RFQ Quindaro Ruins Master Plan NR1388

The County Administrator’s Office is soliciting qualifications for a designated Quindaro Ruins Master Plan. The goal of the proposal is to create a single master plan that will serve as the primary future land use and redevelopment guide for the Quindaro Ruins Project area, while both incorporating previous master plans associated with Request for Qualifications N41388: Quindaro Ruins Master Plan Page 5 the area and fitting into the broader economic development strategies for the eastern portion of Wyandotte County.

The master plan should be developed in a manner that anticipates and can incorporate a future national historic trail designation by the National Trails System, ADA-compliant features, and interpretive and/or interactive trail material to inform the public of the history of the Quindaro settlement. Its perpetual role as a port of travel and trade for indigenous communities along the lower Missouri River, its significance as the first free soil for enslaved people traveling on the Underground Railroad, its testament to American values as a free settlement where freed people, Black and White abolitionist, and members of the Wyandotte tribe comingled and prospered, and its location as the home to Western University and the generations of Black students who were educated within its halls.

The Quindaro Ruins Master Plan is to be created within the context of broader economic redevelopment strategies and activities – planned and ongoing – for eastern Wyandotte County (here defined as the portion of the county east of Interstate-635) as well as the pre-defined portion of land within the Quindaro Ruins Project that is west of Interstate-635. Within eastern Wyandotte County, specific areas of Kansas City, Kansas, and the historic neighborhoods of Armourdale, Strawberry Hill, and Russian Hill.