‘It’s pretty filthy dirty’: Country Club Plaza’s new owners plan $100M upgrade, more

Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza, languishing after 100 years with crumbling infrastructure and empty storefronts, is slated to receive some $100 million in improvements, the new owners told The Star.

More local restaurants and greater security are also in the plan, as is either a hotel or office building with retail to fill what’s become known as the 3-acre empty pit on the Plaza’s west side. The site had been the proposed location of a new Nordstrom department store before the chain canceled the project in 2022.

On Friday, HP Village Partners — a Dallas-based luxury retail company whose owners include direct descendants of oil magnate H.L. Hunt, father of Kansas City Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt — took ownership of the Plaza. The sale price paid to The Taubman Co. and Macerich, the district’s co-owners since 2016, has yet to be made public.

The Plaza’s new owners said they intend to talk more about the sale and the shopping district’s future at a 10 a.m. Monday press conference with Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas.

But speaking candidly with the The Star, HP Village principal Ray Washburne laid out some of their priorities in broad strokes.

“It’s pretty simple,” said Washburne. “We’re going in immediately to try to clean the place up. It’s pretty filthy dirty. Clean it up. We’re going to really heighten security in a major way that people will see immediately.”

Crime and unruly teenagers, particularly during the summer, have been perennial issues.

“And we’re going to institute a pretty aggressive marketing campaign because of all the vacancies you see there,” Washburne said. “Part of our focus is we’re really going to go hard after the local food scene. That’s totally my focus. You see my other centers, it’s a local restaurant focus. So, we’re going to really interview — try to plug a lot of holes with some local food operators. Try to get best-of-class across multiple food lines.”

Washburne didn’t name any restaurants or type of food directly.

“I don’t have anything specific in mind yet,” he said, “because, really, we spent a year chasing this deal. This deal died, came back alive, multiple times.”

As for the vacant 3 acres on the Plaza’s west edge:

“We’re probably going to do a 300,000- or 400,000-square-foot office building there. We’re going to have retail on the ground floor. Everything will have retail on the ground floor. We’d also like to work to put a hotel on the Plaza. That might actually be a hotel site — either office or hotel, a luxury hotel.”

The Plaza overall, he said, needs major structural improvements.

“I’m talking about new roofs, sewers, streets, landscaping,” he said. “We’re budgeting $100 million just to go back into capital improvements.”

The others partners in HP Village Partners are Washburne’s wife, Heather Hill Washburne, as well his brother-in-law, Stephen Summers, and his wife, Elisa Summers. Elisa Summers and Heather Washburne are sisters and descendants of H.L. Hunt.

Washburne was reluctant to delve into great detail prior to Monday’s press conference.

“In general, we’re going to clean it up and reposition the center as something that Kansas City will be proud of again,” Washburne said.

“We’re generational owners, “ he later said. “We’re not putting lipstick on something and flipping it. So it’s you know, to us, it’s very important that the community understands where we’re going and what we’re doing. And we look at the community as partners with everything we do — every project we’re part of.

“So we want the people there to know that there’s no curtain up and, you know, there’s total transparency.”

At this early stage, stakeholders that include the Plaza District Council — a confederacy of residents and businesses working to maintain the vitality of the Plaza and its surrounding neighborhoods — see the new ownership as providing fresh hope.

“I think these guys are authentic,” David Westbrook, communications director of the council, told The Star. “I think the buyer has family interests in growing and appreciating the asset here so that children and grandchildren can be proud of it and benefit from it.”

In discussions with HP Village representatives, he said, he felt they understood the need for unique and local vendors and local restaurants to make the Plaza a draw again.

“I think they’re in it for the long run,” Westbrook said. “I think they understand the history. I’ve been around the block a couple of times. And I’ve seen developers over the years who are great salesmen, but later you’re disappointed in what they deliver.

“I think these guys realize that this asset has such cultural value to the Kansas City community, that they don’t have to create something, they just have to resurrect it.”

Resurrection has been sorely needed.

The Spanish-style shopping district, built in 1923 by J.C. Nichols, remains one of Kansas City’s most visited areas. Yet its suffering is on full display, as multiple empty storefronts, particularly on the Plaza’s west side, create extensive dead spots that were once active.

In 2016, when two companies, Macerich and The Taubman Co., bought the Plaza in a joint venture, they paid a premium, and far more than many insiders thought the Plaza was worth: $660 million to Highwood Properties of North Carolina. Three years later, in 2019, the Jackson County Board of Equalization set the 15-block area’s valuation to $292 million.

By 2023, Macerich and Taubman argued that that also was too high. The Missouri State Tax Commission agreed to reduce the Plaza’s valuation to $179.6 million.

COVID-19 and online shopping seemed to have taken their toll. But critics have long argued that the Plaza’s slow demise began much earlier under previous owners when they opted to promote national retail chains, found in the average suburban mall, over unique retailers and restaurants apt to draw or serve visitors.

Service retailers such Bruce Smith Drugs and a Meiner’s market were gone. McDonald’s left, too. Marquee retailers gradually followed. Saks Fifth Avenue closed in 2005. Halls department store departed and consolidated in its Crown Center location in 2014. Burberry left in 2018. The Plaza seemed to be losing some of its luster.

In 2019, Cinemark on the Plaza, the movie theater, closed, creating another dark corner that has yet to be filled.

In May 2023, Macerich and The Taubman Co. defaulted on a payment of their $295 loan to their lender, Nuveen. The shopping district went up for sale shortly after.

In Dallas, HP Village Partners owns Highland Park Village, a high-end shopping center that opened in 1931 and which, similar to the Plaza, is built in a Mediterranean, Spanish style. Its list of premier tenants includes luxury brands that go far beyond what the Plaza has previously offered. Among them are Alexander McQueen, Carolina Herrera, Cartier, Chanel, Christian Louboutin, Dior, Fendi, Goyard, Harry Winston, Hermès, Jimmy Choo, Ralph Lauren, Rolex, Tom Ford, Valentino, Van Cleef and Arpels.

In 2022, HP Village also purchased a stake in Phillips Place, a luxury shopping district in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“Go look at our other projects, like Highland Park Village in Dallas,” Washburne said, “which a lot of people in Kansas City have come down to see when they heard we were buying it (the Plaza).

“People — they go back very comfortable in who we are and what we do.”