Nordstrom drops plan to move to Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza, officials confirm
The Country Club Plaza has confirmed that Nordstrom will not be opening a store on its west side.
In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Plaza officials said: “Taubman and Macerich, the owners of Country Club Plaza, and Nordstrom have mutually agreed not to move forward with the new Nordstrom store slated for the district. Taubman is actively reviewing alternative plans for the location and looks forward to making an announcement in the near future.”
They could not be reached for further comment.
A Nordstrom spokeswoman confirmed the news in a statement: “We no longer have plans to relocate our Oak Park store to Country Club Plaza. We look forward to continuing to serve our customers in the Kansas City community in Oak Park. “
That morning, the Plaza location was still listed as opening in fall 2023 on Nordstrom’s website under “future store openings,” but it was the only one, along with some Nordstrom Rack openings. But by the afternoon, the Plaza store was no longer listed.
In early 2018, the Plaza announced it was luring the luxury department store away from Oak Park Mall, its Overland Park rival.
It was seen as a big win for the Plaza. The new 122,000-square-foot store would anchor the Plaza’s west side and revitalize the iconic center, which currently has about two dozen empty storefronts.
The Capital Grille and Bank of America relocated. Those buildings, along with another restaurant space and some movie theater screens, were demolished to make way for the store.
But the opening date was pushed back twice during the pandemic — first to 2022, then to fall 2023.
Now the west side is a vast fenced-off area facing several empty restaurants and a former movie theater.
In March, Plaza officials said construction would start soon. But by late March, employees of the Oak Park Nordstrom store were telling customers the deal was off and the store had renewed its lease in the Overland Park center.
The Nordstrom announcement comes at a time when local developers are feuding over the future of the Plaza area.
Developer Matt Pennington has tried to capitalize on retail weaknesses at the Plaza in his efforts to win approval for a nearby development project, though it would far exceed height requirements surrounding the historic district.
“I think everybody kind of understands the Plaza is in some trouble with the potential loss of Nordstrom,” Pennington recently told The Star.
Before the Nordstrom news was official, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas lamented the void construction crews created to make way for the new department store.
“We have a gigantic dirt hole in the middle of the Country Club Plaza right now,” the mayor told The Star last week. “That is a huge problem for Kansas City.”
But the mayor said he had bigger concerns about the shopping center.
“There’s a more fundamental long term health issue for the Plaza,” Lucas said. “I don’t think there’s anybody who can walk by empty storefronts now and say the Plaza is on the trajectory we want it to be.”
Robert Martin, president of the nearby Plaza Westport Neighborhood Association, acknowledged the Nordstrom news was significant.
“But I trust that Taubman and the city will be able to find an adequate or even a better tenant for that space to preserve what the Plaza has been and to improve it as an entertainment, commercial and residential center,” he said.
With so many vacancies, many have doubted the future of the Plaza. But Martin said the Plaza is facing the same pressures from the pandemic and e-commerce as every other shopping center in the country.
“They’re all going through this problem. So there’s no need for anyone to panic,” he said.
“The Plaza has been around for a very long time. It’s the oldest continuous outdoor shopping area in the country. It’s going to be that way for a long time to come.”
This story was originally published April 12, 2022 at 6:13 PM.