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The best path forward would be for the Plaza to embrace what the locals have to offer and encourage the citizens of KC to come open destination boutiques and restaurants there. Crown Center does fine and in my opinion it's more annoying to get there, you have to pay for parking on weekdays, and unless you want to eat or ice skate there isn't much to do. The Plaza has a larger GLA than Crown Center by far, which poses challenges, but parking is free and convenient! The past owners should have never given the local stores and entertainment options the boot throughout the 80's. A grocery store and bowling alley would be a great asset and Sears was a traffic driver up though the late 90's. What did the upscaling of the Plaza leave us with? Not much! Halls is gone, Saks is gone, and FAO Schwarz is only a brand at Toys R Us These days. Pottery Barn also left and I don't know why the deal for Restoration Hardware to move into Halls failed, but all talk of it disappeared and all of the sudden they were back in Leawood. There are a couple of local places down there as well as Topsy's and that specialty gift store subsidy Hallmark was testing at The Plaza and at Cherry Creek in Denver (is that even still open? I can't remember the name.) It also wouldn't hurt for Taubman to befriend the media as they LOVE to cover every minor incident at The Plaza and Oak Park Mall while ignoring crime at Zona Rosa, Legends, Ward Parkway, and Independence Center in comparison. After Bannister died they had to find a new target. You see this in the media in other metro areas too. The Mall in Aurora, Colorado gets more media attention than the others in the Denver area even though it's not sketchy in the least 9/10 days and the Wichita news will rarely report on the carjackings and such at Towne East, but they will report on minor shoplifting incidents at and near Towne West.
The Plaza, Independence Center, and Oak Park Mall are starting to hemorrhage tenants because of chainwide bankruptcies or massive store closures and they need to reinvent themselves fast if they want to stay relevant. Oak Park Mall lost a lot of its exclusivity to Town Center Plaza and Corbin Park and the Nordstrom Wing has never been great. Other upscale malls in markets like denver all have the stores like Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, The Container Store, and Restoration hardware in their indoor malls alongside Nordstrom and the likes, but JoCo fragmented the metros upscale retail stores into three destinations on the KS Side + The Plaza in KCMO... The Plaza and Oak Park both just lost BCBG Max Azria and Oak Park has also lost Wet Seal to bankruptcy, both it and Independence Center lost DEB to bankruptcy awhile back, Radioshack has been empty for around two years, FYE as a company is on its death bed and the OPM store looks decrepit, NY & CO just closed its OPM store as part of a national downsizing, Payless just opened a superstore there, but the Topeka Capital Journal reported sizable layoffs at HQ and sad a bankruptcy filing is likely to come, Vaninity, a store that had a Independence Center location and several stores in rural Kansas was going to open this month at OPM, but they just declared chapter 11 and are liquidating, Independence Center is going to have to deal with Sears eventually and Dillard's will likely continue to shrink its presence at OPM or even outright close one store as they continue to struggle. The Limited just liquidated as well leaving a couple of vacancies in the metro. Town Center Plaza has a decent number of vacancies too, but it looks to be the strongest performer of the four "upscale" retail areas in the metro, though I'd prefer Oak Park and The Plaza to be THE destinations... The Plaza has been able to hold on to some of the tenants you usually find at upper class malls that Oak Park hasn't like GAP and J. Crew and The Plaza doesn't have to deal with having blighted strip malls to the north, and then several lining Quivira all the way up to SM Parkway with a huge one off of 75th, and then there are several blighted apartments and retail properties along 95th all the way over to Metcalf...
Microsoft and Urban Outfitters have both shown up on tentative leasing plans for Prarie Fire Phase II and that makes me worry that they plan on jumping ship from The Plaza and OPM in favor of greener subsidized pastures. Von Maur isn't a great drawn in any market, but they did help stabilize the loss of tenants from Towne East to Bradley Fair in Wichita, helped re-establish Westroads Mall in Omaha as the metros dominant mall, and would have been a murch greater asset at Town Center Plaza, Oak Park, Independence, Zona Rosa, Metro North Redevelopment, or even as a replacement for Dillard's at Ward Parkway!
Nice ta get your knowledgeable input, empires228. I first talked to you on city-data when the Mrs. and I lived in little 'ole Dodge City, KS. My how things have changed. We're in Kansas City, MO! We're actually in a city that Harry Truman lived in while he was young, Grandview.
Your Plaza input is most appreciated. Next time we go we'll have ta park in one of the garages - one of them within eyeshot of Barnes and Noble on 47th would work, city - data - ites.
Nice ta get your knowledgeable input, empires228. I first talked to you on city-data when the Mrs. and I lived in little 'ole Dodge City, KS. My how things have changed. We're in Kansas City, MO! We're actually in a city that Harry Truman lived in while he was young, Grandview.
Your Plaza input is most appreciated. Next time we go we'll have ta park in one of the garages - one of them within eyeshot of Barnes and Noble on 47th would work, city - data - ites.
I'm usually only there to eat so the garage that had been on the backside of Halls usually serves me pretty well. There's a great view from the roof of that garage.
When it comes to Dodge, Village Square could be dead in the very new future if Claire's and Payless declare bankruptcy like some sources are claiming they might! It would also take out two tenants in GC, where the mall just lost Vanity and DEB to bankruptcy and a tenant in Hays where we just lost Firestone, Claire's, CJ Banks, Hallmark, and Vanity. JCP is rumored to be pulling out of GC, DC, Great Bend, and Liberal in this next round when they said they'd target small rural stores that can't carry appliances or accommodate Sephora and rundown stores.
424 Nichols Road. The supermarket was next door to its east, and Woolworth's was to its west, with the entrance to the Embassy II movie theater (one of Durwood's early multi-screeners, years before the company became American Multi Cinema) in between.
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Market St, you and I must be about the same age (I'm 62 now) because we sure have several shared memories. The Embassy 2 theatres! I saw a TON of movies there. I even went to Indian Hills Jr. High with both Stan and Richard Durwood's kids.
Back then, the Plaza had a great fabric store and even a Skelly gas station which, IIRC was a block west of the Plaza III on Brush Creek.
I haven't been to the Plaza in years. i worry about crime and the stores and restaurants don't have much appeal.
And here is a text someone received from someone who was there Saturday night, who then shared the text on Facebook (public post):
Sharing a text from a good friend this morning. I don’t have all the answers but they MUST do something to secure the plaza. Shut it down and privatize the streets. Make it a 21 district. Look at the comments section to see the video and the story from KMBC 9 overnight:
“Good morning ____!
I wanted to send this to you, because this was my view on Saturday night at the plaza when I went with my daughter and 10 of her friends to Buca di Beppo to celebrate her birthday! I left dinner and immediately saw HOARDS of teenagers running up and down the streets of the plaza screaming and yelling.. traffic was blocked by them (which is where i was) . As I was waiting for traffic to clear so I could leave, I saw the police apprehend a young man who looked to be no more than 12 years old… (I swear he looked like a freaking baby!) this is in the left corner of the picture that I sent you. I watched them put his backpack on the back of the cop car, and pull out a HANDGUN! … they put him in the car and left.... I couldn't believe what I was witnessing, because as this was going on the crowds of kids were taking video of the situation and taunting the police. I watched them walk a few yards away and sit down to watch the video they had taken and they were laughing and cheering each other on-I watched the same kids do this at least three times! When I was finally able to turn the corner in front of cheesecake factory I watched someone put into an ambulance and then it drove away. The thing that baffles me the most… Is the fact that this morning was the first time I heard anything about this at all! It amazes me that nothing has been reported on this until now, And they're still being really sketchy!
I just want to say, that in the 30 minutes that I watched the police deal with the situation , I was completely impressed with how they dealt with these kids.
This whole thing just blew me away!!
^ I'm generally a democrat, but the conservative side of me wants round up all these kids, then go find their parents and round them up and put them all in jail or some sort of controlled environment. The parents should be held responsible and the kids should be put in some sort of home till it can be determined that they won't be a menace to society and prevent them from soon having their own 12 year old thug kids running the streets.
^ I'm generally a democrat, but the conservative side of me wants round up all these kids, then go find their parents and round them up and put them all in jail or some sort of controlled environment. The parents should be held responsible and the kids should be put in some sort of home till it can be determined that they won't be a menace to society and prevent them from soon having their own 12 year old thug kids running the streets.
But I would say in some if not most cases, the parents are either thugs themselves and/or are addicted, and/or incarcerated, and/or just don't care, or are too busy working to support the family to keep tabs on the kids.
How does a 12 year old even gain access to a handgun?
But I would say in some if not most cases, the parents are either thugs themselves and/or are addicted, and/or incarcerated, and/or just don't care, or are too busy working to support the family to keep tabs on the kids.
How does a 12 year old even gain access to a handgun?
That's my point with rounding everybody up. Especially the parents. And this is Merica! Guns are just part of our culture I guess. Obviously a 12 year old shouldn't have access to a gun, but we have so many guns in this country that anybody can get one very easily.
^ I'm generally a democrat, but the conservative side of me wants round up all these kids, then go find their parents and round them up and put them all in jail or some sort of controlled environment. The parents should be held responsible and the kids should be put in some sort of home till it can be determined that they won't be a menace to society and prevent them from soon having their own 12 year old thug kids running the streets.
What's interesting is certain people talking all about what the city should do to entertain these kids so they aren't causing trouble. It all starts in the home and if the home is broken what will some basketball games at night hosted by the city do? That's nothing but a temporary fix. Frankly, if it's a warm night before the curfew comes back, I wouldn't deal with the Plaza theatrics and I live right next to it. Lastly, this may sound terrible but at the rate the East Side is depopulating, I wonder how long this will continue as I doubt 12 year olds are going to be dropped off from South KC.
What's interesting is certain people talking all about what the city should do to entertain these kids so they aren't causing trouble. It all starts in the home and if the home is broken what will some basketball games at night hosted by the city do? That's nothing but a temporary fix. Frankly, if it's a warm night before the curfew comes back, I wouldn't deal with the Plaza theatrics and I live right next to it..
I agree. This is a symptom of what's going on at home.
I don't want to deal with the theatrics either.
And I'm sure someone will chime in "I go there often and I've never had a problem." There were patrons last weekend that probably never had a problem prior either.
"But this kind of thing can happen anywhere", etc...
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