More beauty, less ‘junk’ retail: Country Club Plaza’s new owner reveals future look

Twenty minutes into an exclusive interview from Dallas, Ray Washburne, one of the Country Club Plaza’s new principal owners, held up a map of the shopping district’s future.

“This is a plat,” Washburne told The Star, as he hoisted a color-coded aerial view of the 15-block shopping district.

Although languishing in recent years, the Spanish-styled Plaza has for 101 years been viewed as Kansas City’s jewel shopping district. He pointed to the southwestern corner near Jefferson Street and Ward Parkway, the site of empty and dark storefronts.

“We are going to reconfigure all this area,” Washburne said. “We’re calling it the Paseo District, with wider sidewalks, outdoor dining. We’re going to take a lot of nothing and turn it into a lot of something.”

Grand roundabout fountains at intersections. Retail shops removed to make room for outdoor walkways. Asphalt streets out, brick streets in. Facades, roofs, entire buildings transformed to more thoroughly evoke the district’s Spanish flair.

Nearly three months have passed since July 1 when Washburne and his Hunt family in-laws at HP Village Partners Ltd. — owners of Dallas’ luxury Highland Park Village shopping center — announced their purchase of the Country Club Plaza for the bargain price of $175.6 million. The amount is 73% less than the previous owners, The Macerich Co. and The Taubman Centers, paid Highwood Properties for the property just eight years ago.

Since the purchase, Washburne has already outlined, in broad terms, numerous plans he has for the district: added security, a boutique hotel, a new office tower in the empty 3 acres where a Nordstrom store had been planned, more unique local restaurants and local retail over national chains.

But in a discussion with The Star last week, those plans took on sharper focus. Maps and renderings were later shared which, when viewed together, reveal a Plaza whose future streetscape is likely to look remarkably different than the one that this weekend was set to draw tens of thousands of visitors to the annual Plaza Art Fair.

Washburne was careful to emphasize that the maps and drawings are not blueprints. At this point, they are simply visual concepts, ideas. Nothing is set in stone.

One rendering offers an example of the scope of change. The building that begins at 460 Nichols Road and runs east once housed Saks Fifth Avenue, later Nike and other retail. At three stories, it is flat-faced, made of tawny brick and beige stone. The rendering shows it transformed with soaring arched windows, a Spanish-tile roof and a bell tower.

“This is a big thing to emphasize,” Washburne said. “Walkability is everything to us, OK? I want people in the neighborhoods — or whether they’re at the Raphael (hotel) or the InterContinental (hotel) — to walk across the bridge and feel like you’ve entered Oz. You walk around and the streets are beautiful.”

More walkways, less retail

Plans revealed by HP Village include:

▪ The “barbell” concept: Washburne said HP Village’s plan is to have two distinctive and expanded restaurant districts with more local eateries. One, so far dubbed the Paseo District, will be on the west side around where Gram & Dun, The Granfalloon and Messenger Coffee are located and where the Mexican restaurant Zócalo once was. It closed its doors in 2023. The other restaurant district will be on the east side, where Fogo de Chão is and where Houston’s once was. Its space has been dark since 2017. The idea is to give each district its own feel, creating what Washburne called distinct “villages.”

“By doing that you create a ‘barbell’ between the two restaurant areas,” Washburne said. The districts are connected by retail shops.

“That creates a customer traffic pattern, “ he said. “You don’t want it all loaded at one end. You want a balance on the property.” When stores close at night, he said, “we’ll probably throw a coffee shop or an ice cream store in the middle, just to keep the foot traffic moving.”

▪ The Paseo District. “Paseo” is Spanish for a promenade or leisurely walk. HP Village wants to create new and more intimate spaces for visitors to explore, shop and eat.

Maps of the proposed district show a narrow asphalt alley located between Gram & Dun and the Granfalloon that is now used for parking. It will be turned into a brick pedestrian walkway with outdoor dining. A rendering shows two new Spanish-style towers. It also shows a new walkway between 48th Street and Nichols Road, carved out of existing retail space. Merchants will be relocated.

▪ Less retail. “So we’re doing what’s called ‘addition through subtraction,’” Washburne said, which includes getting rid of “junk retail” that “brings the overall feel of the center down.” The Plaza has about 800,000 square feet of retail space. He said that there’s no reason to use 800,000 square feet to do what can be achieved with 500,000 square feet.

“We’re going to create more walk-through spaces and pocket parks,” Washburne said of the excess space. Some buildings will be repurposed.

“A lot of them are just ginormous spaces or former department stores that are just way too much square footage,” he said.

He cited Barnes & Noble, at 44,000 square feet, as an example.

“The new Barnes & Nobles are 8,000 square feet,” he said. “So we’re going to redo their store and move them. I want to keep Barnes & Noble. I think it’s very important to have a bookstore as part of this deal. But they only need 8,000 square feet. They don’t need 44,000.”

He said he could see turning the bookstore’s second and third floors into leasable office space.

▪ Fountain roundabouts. HP Village anticipates putting in at least two for beautification and to slow traffic. A “grand fountain” is envisioned at Nichols Road and Broadway near Lululemon and another at 47th Street and Broadway, if traffic laws allow.

▪ Interior asphalt streets are to be replaced with brick. Sidewalks will be widened. Curbs will be removed and landscaping installed. “We’re going to bring in big, mature trees,” Washburne said.

▪ Offices. Less than 50% of the Plaza’s 200,000 square feet of office space is occupied or fully utilized. Some spaces have been empty for upwards of 10 years. Washburne said that when he first toured the offices, “they looked like they were from the 1950s. I mean old doors, old carpet, cobwebs, just dirty.” Complete renovation is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2025. When tenants look out their windows, Washburne wants the view to be notable.

▪ Flat roofs are to be replaced with sloping Spanish tile. “If you’ve ever been to Rome or Paris and look out over the roofs, you see red tile roofs or mansard roofs. We want to create something that’s beautiful for the people in the surrounding buildings to see.”

▪ Three parking garages have been marked for replacement: at Ward Parkway and Pennsylvania Street across from O’Dowd’s Gastrobar, at Central Street and Nichols Road below The Classic Cup Cafe, and at Mill Creek Parkway and West 46th Terrace across from Chuy’s Tex-Mex, which shut its doors in June. The structures remain safe but in need of major repair. A tour of the garages showed cracked concrete columns, crumbling decking and rusted exposed rebar.

Grocery and hotel

Maps did not show the location of the boutique hotel or grocery, but both are still planned.

Washburne suggested the hotel, at about 120 to 140 rooms, might go on the eastern side of the Plaza, somewhere near the Wyandotte Street site of the original Plaza Theater, which later became Restoration Hardware.

“We want to do a true luxury hotel,” he said. “We’re not going to build anything that, scale-wise, overwhelms the center.”

He said the goal of the changes is similar: to create an inviting environment that brings more people to the Plaza daily. More people means more shopping, more dining, greater security. To that end, he hopes to position the district to be active from morning to night, while also serving residents who live in the area.

“Right now, other than The Classic Cup, there’s nothing down there in the mornings,” he said. “That’s why I want to bring a small grocery in — 8,000 to 10,000 square feet, but not a chain. Something that is more of a bodega-type deal. Like you’d go in and have coffee, with a small grocery section — you know, sandwiches made on-site.

“Right now there’s no reason to walk around other than going to shop, buy your product and leave.”

HP Village Partners is a family company with deep pockets. Its principals are Washburne, his wife Heather Hill Washburne, his brother-in-law Stephen Summers and his wife, Elisa Summers. Heather Hill Washburne and Elisa Summers are sisters and descendants of the late Texas oil tycoon H.L. Hunt, father of Lamar Hunt, the founder of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Washburne said that since buying the Plaza, they’ve spent time cataloging its problems and needs, working with designers and architects. A formal team has yet to be announced, but HP Village confirmed that they have already received work from Kansas City firms Multistudio and BNIM and the Omniplan architecture firm out of Dallas.

Washburne, meanwhile, has had multiple meetings with area neighborhood groups as well as with city leaders to discuss replacing the district’s 100-year-old crumbling sewers and other infrastructure.

“The city has been fantastic,” Washburne said. “Brian Platt (the city manager) and the mayor (Quinton Lucas) have been great to work with.”

Cosmetic and security changes are already noticeable in the district where, Washburne said, they immediately increased the security budget by $1 million.

Changes include: added security personnel, more off-duty police, new lighting in parking garages, mirrors in stairwells, security guards posted at every garage entrance (some of which have been closed to control and observe access), security cameras with license plate readers, mirrors in stairwells.

Crosswalks have been painted, windows have been cleaned, threadbare awnings have been replaced. On a recent visit, workers were staining the sun-bleached trim around the windows of Barnes & Noble.

HP Village has also hired Ed de Avila to be on the Plaza as what Washburne described as the family’s “24/7 guy in Kansas City.” Between 1996 and 1998, de Avila was the vice president with the J.C. Nichols Co. in charge of the Plaza’s development until Highwoods Properties took over.

“Let me put it this way,” said de Avila, who ended up leaving Kansas City to head projects across the country. “It’s a premonition that I had when I left that I would somehow come back to the Plaza. And it’s happened. Very strong feeling on my last day walking off the Plaza, that as great as the Plaza is, it can be a lot better.

“This group, the ownership group that has acquired the Plaza, is world-class. I have no doubt that they’re going to take the Plaza to a much greater height than it’s ever been.”

How the Plaza deal happened

The story of how HP Village acquired the Plaza has yet to be fully told, as the Plaza was not officially on the market when it drew the Dallas group’s attention.

It started in April 2023. Washburne was giving a speech in Dallas to about 300 people at a conference held by the Urban Land Institute.

“I was just giving a talk on how we transformed Highland Park Village from this kind of lazy, quiet shopping center and, in 15 years, transformed it into one of the most luxurious shopping centers in the world,” Washburne said. “I’m coming off the stage and a guy walks up to me and says, ‘Hey, I’m your lender on Highland Park Village. . . . I’m also the lender on another property in another part of the country. And I believe it’s in the same condition that Highland Park Village was in.’”

He told Washburne the property was in bad shape, but asked him if he might be interested if it came up for sale.

“I said, ‘Of course,’” Washburne said.

One month later, the Plaza’s owners, Macerich and Taubman defaulted on payment of a $295 million loan they’d received from Nuveen, an investment management firm. Washburne later got a call and was “immediately” interested.

He knew the Plaza well, having opened a Mi Cocina restaurant there in 1998. It closed a decade later because of the neglect plaguing the Plaza even then: leaking roofs, rusted pipes, broken infrastructure.

He also understands the potential.

“I knew the property, right? I knew the problems. I knew it was the jewel of the Midwest and had been forever,” Washburne said. “I mean, it’s a legendary property, right? There are very few — when you’re in the real estate business — chances to buy a legendary property.”

In August 2023, Washburne flew to the Plaza for a deeper look.

“I was blown away at how bad it was when I left, and how much worse it had gotten,” he said. “What I noticed going around were ripped awnings, dirty sidewalks, dead landscaping, parking garages that were dark and scary.

“Talking to people, I heard there was this rampant crime issue, inattentive management. . . . People were speeding through the Plaza.”

The list went on: cracked concrete, cracked streets, overflowing trash. Friends in Kansas City told him they rarely went to the Plaza anymore.

“I was shocked,” Washburne said. “It had just been turned into, really, just kind of a mall — boring retail. Stores like Halls department store had closed. I mean all the things that made it special were gone.”

HP Village was set to close on the property by December 2023. It took six more months, until June 28. Washburne said concerns arose as the Plaza turned worse.

Stores continued leaving: Hallmark Gold Crown shop, Forever 21, The North Face, Express Inc., Chuy’s, Soft Surroundings.

“Crime issues were just rampant,” Washburne said. ”Cars were getting broken into. People weren’t feeling safe.

“We were pushing back. Every time we thought we were close to getting something done, as spring (2024) went by, something else would happen. There’d be a shooting. There’d be another store closure. ‘OK, we’re going to pause on this.’”

Still, Washburne felt “the bones” of the Plaza were sound.

“It was totally something we could make work,” he said. “But every time I thought I had my arms around stuff, we had to address things, like the old Nordstrom’s site. What do we do with that huge parking garage? What do we do with the old Cinemark building?

“I mean, you’ve got some huge dinosaurs in that property.”

There was also the matter of the Plaza’s image versus reality.

“I’m a historic preservationist,” Washburne said. “As I walked around, I noticed, you know, it’s not as pretty as people think it is. You have some beautiful buildings, some beautiful facades. Then you have some really not attractive ones.

“You’ve got the Nike store, the old Halls department store. If you stand back and look at it, you’re like, ‘OK, wait, that isn’t that nice.”

The plan is to make it so, he said.

Washburne said it cost about $100 million to redo Highland Park Village. The same estimate is frequently used for the Plaza, although Washburne concedes that it could be more, as the Highland Park Village is about a quarter the size of the Plaza.

No timeline has been set for major construction, which will need to be coordinated with infrastructure work done by the city. When major work begins, it is likely to start on the west side where there are numerous vacant storefronts. Renovating empty, outdated office space is a priority now.

“I would say that by next fall, you will see a remarkable difference from an infrastructure standpoint,” Washburne said. “We’re all going for the goal of the World Cup 2026. . . . So it’s about 18 months. In 18 months, people will be able to walk through the Plaza with pride with their guests.

“I can’t tell you exactly what it will look like, but it will be very, very different from what it looks like today.”