What’s going on with plan to restore historic music venue? Updates on KC nightlife
Back in the summer of 2023, the local real estate development firm Whitestone announced it would be converting midtown’s iconic El Torreon Ballroom back into a 1,500-capacity music venue.
The building at 3101 Gillham Plaza has a vibrant musical heritage, having hosted concerts by Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway during the jazz age and classic-rock acts like Van Morrison and Electric Light Orchestra during the 1970s. As it fell into disrepair, local punk and hardcore bands staged shows of questionable legality there in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Whitestone originally said the grand opening for the $16 million project would be February 2025. With that timeline now past and not much in the way of construction visible from outside the building, I checked in with Whitestone president Scott Petersen last week for an update.
Sounds like it’ll be a while before the bands start loading in: “We are continuing to work on the project, but I don’t anticipate any significant progress until the end of the year,” Petersen said.
Warehouse ramping up production
While we wait, another music venue is set to debut later this month.
Longtime local talent buyer Neill Smith and partner J.C. Cirese are opening Warehouse on Broadway, a 650-capacity club at 3951 Broadway. Smith described it to me as a bigger version of the Riot Room, the Westport venue that closed in 2021. He’s even recruited several former Riot Room staff members to come work at his new spot.
Warehouse on Broadway announced an initial slate of spring shows around the time I talked to Smith. That included national acts like the Omaha dance-punk band The Faint, New Orleans bounce rapper Big Freedia, and L.A. industrial noise-rock act HEALTH. (The first official show at Warehouse on Broadway is More Than Friends, a DJ party March 21.) But I’ve been keeping an eye on their calendar, hoping for clues as to what other kinds of shows to expect from this new venue.
A few more arrived this week. On the way: indie-folk songwriter Lissie (Sunday, May 18), Philly rockers Low Cut Connie (Tuesday, Sep. 30), and art-rock virtuoso Destroyer (Sunday, Oct. 19). So far, so good.
Tiki transformation
I recently spotted a building permit application for a nightclub called The Griffin somewhere inside 1828 Walnut St., aka Corrigan Station, home to Corvino on the ground floor and several floors of offices above.
The name on the application was Chris Seferyn, who in August opened the Polynesian-inspired cocktail lounge Kon Tiki and an adjoining taqueria called Conchita at 1922 Baltimore Ave. in the Crossroads.
Seferyn said he wasn’t ready to talk about The Griffin when I rang him up Tuesday, only that he expects it’ll be open later this year. But he did mention a few other additions Kon Tiki has in the works.
“Our next thing is we’re opening a private party room in the back of Kon Tiki called the Lava Lounge,” Seferyn said. “We’re almost done there. And then after that we’re going to add a patio outside Conchita so you can sit outside with your tacos.”
