Kansas City could relocate Plaza tennis courts for new project

Inviting new residential development is just one suggestion in a potpourri of community ideas about how prospective new owners could improve the Country Club Plaza — and a prominent city-owned property has recurred as one potential location.

Kansas City leaders have considered the Plaza Tennis Center at 4747 Mill Creek Parkway for possible development dating back more than a year.

Projects that could break ground after potential Plaza ownership change

The 14-court tennis complex has been a Plaza fixture since 1928, just five years after the historic shopping center opened. But officials such as Mayor Quinton Lucas and City Manager Brian Platt have floated relocating the courts to a nearby rooftop to free up a mixed-use project site.

Platt’s office invited more than a dozen people, including officials with the city’s Planning & Development and Parks & Recreation departments, to a September 2022 meeting on “Plaza Tennis Courts Redevelopment,” the Kansas City Business Journal learned last year through an unrelated records request.

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No formal plans for the center have emerged since, but Platt said officials have received development ideas and remain “very interested” in proposals.

“There’s a lot of benefit there to more density, some more amenities, and to doing more with a higher and better use for that site,” Platt said last week of the Plaza Tennis Center. “We just don’t have anything concrete yet.”

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