Country Club Plaza Master Planned Development Proposal

Country Club Plaza Master Planned Development (MPD)

The Country Club Plaza has, for more than a century, functioned as a carefully planned commercial district defined by its historic storefronts, consistent architectural character, and coordinated development pattern. The current Master Planned Development (MPD) proposal submitted by the Plaza’s ownership would establish new zoning, design standards, and substantial height increases governing future construction across much of the district.

Over the past several months, Historic Kansas City has participated in public meetings, reviewed multiple revised submissions, and met repeatedly with the applicant alongside several neighborhood organizations as well as the American Institute of Architects Kansas City Chapter. Prior to the December 17, 2025 City Plan Commission hearing, City staff recommendations advised capping most new building heights at five to six stories (approximately 75 feet) and expanding the list of buildings identified as character-contributing. This staff compromise proposal would have altered the submitted MPD plans significantly, while taking into account the current owner’s desire to undertake new construction and add additional density of residents and district users, while accounting for long-range planning considerations (like ensuring compatibility with existing historic buildings).

The City Plan Commission voted to forward the MPD to City Council with a recommendation for approval subject to conditions limiting the maximum heights for three sites along Ward Parkway to 120 feet but rejecting the staff’s proposal. The CPC recommendations for limiting height were not carried forward in the early February resubmission of the MPD proposal, in which proposed building heights remain largely unchanged. Continue reading for a summary of the key issues raised by neighborhoods and area stakeholders.

Planning Context: The Plaza Overlay

The current framework guiding development on the Plaza reflects more than a decade of concerted planning efforts undertaken by HKC, earlier City Councilmembers, area residents, neighborhood stakeholders, city staff, and property owners. The Midtown Plaza Area Plan, adopted in 2016, formalized the Plaza “bowl concept” as the basis for regulating building height, followed by the adoption of overlay zoning intended to implement those recommendations across the district.

As described in the Midtown Plaza Area Plan, “the bowl concept emerged… with the low-rise buildings of the Country Club Plaza being surrounded by high-rise buildings,” and the Plan recommends continuation of this concept through the regulation of building heights. Dating back to the 1989 Plaza Urban Design and Development Plan, planners envisioned a deliberate transition from the Plaza’s two- and three-story core to taller buildings placed farther from Brush Creek, protecting sunlight, views, and the human-scaled character of the district. 

The current MPD proposal would supplant the “Country Club Plaza Overlay” as applied to most of the retail district in 2016, and it would remove sites owned by Commerce Bank in the Plaza’s northeastern (earliest) block from the subsequent overlay—and its respective limitations on height—established in a 2019 ordinance from City Council. For more information on previous efforts, and an explanation of “How we got here,” see the following background summary from HKC: https://www.historickansascity.org/team/plaza-bowl-overlay-district/

Pictured above: Existing zoning overlays governing Country Club Plaza development, including

What the MPD Would Do

The proposed plan covers new infrastructure, street changes, design standards for the central part of the Plaza and significant changes in building height allowance for new structures along Ward Parkway and Mill Creek Parkway around the perimeter. Much of the central part of the Plaza will be restored and revitalized. One centrally located block is proposed to be demolished in order to replace a structurally unsound parking garage, and to remove several non-historic buildings and one mid-20th-century building (Classic Cup Cafe), replacing it with an open public square surrounded by small scale buildings.

The MPD identifies five redevelopment sites where existing buildings would be identified for removal and be replaced with substantially taller construction, generally ranging from 120 to 178 feet at their tallest.

Block F (Seville East/former Sears building) at up to 150 feet; Block G (Plaza Time Building site) at up to 150 feet; Block J (including Jack Stack along Ward Parkway, with the Giralda tower on its northeastern frontage) proposed for 120 feet; Block O (formerly Halls department store at Nichols and Wyandotte) at up to 178 feet; and Block D (Commerce Bank and Mill Creek Building block at 47th and Wyandotte) at up to 178 feet. These five development sites are in addition to the Seville West site (known as the parcel west of Jefferson Ave formerly proposed for a Nordstrom department store), for which approval was previously obtained for new construction rising up to 275-foot heights. The Seville West height increase was approved by City Council last fall, with the hope that allowance for a large office building might have helped to retain insurance giant and major employer Lockton Companies; Lockton instead announced a move to Leawood, Kansas.

The MPD proposal includes some constructive elements, including design guidelines, attention to storefront activation, and public realm improvements. Identification of “character-contributing” façades as part of the plan—though limited in the extent to which it protects historic buildings—serves to demarcate certain building exteriors of commercial storefronts as worthy of preservation.

Character-Contributing Buildings and Relationship to Historic Storefronts

“Character-contributing” status would establish a limited level of protection for front-facing facades, though it does not preclude removal of substantial portions of buildings behind retained exterior walls, leaving open the possibility of partial building demolitions. This fact prompts scrutiny of the proposed “stepbacks” required adjacent to each “character-contributing” facade and feature. In most cases, the MPD requires only a 10-foot setback for portions of new construction rising above 45 feet in height. At heights approaching—or exceeding—150 feet, such limited setbacks would do little to prevent towers from visually overwhelming adjacent historic storefronts. 

Compounding this concern is the absence of clearly delineated development-site boundaries in the current MPD submissions. Earlier versions of the MPD more clearly illustrated the footprint of proposed redevelopment parcels, while current submissions rely primarily on generalized height and facade diagrams. Without more precise information showing where new construction would begin and end relative to existing historic buildings, one is left to assume that these minimum “stepbacks” are effectively the only limitations constraining the extent of demolition and new construction behind retained facades. In practical terms, this could permit removal of the majority of the square footage occupied by some of the Plaza’s original 1920s buildings while retaining only portions of street-facing walls.

Of particular concern is the Plaza’s oldest block (identified as “Block D” in the MPD), containing the 1923 Mill Creek Building (4638 Mill Creek Parkway) and the 1924 buildings just to the west along 47th Street and Wyandotte (known historically as the Tower and Wolferman’s buildings, and today housing Commerce Bank, Cold Stone, and Cinnabon). This block is identified as a site for new construction—presumably centered on the rear (north) side, though likely interfacing with these earliest Plaza buildings. With only a 10-foot “stepback,” the two 1924 buildings are not protected against being largely demolished to be incorporated within adjacent new construction; the 1923 Mill Creek Building, likewise, is not safeguarded by its 20-foot “stepback,” given the building’s total depth of approximately 75 feet.

At the request of City Planning staff, the MPD draft adopted language condemning “façade-ism”—the phenomenon of demolishing buildings up to their historic facades. However, without clearer development-site boundaries and more substantial setback requirements, the current proposal still leaves open the possibility of precisely that outcome. Until “stepback” distances are increased, development parameters are more clearly defined, and staff recommendations regarding “character-contributing” facades and features are incorporated, preservation advocates cannot affirm that there are adequate assurances for preservation of even these earliest Plaza storefronts.

Process and Future Approvals

It is important that public engagement be part of the approval process for the new buildings as they come online. Rezoning these properties without knowing what will be built on them is risky, especially if any of these sites change ownership and all of the deviations from requirements are approved.

The MPD establishes a process in which a broad preliminary plan is approved up front, with limited requirements for subsequent review of individual projects. Under the proposed deviations, final development plans pertaining to individual development sites would be reviewed by the City Plan Commission, with City Council largely removed from later stages of oversight. The applicant would also be able to appeal approvals that include conditions, not just denials, potentially shifting leverage toward whatever entity might be proposing future development plans.

Because the MPD establishes broad height and development allowances at the preliminary stage, subsequent projects would be approved through Final Development Plans reviewed by the City Plan Commission, without returning to City Council for further legislative approval. Under the proposed deviation, the applicant would have the ability to appeal either a denial or an approval with conditions to City Council, meaning Council’s involvement at later stages would occur only at the applicant’s discretion. The MPD also does not include a required phasing plan, allowing redevelopment to proceed incrementally and potentially under different ownership, without a coordinated sequence or cohesive approach to the district as a whole.

Finally, approval of building heights in the range proposed would establish a problematic precedent affecting development adjacent to the Plaza. Property owners within and adjacent to the district would reasonably look to these approvals when seeking similar allowances, eroding the consistency that the Plaza Overlay was intended to provide.

Current Status

On May 7, 2026, the Kansas City Council introduced Ordinance No. 260443, which would rezone much of the Country Club Plaza to a new Master Planned Development (MPD) district while approving the associated redevelopment plan. A companion ordinance, No. 260445, would vacate approximately 186,000 square feet of public sidewalk right-of-way throughout the Plaza. Both ordinances were referred to the City Council’s Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee, chaired by 6th District At-Large Councilmember Andrea Bough, rather than the Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee.

The Kansas City Council’s Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee is expected to continue consideration of the proposed Country Club Plaza MPD on Tuesday, May 19 at 10:30 a.m. on the 26th Floor of City Hall (414 E. 12th Street). While additional oral testimony may be limited, public presence at the hearing remains important as the Committee considers one of the most consequential planning and preservation issues affecting the Plaza in decades. Historic Kansas City, neighborhood organizations, preservation advocates, and area stakeholders continue to encourage public engagement as City Council considers the future of new construction, historic buildings, and long-term planning policy on the Country Club Plaza.