A ‘plaza on the Plaza?’ New renderings reveal how KC district could dramatically change
It’s still unclear when new construction promised by the newest owners of the Country Club Plaza will begin, but one thing is becoming clearer:
Ideas.
They are the possibilities, as displayed in more artists’ renderings being shown to neighborhood groups, of what the 103-year-old shopping district might look like in coming years.
In September, the Plaza’s new Dallas owners — Highland Park Village Partners Ltd, recently rebranded as The Village Collection — served up images for the Plaza.
Previous renderings showed more Spanish-style domes, brick sidewalks, stark-faced buildings being given added style, and new shop-filled alleyways on the Plaza’s west side carved between existing streets. The company calls it “poet’s alley.”
Company officials also previously raised the possibility of putting in a boutique hotel somewhere in the 15-block area, a bodega-style grocery, more local shops and restaurants and a mixed-used retail and office tower in the 3-acre spot that now makes up the Plaza’s vacant west edge. It is the area where a Nordstrom department store had been planned, before the retailer backed out in 2022.
‘Future possibility’
New renderings — shared recently with the neighborhood group Midtown KC Now and posted by a member on Facebook — show an office tower standing approximately 19-stories tall where Nordstrom was to go.
They also show a large “plaza on the Plaza” — what appears to be close to a block of green space and pedestrian walkways bounded by W. 47th Street and Nichols Road, Broadway Boulevard and Central Street. The area is currently occupied by the former Starbucks coffee shop, the Classic Cup, other retail, and the street level portion of an underground parking garage that might be replaced.
Each rendering is titled a “future possibility.” Even as concepts, they are generating excitement.
“I think that the ‘plaza on the Plaza’ is an example of something that I thought of years ago,” said Midtown KC Now’s Executive Director Kevin Klinkenberg. “I think a number of people have wished for years that we’d see some kind of really pedestrian-type improvements and better public spaces on the Plaza.
“If they’re able to pull that off, I think it will be transformational for how people use the Plaza.”
No green space exists on the Plaza currently, save for the sloping embankments to the south of the Plaza along Brush Creek. Park benches have long been spare. Visitors mostly sit on statuary.
In January, Midtown KC Now hosted urban strategist and architect Dustin Bullard of Charter Holdings, a private real estate investment firm in Dallas which, like The Village Collection, is run by chairman Ray Washburne.
Bullard, in a telephone interview Wednesday, said he has traveled at least a half dozen times in recent months to Kansas City to meet with city officials, neighborhood groups and other stakeholders. He emphasized that the renderings are just concepts, much more “a vision,” he said, rather than plans.
Breathing room
“They’re very conceptual in nature,” Bullard said.
Although the Nordstrom site shows an office tower, he said, “It could be office. It could be residential. It could be several uses. What we’re trying to portray is that we look for development opportunities and vertical development in these areas.
“We pay attention to the context. We pay attention to the place. So those images are intended to begin to show the level of detail, the design aesthetic that we believe is appropriate for the Country Club Plaza.”
The ‘plaza on the Plaza’ may be more concrete.
“As we’ve really studied the Plaza — and I kind of make this joke when I talk to the community — the center of the Country Club Plaza is, effectively, the Classic Cup block and the Plaza Central Garage. And for all intents and purposes, it’s a surface parking lot, right? The surface is concrete. So when someone says, ‘Meet me on the Plaza,’ there is no known place that is the Plaza.
“You’re going to meet at Classic Cup, or you’re going to meet at Gram & Dun or you’re going to meet at Rye, maybe the Cheeskecake Factory patio.”
The idea, Bullard said, would be to rebuild the parking garage and, above it, create a plaza on the Plaza as a “gathering place.”
“We envision that to have retail, restaurants, you know, the Classic Cup could open out onto that,” Bullard said. “It begins to be a place that is more green and allows breathing room. So we think that the plaza on the Plaza — allowing underground parking there — but really making it a unique place, is a great move.”
Deliberate digging
The question is when construction will begin.
It has been close to eight months since Highland Park Village Partners bought the Plaza at the end of June for a reported bargain price of $175.6 million. A luxury retail company that runs the high-end Highland Park Village shopping district in Dallas, the company’s principal owners are descendants of oil tycoon H.L. Hunt, father of the Kansas City Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt.
The purchase price was vastly less than the $660 million the previous co-owners, The Macerich Co. and The Taubman Centers, paid Highwood Properties for the property in 2016. The Hunt family company bought the property after Macerich and Taubman defaulted on a loan as the Plaza’s fortunes, with numerous empty storefronts, continued to languish.
“At this point, we do not have a timeline,” for construction, Bullard said, adding that the company still anticipates that parts of the Plaza, such as the southwest quadrant, will undergo visible changes by the time Kansas City hosts the World Cup in June and July of 2026.
Cosmetic and some other work has commenced, Bullard said. Designs to redo approximately 250,000 square feet of second floor office space have been completed. Renovations are expected to begin soon.
Engineers and architects, he said, are being lined up to assess the extent and cost of infrastructure repairs underground before work above ground begins. The cost is estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars. How much and to what extent the city of Kansas City will be involved has yet to be determined.
“I can’t tell you that I’m going to start digging up the streets tomorrow,” Bullard said. “We believe that the Plaza is such a special place that we’ve really got one opportunity to get this right. We are actively working. In fact, literally I just stepped out of a meeting. We’re working with some architects on a more firm master plan than what you’ve seen previously. . . .
“We think there’s value in being deliberate at this stage. Because, again, we want to come out with the right first moves, and the right and correct impact, to set the project up for success in the long term. And that just takes time.”
Retaining tenants
Store fronts, meanwhile, have gradually been emptying. Certain merchants, including Made in KC Marketplace, 306 W. 47th St., are surrounded by empty storefronts on all sides.
Some of them are strategic.
In January, when Brio Italian Grille, 502 Nichols Road, closed after more than 20 years, officials with The Village Collection said that Kansas Citians could expect more future closings.
“Since the acquisition,” Drew Steffen, chief executive officer of The Village Collection, said in a statement, “our team has been hard at work envisioning the future of Country Club Plaza. We are eager to transform the Plaza to the gorgeous shopping and dining destination which everyone can be proud of. “With that, Kansas Citians can expect to see some strategic closures as tenants leave or relocate to help pave the way for important renovations and improvements that will help us restore Country Club Plaza as the crown jewel of the Midwest.”
Overall, Bullard said, the new owners do not want tenants to leave.
“Our goal is to retain folks on the Plaza,” he said. “It is in our best interest and in the Plaza’s best interest. So as leases roll, we are aggressively and actively working to retain those tenants.
“People roll in and out. So we are prepared that we may see some additional departures, but we also hold out a lot of hope that we will continue to have tenants wanting to stay on the Plaza, and tenants that are excited about the future of the Plaza.”
Beyond tenants, there’s Kansas City residents.
“We’re excited about what they have planned,” said Laura Burkhalter, president of Midtown KC Now. “Our success will, in part, be due to their success. As a community. We’re all tied together. If the Plaza is doing well, then the community in general will be succeeding. We’re always championing their success. And we’re really excited about what they have planned.”
This story was originally published February 19, 2025 at 3:12 PM.
