Since June 2024, when a new Dallas ownership group — led by descendants of oil tycoon, H.L. Hunt, the father of Lamar Hunt, founder of the Kansas City Chiefs — took over Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza, expectations have run high regarding when and in what fashion the 102-year-old Spanish-style shopping district would be remade.
Over the last 16 months, visitors have seen gradual and noticeable progress on security, with the hiring of armed security guards, better lighting, a push to rehab office space as well as cosmetic changes that include facade work on the Plaza’s signature, domed towers. One tower currently stands wrapped in scaffolding.
But what Kansas Citians have yet to see is the beginning of the major underground or above ground construction that many thought would be well underway by June 2026 at the start of the FIFA World Cup in Kansas City
That, to be sure, has not happened.
When will construction begin?
In a conversation with The Star this week, Dustin Bullard, a vice president with the Plaza’s owners, the Dallas-based Gillon Property Group, said major construction, starting with underground infrastructure, is not likely to begin for at least another eight months, not until after the World Cup ends in Kansas City on July 11, 2026.
“I don’t want to speak for the city,” Bullard said, “because it’s their infrastructure. But it’s a partnership. And I don’t want the Plaza torn up during the World Cup. I don’t want a bunch of holes in the ground for that. . . .I don’t think you would see what I would call heavy infrastructure work occur until after the World Cup.”
When the 15-block Plaza, which reportedly sold for $175.6 million, was purchased, Ray Washburne, the principal partner of Gillon, formerly called HP Village Partners, said that Kansas Citians were likely to see significant changes on the Plaza by the start of the World Cup. But as months passed, and no preliminary development plan was submitted to the city, it was apparent that that expectation would not be met.
Last month, Oct. 21, Gillon finally submitted a 28-page document to the city. Short of a detailed master development plan, the document laid out detailed guidelines and goals for the Plaza’s future that included creating more public green spaces and outdoor seating, changing streetscapes, widening sidewalks, adding pedestrian-friendly lighting and adding trees to “prioritize walkability.”
A “plaza on the Plaza” is still be conceived for the parking area behind Classic Cup and the former Starbucks.
Towering buildings, smaller oversight?
Raising concerns among those who value the charm of the Plaza’s low-lying profile, the document also included a single-page map, titled “Heights,” that, if ultimately approved by the Kansas City Council, could spell a massive change for the future of shopping district.
The map includes five areas — mostly along the perimeter of the Plaza — where the owners are looking to be granted permission to build buildings up to 150 feet and 200 feet tall, or roughly 10 to 15 stories, where three- and four-story buildings currently exist.
In September, the City Council already granted permission for a building as tall as 275 feet, or about 25 stories, to possibly be built on the empty, three-acre site of the once proposed Nordstrom department store. No tenant or building design has been announced.
Beyond the former Nordstrom site, the Plaza’s owners are now proposing these:
As much as 150 feet at Seville East, the site of former Cinemark on the Plaza movie theater and Brio Italian Grille.
As much as 150 feet at the Time Building area, current site of True Food Kitchen and an adjacent parking garage.
As much as 200 feet on the block that includes the Apple Store and Rally House (site of the former Halls Department Store), bounded by Nichols Road, Central Street and Wyandotte Street.
As much as 200 feet at the site of the former Chuey’s Mexican Restaurant at W. 47th Street, Wyandotte Street and Mill Creek Parkway.
As much as 200 feet on the block that includes Jack Stack BBQ and the former Fred P. Ott’s Bar and Grill.
Busting the Plaza bowl
Allowing for taller buildings would require City Council approval. Since 2019, the Plaza’s profile has been protected by a “bowl overlay” ordinance, in which buildings at the center of the Plaza can be no more than 45 feet, rising to no more than 130 feet, or about 10 stories, on the periphery.
But on Oct. 29, the Plaza owners also submitted an additional document, “Plaza deviations,” that proposes a list of exemptions to current zoning laws that Gillon is requesting to aid the project’s progress.
First among them: a request for the Plaza to be “exempt from any overlay or special purpose districts.” Another deviation asks for 10- to 15-foot increases in building (the height of a single story) inside the Plaza to be exempt from being considered a “major change” in the project in need of approval.
The document, in fact, includes 18 “deviations,” including one, raising concerns, that asks for Plaza’s final MPD, or master development plan, “to not require approval of the City Plan Commission.” Instead, final approval would go directly to a majority vote of the Kansas City Council, after a review and opinion from the city’s director of Planning and Development.
The Star asked multiple city council members to comment on the document. Most declined to do so, saying they had yet to examine it in detail. Johnathan Duncan, whose 6th district includes the Plaza, offered an early opinion.
“I haven’t had an opportunity to review the proposal,” he said, “but I’m unlikely to support anything that would remove oversight from CPC (City Planning Commission) or Council.”
Historic Kansas City, a nonprofit whose mission is to protect and promote the city’s historic legacy, weighed in, suggesting greater oversight, not less.
“The MPD includes a sweeping list of procedural deviations that appears designed to fast-track approval, though many will likely change as the Gillon Group continues working the city,” wrote Ethan Starr, the group’s executive director. “Maintaining the Plaza Overlay zoning is essential to protect both current and future property owners. . .
“Given the significant proposed height increases and uncertainties about future development on multiple sites, public input and careful city oversight are critical to ensure growth that respects the Plaza’s historic character and human-scaled designed.”
High buildings in 5 to 10 years
Bullard responded to the concern, regarding both the proposed height increases and oversight.
On oversight, Bullard emphasized that the company’s list of proposed zoning deviations are not etched in stone. They are a starting point, a place from which to refine.
“They were a beginning,” Bullard said of the October submission. “They were something to start the conversation with city staff. So I believe that probably every deviation you see today my not even be in the final (plan). They’be been evolving.”
That, he said, includes the request to seemingly bypass the City Plan Commission. Bullard said the company is not suggesting they avoid City Plan Commission approval on major aspects of the master plan — such as building upward. But they don’t believe every decision needs to go through what he said can often be a lengthy, time-consuming and, thus, costly, process.
“Our intention is that vertical development would require the normal process,” Bullard said. “If a vertical building is built, it would go through the Plan Commission, design review, the whole nine yards. But if I’m putting a tenant in a space, with a tenant finish-out permit, we believe that should be a staff approval process.”
The idea, he said, would be to bypass the City Plan Commission approval process in order to “streamline” more routine decisions. He said that the company is currently working with city staff to come up with specific parameters to determine what part of the development requires the City Plan Commission and what may not.
“We have traded back and forth with staff on this,” Bullard said. “That blanket provision (bypassing the City Plan Commission) would not maintain in its current form.”
As for the increased heights: The Plaza’s owners aren’t equivocating. They want taller buildings on the Plaza — for office space, and for residential living.
Making the Plaza more vital, they maintain, requires “greater density,” meaning more people, Bullard said. One way to have more people on the sidewalks and in the shops and businesses is to have more people living and working on the Plaza.
“We think probably that the site that would see the first vertical development would be the former Nordstrom’s sight,” now called Seville West, Bullard said, meaning the site already approved for a 275-foot building.
The other five sites: “All the other sites,” Bullard said, “currently have tenants and retail, parking and a lot of things that have to be unwound or aligned before development can start. So those are a longer horizon. Maybe five to 10 years in our mind.”
Bullard said he also believes that, if or when taller buildings are in place, the Plaza will still be the Plaza, with its unique and historic charm.
“So we think that this work, adding some additional height on select blocks, enhances the Plaza,” he said. “We think that the character of the Plaza can be maintained through very thoughtful architecture and planning.
“I think what people get concerned about, when they hear of a tall building, is that that tall building just fell out of sky and plopped down in a place, and it was not contextually designed, or maybe it’s too big of a box, it’s just a vertical building.”
Bullard said that any larger buildings that may eventually be erected would be designed with aesthetic setbacks, providing distance from the sidewalks, and step-backs, in which floors rise in a step-like fashion rather than straight up like many office towers. He said may include outside courtyards, similar to the apartments buildings on the south side of the Plaza, across Brush Creek.
“We think that a lot of the character of the Plaza, when you experience it as a shopper or a visitor, is how you experience the Plaza from 30 feet and below,” Bullard said. “What’s your experience as a pedestrian? And that’s where we think additional people on the street — what we’ve kind of been calling a micro-neighborhood that we want to create down there — enhances your experience.
“And that’s kind of the next evolution of the Plaza, but keeping what makes it special.”