Larry Rice’s New Life Evangelistic Center Opens Renewable Energy Center in 25th Ward

For nearly a year now the old Held Florist & Greenhouse in the 47xx block of Tennessee Ave has been getting a make over. Broken greenhouse glass fixed, a good cleaning, paint and such. A woman named Susan Jansen had purchased the property in late 2006 and everyone was finally glad to see things happening. In July, the property was sold to the New Life Evangelistic Center operated by Rev. Larry Rice. NLEC is most well known as the controversial homeless shelter located on Locust between 14th & 15th.

On Saturday the 25th Rice held a grand opening for his new Missouri Renewable Energy Center located at the property. But, by this time his holdings had expanded. If you recall from June, the 1894 frame farm house was being threatened with demolition but the Preservation Board put the kibosh on that (see prior post). On August 7th the NLEC, represented by Larry Rice, purchased the old Held home and the adjacent land. The brick 2-family with the green roof in the background above was formerly my home which I sold in January 2006 (can you say good timing?) to an owner occupant.

I’m still not sure what to make of all this but I do know that a number of people have contacted me expressing their concern about his presence in the neighborhood. When I told one concerned person about the change of ownership, their reaction was simply, “Oh shit!”