties. And that new mortgage would mean we’d have no choice but to raise rents.”

She said her landlord philosophy all these years was to make her apartments “places people wanted to stay.” That way, she and her son Jason, with whom she manages the properties, wouldn’t have to deal with the administrative hassles of constant move-ins and move-outs. Cheap rent in a good location turned out to be a winning strategy for that. It made their lives easier, and it made their tenants’ lives easier.

“It was almost like rent control, what we’ve been doing,” Baker said. “But it worked for us. We didn’t raise rents because we didn’t need to. We were a business, but it was important to me that we be providing an affordable place for people to live their lives in a vibrant neighborhood. That they could live a good life here while having a chance to maybe build up their savings. I wish, and I’m sure many of the tenants wish, that it could have lasted longer. But, you know, nothing lasts forever. And at least they had all these nice years of really affordable rent.”