Country Club Plaza

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Kansas City's Country Club Plaza

The Country Club Plaza (often referred to as "the Plaza") is an upscale shopping district and residential neighborhood centered around 55 acres (223,000 m²) in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. It was the first shopping center in the world designed to accommodate the automobile^{[citation needed]}. It is located approximately four miles (6.44 km) south of downtown, between 45th street and 51st street to the north and south, and between Broadway and Madison Street to the east and west. The Kansas border is one mile (1.6 km) to the west. Established in 1922^{[verification needed]} and designed architecturally after Seville, Spain, the Plaza is composed of high-end retail establishments, restaurants, and entertainment venues, as well as offices. The neighborhoods surrounding the Plaza consist of apartment buildings and upscale homes, especially on the southern (Sunset Hill) and western sides (West Plaza). The Country Club Plaza is named in the Project for Public Spaces' list, 60 of the World's Great Places.

1 History
2 Layout and use
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] History

Commissioned by renowned real estate developer J.C. Nichols, and designed by Edward Buehler Delk, the Country Club Plaza was named for the associated Country Club District, a residential district lying south and built around the former grounds of the Kansas City Country Club (now Loose Park), and which the J.C. Nichols Company began developing in 1906 to become what is now the largest master-planned community in the United States. The Plaza was situated at the northern terminus of Ward Parkway, a boulevard known for its wide, manicured median lined with fountains and statuary that traverses the Country Club District. J.C. Nichols selected the location carefully in order to provide residents with a direct route to the Plaza through Ward Parkway.

Nichols began acquiring the land for the Plaza in 1907, in an area of Kansas City which was then known as Brush Creek Valley. When his plans were first announced the project was dubbed 'Nichols' Folly' due to the then seemingly-undesirable location: at the time, the only developed land in the valley belonged to the Pembroke School for Boys, and the rest was known for pig farming^{[citation needed]}. The Plaza opened in 1922 to immediate success, something that has lasted with little interruption since that year. It was the first shopping center in the world designed to accommodate the automobile: the availability of filling stations and parking space was a central theme in its design. Moreover, it drastically transformed the urban layout of Kansas City, fostering vast south and southwestern sprawl over the following century^{[citation needed]}.

On September 12, 1977, a major flood of Brush Creek caused severe damage to the Plaza and resulted in a number of deaths. The flood prompted a vast renovation and revitalization of the area that has allowed it to not only survive, but thrive through the present day.

In 1998, the J.C. Nichols Company sold the Country Club Plaza to real estate proprietor Highwoods Properties.

Historically, the Plaza has had a national reputation. For example, on Wheel of Fortune, large shopping sprees to the Plaza are usually included with a trip to Kansas City.

[edit] Layout and use

Brush Creek on the Plaza at Night

The basic design of the Country Club Plaza reflects classical European influences, especially those of Seville, Spain. There are more than thirty statues, murals, and tile mosaics on display in the area, as well as major architectural reproductions, such as a half-sized Giralda Tower of Seville (the tallest building in the Plaza). The Plaza also includes precise light fixture reproductions of San Francisco's Path of Golden Lights. Other works of art celebrate the classics, nature, and historical American themes such as westward expansion.

Although the Plaza was designed and built to accommodate the automobile, it is unlike modern shopping malls with sprawling parking lots: parking space is discreetly concealed in multilevel parking garages beneath the shops, or hidden on the rooftops of buildings. Thus the Plaza, which does not suffer from the sprawl that afflicts modern shopping centers, is pedestrian-friendly.

In 1925 a tradition began of outlining the Plaza in colored lights to celebrate Christmas. The yearly lighting ceremony is called Plaza Lights, and regularly attracts a large crowd on Thanksgiving night.

The Plaza was also the first shopping center where rents were based on a percentage of the gross sales of tenants^{[citation needed]}. This concept, novel at the time when J.C. Nichols invented it, is now a standard expectation in leases for retail business space^{[citation needed]}.