The Kansas City Power & Light District, or simply the Power & Light District, KCP&L or the P&L, is a dining, shopping, office and entertainment district in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, United States, developed by

The Cordish Companies The Cordish Companies (previously The Cordish Company) is a U.S.-based real estate development and entertainment operating company with its headquarters on the 6th floor of the Pratt Street Power Plant in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded ...

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, and designed by

Beyer Blinder Belle Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP (BBB) is an international architecture firm. It is based in New York City and has an additional office in Washington, DC. The firm's name is derived from the three founding partners: John H. Beyer, Ri ...

and

360 Architecture 360 Architecture was an American architectural practice acquired by HOK in 2015. The firm provided services for a range of project types including corporate headquarters and commercial office buildings, sports arenas, stadiums and ballparks, mun ...

. The district comprises nine blocks on the south side of the downtown loop. It is located between Baltimore Avenue to the west, Grand Boulevard to the east, 12th Street to the north, and Interstate 670 to the south. The $850 million mixed use district is one of the largest development projects in the

Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

although it fails to pay for itself and drains money from taxpayers and the city’s general fund each year. It is anchored by the renovated Midland Theatre,

Alamo Drafthouse The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is an American cinema chain founded in 1997 in Austin, Texas, which is famous for serving dinner and drinks during the movie, as well as its strict policy of requiring its audiences to maintain proper cinema-going etiq ...

Mainstreet Cinema and the world headquarters of

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. In 2009, the Power & Light District was the recipient of the

Urban Land Institute The Urban Land Institute, or ULI, is a nonprofit research and education organization with regional offices in Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, and London. ULI advocates progressive development, conducting research, and education in topics such as ...

Award of Excellence for its impact on the revitalization of downtown Kansas City.

Location

The Power & Light District is immediately to the west of the

T-Mobile Center T-Mobile Center (formerly Sprint Center) is a multi-purpose arena in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. It is located at the intersection of 14th Street and Grand Boulevard on the east side of the Power & Light District. It has effectively becom ...

. The district was named after the

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

Kansas City Power and Light Building The Kansas City Power and Light Building (also called the KCP&L Building and the Power and Light Building) is a landmark skyscraper located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri. It was constructed by Kansas City Power and Light in 1931 as a way to p ...

. The present headquarters of the Kansas City Power & Light Company (a subsidiary of Great Plains Energy) is also located on the northern side of the district. A one-block entertainment area within the district is called Kansas City Live!, and contains two floors of bars and restaurants, as well as a large, partially enclosed courtyard and concert venue.

Kansas City Live!

At the heart of the Power & Light District is Kansas City Live!, a one block area devoted to live music and entertainment venues. At the center of Kansas City Live! is a covered outdoor plaza used for dozens of concerts each year. The stage in Kansas City Live! has featured acts like

Dierks Bentley Frederick Dierks Bentley (; born November 20, 1975) is an American country music singer and songwriter. In 2003, he signed to Capitol Nashville and released his eponymous debut album. Both it and its follow-up, 2005's '' Modern Day Drifter'', a ...

Macklemore Benjamin Hammond Haggerty (born June 19, 1983), better known by his stage name Macklemore ( ; (formerly Professor Macklemore), is an American rapper and songwriter. A native of Seattle, Washington, he has collaborated with producer Ryan Lewi ...

the Commodores Commodores are an American funk and soul band, which were at their peak in the late 1970s through the mid 1980s. The members of the group met as mostly freshmen at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in 1968, and signed with Motown in ...

, Luke Bryan, Bleachers, Vance Joy,

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Cole Swindell Colden Rainey Swindell (born June 30, 1983) is an American rock music singer and songwriter. He has written singles for Craig Campbell, Thomas Rhett, Scotty McCreery, and Luke Bryan, and has released four albums for Warner Bros. Records Nashvil ...

, Portugal. The Man,

Grouplove Grouplove (often typeset as GROUPLOVE) is an American alternative rock band that was formed in 2009 by Hannah Hooper (lead vocals, keyboards), Christian Zucconi (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Sean Gadd (bass), Andrew Wessen (lead guitar, backing vo ...

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, Flo Rida, Travis Scott, and many more. The roof system, produced by Structurflex, is made of an Ethylene TetraFluoro Ethylene (

ETFE Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) is a fluorine-based plastic. It was designed to have high corrosion resistance and strength over a wide temperature range. ETFE is a polymer and its source-based name is poly(ethene-co-tetrafluoroethene). It is ...

) single-skin membrane. Construction of the roof began on August 17, 2007. The ground floor of the Kansas City Live! block focuses on bars and restaurants, including McFadden's Sports Saloon, Flying Saucer, Cleaver & Cork, The Dubliner, Johnny's Tavern, Pizza Bar and County Road Ice House, which is a locally owned partnership between Back Napkin and Joes BBQ. The second floor of Kansas City Live! houses the night clubs and entertainment concepts, including Mosaic Ultra Lounge, Angels Rock Bar, Howl at the Moon, PBR Big Sky, Shark Bar and No Other Pub, which is a partnership between Cordish and local

MLS Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

soccer team, Sporting Kansas City. The Kansas City Live! area of the Power & Light District was showcased before a television audience twice during May 2008.

American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to Ap ...

finalist

David Cook David Cook may refer to: Entertainment * David Cook (game designer) (active since 1980s), American game designer for TSR * David Cook (singer) (born 1982), winner of the seventh season of ''American Idol'' * David Cook (writer) (1940–2015), Briti ...

played a short set from the Kansas City Live! stage on May 9, 2008, which aired during the television show the following week. The same location also hosted the official watch party for the final episode of the 2008 season, which featured a live television feed from the Power & Light District. The Kansas City Live! block received national attention once again for its

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

watch parties in 2010 and

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

. It was also heavily featured on

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

during the

and

2015 World Series The 2015 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 2015 season. The 111th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the National League (NL) champion New York Mets and the American Leag ...

Fox Sports Kansas City Bally Sports Kansas City (BSKC) is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel broadcasts coverage of professional, collegiate, and high school sports events both w ...

broadcast live from the Kansas City Live! stage during this time.

Notable tenants

Mainstreet Theater - first all-digital movie theater in the United States; shows current movies in six theaters; located at 14th & Main (opened May 1, 2009) * GNC - location of the

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

-based chain of stores selling health and nutrition related products, over the counter drugs, and

food supplement A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement one's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources or that are synthetic in order ...

s (opened December 31, 2008) * Gordon Biersch Brewing Company - location of the Chattanooga-based chain of brewery/restaurants^† (opened March 10, 2008) *

- world headquarters (opened October, 2006) * Hilton President Kansas City - 213-room refurbished historic 1926 hotel, featuring the Drum Room (reopened January 5, 2006) * Jos. A. Bank - location of the

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

-based men's clothing designer and retailer located at 1320 Main St. (opened February 13, 2009) *

Midland Theatre The Midland Theatre is a 3,000-seat theater located in the Power & Light District of Kansas City, Missouri, United States. The National Collegiate Athletic Association under Walter Byers had its headquarters in the building from the 1950s until ...

- 3,500-person capacity concert and live music venue (reopened September 2008) *

PBR PBR may refer to: Science and technology * Passive bistatic radar * Partition boot record * Pebble bed reactor, a type of nuclear reactor * Peripheral benzodiazepine receptor, another name for translocator protein * Phosphorus bromide * Photobio ...

Big Sky - country and western bar located at the north end of the Kansas City Live! block at 111 E. 13th St. (opened April 10, 2008) * Sprint Studio - store in the district.(opened March 5, 2008) *

T-Mobile T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic ( T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland ( T-Mobile Polska), the United States (T-Mobil ...

- store †- located in Kansas City Live!

Residential

Within the Power & Light District, Cordish plans to build four high-end residential towers. On April 22, 2014, Cordish broke ground on the first apartment tower calle
One Light Luxury Apartments
One Light officially opened 80% leased on December 8, 2015. The tower is 25 stories tall and connected to the nearby Cosentino's Grocery store and OneLife Fitness gym. In March 2016, construction began on the second residential tower, Two Light Luxury Apartments. Two Light officially opened on May 4, 2018. The 24-story luxury apartment building features 296 units, each with floor-to-ceiling windows, like its predecessor, One Light. Two Light also includes a 438-space garage, of boutique retail space, and of coworking office space, Spark KC. Spark KC is scheduled to open in late 2018.

Festival license

In 2005, the Cordish Company successfully lobbied the

Missouri General Assembly The Missouri General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Missouri. The bicameral General Assembly is composed of a 34-member Senate and a 163-member House of Representatives. Members of both houses of the General Assembly are ...

for a new law pertaining to any "entertainment district" in Downtown Kansas City which will allow patrons to remove any alcoholic beverage from any establishment in the District and carry it openly throughout the portions of the District not open to vehicular traffic, provided that the beverage is in a plastic cup marked with the logo of the establishment at which it was purchased.Rick Alm, "Drinking to be allowed on street in Power & Light District", ''The Kansas City Star'', July 27, 2005 The Power & Light District is one of only a few places in the United States with such an open container allowance (along with the city of Butte, Montana, the

Las Vegas Strip The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, that is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip, as it is known, is about long, and is immediately south of the Las Vegas city ...

, the city of

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, Key West, Florida, the Arts and Entertainment District of

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in ...

Beale Street Beale Street is a street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, which runs from the Mississippi River to East Street, a distance of approximately . It is a significant location in the city's history, as well as in the history of blues music. Today, t ...

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

, and the historic district of downtown

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later t ...

References

External links

Power & Light District Official Website
(Flash only)
Contact Information
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kansas City Power and Light District Neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri Culture of Kansas City, Missouri Economy of Kansas City, Missouri Central business districts in the United States Tourist attractions in Kansas City, Missouri Downtown Kansas City The Cordish Companies