Crown Center, potential part of Royals plan, is historic

Details remain scarce, but Crown Center could see redevelopment if plans move forward to bring a new Royals stadium into an area that was itself built to renew a distressed neighborhood.

Crown Center’s architecture, layout and very existence are so distinctive — as a planned, mixed-use district with modern buildings surrounding a public plaza — that the area is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

How Crown Center could be involved in a proposed Royals development is not yet clear, but officials are expected to offer more details about the team’s future at a news conference on Wednesday morning.

Combining hotels, shopping, entertainment, dining, offices and more, Crown Center has newer buildings, but its core historic structures were built from the mid-1950s into the early 1970s. Hallmark led its development and maintains its headquarters there.

With an application prepared by Rosin Preservation and approved by the National Park Service in 2019, Crown Center’s listing is in many ways honorary and serves to ensure its history is documented and considered worthy of preservation.

“It’s significant for its architecture, for Brutalism, for modern architecture, and a cohesive shopping and mixed-use center and for community planning and development, and essentially commerce for the business orientation and significance and the role of the history of one of Kansas City’s largest corporations,” said Ethan Starr, executive director of historic preservation group Historic KC.

But national historic status also unlocks potential state and federal tax credits that developers can use to help rehab and repurpose historic buildings.

Developers in Kansas City regularly use historic tax credits to help save and reuse buildings for housing and other uses, such as the future Aladdin apartments in a former hotel downtown or the future lofts in the vacant ABC warehouse building on Main Street.

Without the tax credit support, such historic buildings could instead go vacant and blighted.

“That is a key feature of the National Register that ensures historic buildings essentially maintain competitiveness as a means of future investment in the urban core in particular,” Starr said.

Details remain scant about Crown Center role in Royals development

Very few details about what a future Royals development in the area around Washington Square Park and Crown Center have been made publicly available to date.

While it originally appeared that the new stadium could go where Washington Square Park currently sits, near Union Station, one City Council member told The Star on Tuesday that the proposed Royals stadium will not go in Washington Square Park, which would reflect a remarkable shift in public perception going back nearly two years.

Meanwhile, the city has been referring to the proposal as one that would bring a stadium and ballpark district to the “Washington Square Park and the Crown Center area.” How Crown Center would be involved is not yet known.

But, given Crown Center’s listing on the national register, those tax credits could be available to give new life to some of its buildings as part of a broader development.

Among them: the two buildings that make up Hallmark’s headquarters, the zig-zag office building off Pershing Road, and the Westin Hotel. Those buildings are considered “contributing” to Crown Center’s historic nature.

Proposals and projects receiving tax credits would be subject to review by state or federal officials to make sure that they maintain a historic character.

Some other buildings are within the Crown Center district, but they are not considered “contributing” because they are of different style and are not as tied to its particular history. That means they would not be eligible for the tax credits, Starr said.

Among the “non-contributing” buildings are, ironically, the 1923 Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church and the 1987 office building at 2405 Grand Blvd., where The Star’s offices are located.

Local listing would mean local protections

But while Crown Center is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it’s not listed on Kansas City’s local historic register.

That’s a separate list and maintained at the local level. If Crown Center did have local historic status, the development would have another layer of protections under city code.

The city’s Historic Preservation Commission, an appointed board, would need to sign off on major changes to a building’s exterior, for example.

That includes an owner proposing to demolish a building with local historic status. Demolitions for buildings on the local list cannot be blocked forever, but an owner could have to wait up to three years if a demolition permit is denied.

In order for Crown Center to be on the local historic list, someone would have to file an application and then move the nomination through multiple public hearings from multiple boards ahead of final City Council approval — far from a certainty, as recent nominations in the Valentine and Pendleton Heights neighborhoods have shown.

And the city has further rules around demolishing older buildings, passed in late 2024. It appears that those rules could apply to at least some structures in Crown Center, even though they’re not on the local list.

Those rules allow the Historic Preservation Commission to consider delaying demolitions for up to 45 days, which gives the public some time to consider alternatives to demolition.

City, state and Royals team officials are expected to stage a news conference Wednesday morning that will further outline their plans for a ballpark district around Washington Square Park and Crown Center.