A Sad Day For The Plaza

"It was first in Kansas City

It was first in the USA

America's original shopping city

The Plaza"

The above was a radio jingle for the Plaza from the early 1980's, and I can still remember hearing this commercial on the radio dozens of times. The words of this song stick in my mind as I contemplate with sadness the proposed new headquarters of the Polsinelli Shugart law firm right on the Country Club Plaza.

For those not familiar, Polsinelli Shugart is one of Kansas City's largest law firms, employing over 250 attorneys in the Kansas City area alone, and 500 attorneys overall. The firm also has attorneys in St. Louis, Washington, New York and Phoenix.

Meanwhile, the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City dates back to the 1920's when it was designed and built by Kansas City real estate developer, J.C. Nichols. The area was designed strictly as a shopping area, one of the first in the world. The Plaza would accomodate the needs of those who lived in the new mansions just to the south, and those that were over on the Kansas side, in Mission Hills. The architecture was modeled on Kansas City's sister city, Seville, Spain. The Plaza has had its ups and downs, but the core of the center remained the same, the architecture remained the same. Sometime in either the late 1970's or early 1980's, the Plaza's managers made a decision to attract upscale stores to the Plaza and turn it into a tourist destination. It worked and the Plaza has largely thrived since.

Last week, the law firm of Polsinelli Shugart proposed a new headquarters on the corner of the 47th Street and Broadway, right on the Plaza. The headquarters building would be 8 stories tall, and would require the demolition of one of the Balcony Building, one of the Plaza's historic buildings, plus the parking garage behind the building and an apartment complex, all of which are on the same block. The new building would have 192,000 square feet of office space and ultimately be able to acommodate 300 attorneys.

My take on this new proposed headquarter building for the Polsinelli Shugart law firm: I hate it. Period. This is one instance where progression is actually regression, or worse. The original character of the Plaza is that of a retail center. It was built as a retail center, with some upstairs offices in a series of two-story buildings. This new office building will have no retail space, will dominate the skyline, thereby ruining the park-like setting of the Plaza, and will be architectually inconsistent with the Plaza. What I can see happening is that the Plaza will become another generic office park, the retail and restaurant presence will be greatly diminshed, and the Plaza will lose its unique standing among the nation's shopping areas. Should the Polsinelli headquarters be allowed to proceed, this will be the first domino, in a long line of dominoes, to fall.

I am as close to a lassiez-faire capitalist as you will find, but I am also a traditionalist, and a purist when it comes to maintaining an historic place like the Plaza. The radio jingle mentioned at the beginning of this article notes the truly unique nature of the Plaza as America's original shopping city. Yet that is now being lost, and conformity will rule the day on the Country Club Plaza. The Plaza is truly a crown jewel of Kansas City, and yet projects like these will cause it to lose a lot of luster, and lots of tourist dollars. J.C. Nichols built a truly unique shopping community here, and to see it lose all that to a bunch of non-descript office buildings would a tragedy in Kansas City.