Kansas City Symphony unveils new South Plaza venue, but orchestra is not moving | KCUR

The Kansas City Symphony unveiled plans on Monday for a new 4,600-seat indoor space, targeted to open in 2028. It is designed to host touring artists and special programs while accommodating select Kansas City Symphony performances.

Located near the Country Club Plaza, the project is expected to draw more than 300,000 visitors annually and, administrators hope, will further energize one of Kansas City’s most iconic neighborhoods.

Orchestra leaders said with the new venue, they hope to attract national touring artists and expand year-round concert offerings while generating new revenue to support the group’s core mission.

Symphony President and CEO Danny Beckley said it is an ideal moment for the organization to embark on a project like this.

“We’ve really been seeing an uptick in our audiences, so we’re able to perform more kinds of repertoire,” Beckley said. “We’re seeing more demand for more things, and it really makes sense to expand in this way, because it’s going to strengthen the long term future of the Kansas City Symphony.”

With peer organizations like the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra exploring venues outside their performance halls, amphitheater programs and other means of generating revenue, Beckley said there is a similar opportunity in Kansas City.

“This venue allows us to welcome more artists to Kansas City and ensures that the Symphony will continue serving this community for generations to come,” said Beckley in a press release on Monday.

Symphony leadership emphasized there are no plans to move Kansas City Symphony’s regular season concerts out of the current home at Helzberg Hall in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

Instead, the new venue is intended to build on and adapt what the Symphony called a “proven model of success.”

“Managed by Music and Event Management, Inc., the new venue will host over 100 annual events, the broad majority being popular artist acts plus a few dozen Symphony performances,” the press release said.

MEMI, a subsidiary of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, started in 2001 as an experiment to find new ways to generate revenue for that organization. MEMI’s team of promoters book, produce and market more than 300 live events each year across six venues, according to the statement.

Kansas City Symphony Music Director Matthias Pintscher served as a creative partner at CSO before his current role began in Kansas City for the 2024-25 season.

The Kansas City Symphony has faced some financial pressures in recent years. Like many major American orchestras the organization ran deficits in the fiscal year ending in June 2024. Administrators believe expanding the Symphony’s offerings will secure the organization’s financial future.

The indoor venue will be at 4901 Main Street., the site of a former US Bank. The site is currently owned by VanTrust Real Estate. Kansas City firms Populous and McCown Gordon will lead the design and construction efforts.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas had a chance to review the plans.

Populous

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Kansas City Symphony

“Kansas City has always made music history, from Charlie Parker and Count Basie to a world-class symphony that keeps raising the bar. Now we’re raising it again,” Lucas said in the official statement from the Symphony. “Kansas City Symphony’s new music venue will put Kansas City exactly where we belong: on every tour, every time, cementing our place as one of America’s great music cities.”

Rumors about fundraising

Rumors have swirled since last spring about the Symphony’s fundraising efforts for a new concert hall, but the official announcement on Monday could still come as a surprise to some in the performing arts community.

Mark Edelman, the founder and former head of the Theater League, which brings touring Broadway productions to Kansas City and elsewhere, told former Kansas City Star journalists Melinda Henneberger and Dan Margolies that the symphony’s new project might complicate things for other performance groups in the metro.

“This will make it harder for KC Rep, the Conservatory and the Nelson to raise the money to build their new homes,” he told the Kansas City Stack blog in the days leading up to the official announcement. Starlight Theatre is also in the middle of a $40 million capital campaign for a major expansion which will include a new state-of-the-art canopy.

Symphony musicians also serve as the pit orchestra for both the Kansas City Ballet and Lyric Opera of Kansas City in the venue’s second hall, the Muriel Kauffman Theatre. It’s unclear if the ballet or the opera were notified in advance of the Symphony’s plans.

The Kauffman Center, Lyric Opera and Kansas City Ballet Ballet offered no comment on the announcement.

Plans for the new building were teased ahead of the Symphony’s official announcement when images of an invitation to an “exclusive preview” at the home of Kansas City Royals Chairman and CEO John Sherman and his wife Marny Sherman were leaked to the press in early March.

“We don’t have anything to announce at this time,” a Symphony representative told KCUR in an email when contacted about the invitation on March 10.

At this time the total cost for the project is unknown. Beckley told KCUR that the Symphony plans to fund the venue through philanthropic sources. But once the venue is built, he said, it will become self-supporting.

“We’re still in the design phase,” Beckley said. “We don’t have what contractors call a ‘guaranteed maximum price’ yet, and so we’re still working on that. It’s not quite pencils down.”

Is Kansas City saturated with music venues?

Helzberg Hall in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts has been the Symphony’s home since the venue opened in September 2011. The 1,600-seat theater has hosted Symphony performances with celebrated musicians like violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Kansas City mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato.

Designed by architect Moshe Safdie, the $413 million, 285,000-square-foot building was the culmination of philanthropist Muriel McBrien Kauffman’s vision for a world-class performing arts center in Kansas City.

“In terms of acoustics, this is world class,” Safdie told KCUR in 2011. “It’s more than world class, it’s the best that there is around. And that is testimony to the collaboration that took place.”

Beyond the Kauffman, Kansas City has a robust music scene with a number of venues that support classical programming, including the Folly Theater, the 1900 Building, and the Midwest Trust Center at Johnson County Community College.

Still, Andrew Heise, associate teaching professor in the Entrepreneurship and Management Department at UMKC’s Henry W. Bloch School of Management, said more venues in the area should mean more opportunities for music performances.

“You have to look at what’s going to be done differently or, how is it going to attract net new customers rather than just borrow customers or move customers,” Heise said.

Julie Denesha

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KCUR 89.3

President of the American Federation of Musicians Local 34-627, Marvin Gruenbaum, has been a charter member of the Symphony’s viola section since the group’s inception in 1982. He responded to questions from KCUR in an email.

The idea of a new concert hall was appealing, he said, going on to write that the new venue could bring more opportunities for musicians.

“An indoor venue like this (as opposed to an outdoor amphitheater) would possibly be very useful in many ways, with a significant audience capacity and a good setup for presenting amplified concerts year-round,” he wrote.

Gruenbaum said that the Symphony’s partnership with MEMI, with a track record of generating revenue, bodes well for the proposed building and should be seen as an opportunity to strengthen the long-term sustainability of the orchestra.

“If the success of the Cincinnati model is an indication, it could strengthen the stability of orchestra jobs, particularly if it strengthens the financials,” Gruenbaum said.

Speaking for the musicians, Gruenbaum did not believe that the venue would prove to be competition for the Kauffman Center and he said leaving their current home was unimaginable.

“We are extremely fortunate to have a true gem with Helzberg Hall, one of best acoustical spaces anywhere,” Gruenbaum said. “We see no reason that we would leave the Hall or move any classical performances away from Helzberg.”