Prepared for Ray Washburne
Bringing
Live Music to the
Country Club Plaza.
All Genres. All Year.
A new 4,600-capacity venue at 49th & Main.
Explore
Prepared for Ray Washburne
A new 4,600-capacity venue at 49th & Main.
Something significant is taking shape at the southern gateway to the Country Club Plaza. The Kansas City Symphony is building a new, state-of-the-art music venue at 49th and Main — designed to welcome over 300,000 people each year to world-class live music experiences across every genre.
We chose this site deliberately. Your $275 million commitment to the Country Club Plaza is reshaping the area, and we want to be part of that momentum. A venue of this caliber, steps from the Plaza, will drive a steady flow of concertgoers to dine, shop, and spend time in the destination you're working so hard to revitalize. Our goals are deeply aligned.
You proved at Highland Park Village that curated placemaking transforms a district. Walkability, curation, permanence — these are the principles that guide your work, and they are the same principles behind this venue. We see this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to anchor the south end of the Plaza with a cultural landmark that drives foot traffic and strengthens everything around it.
We are building this venue with civic and investment partners who understand what cultural infrastructure does for a city. I would welcome the opportunity to come to Dallas for a brief meeting to share what we're creating and how it connects to your vision for the Plaza.
Kansas City's culture is grounded in live music—it fuels civic pride, and shapes our region's identity. Today's music market increasingly favors flexible, mid-sized, and tech-forward venues built for immersive experiences and the Kansas City Symphony is ready to bring that venue to the city we call home.
We are building a touring-ready, all-genre, mid-sized indoor venue designed for contemporary music and amplified orchestral experiences.
Owned by the Kansas City Symphony and locally anchored — ensuring the venue's success benefits Kansas City.
Managed by MEMI, the operator behind Cincinnati's Andrew J. Brady Center, one of the most successful new venues in the country.
Rock, hip-hop, country, R&B, film scores, comedy — programming designed to draw the widest possible audience to the Plaza.
A venue of this scale doesn't just host concerts — it transforms the area around it. Visitors arriving for events across every genre, flowing into the restaurants, shops, and hotels that make the Plaza a destination. This is the kind of permanent cultural infrastructure that drives sustained economic activity, year after year.
Over 300,000 concertgoers a year, spending at the Plaza before and after every show.
A purpose-built space for immersive, technology-driven live music experiences.
A permanent cultural landmark that strengthens the Plaza for generations.
Inspired by celebrated venues such as Denver's Mission Ballroom, Cincinnati's Andrew J. Brady Center, and Washington, D.C.'s The Anthem, this venue is designed with the same ambition to create powerful, shared moments between artists and audiences.
An explosion of artists and rising demand for live experiences has fueled a music boom, with 74% of the younger generation attending a live show in the past year. With this growing market, audiences and artists seek more intimate venues that transform with performances. That's what's coming to the Country Club Plaza.
At 49th and Main — steps from the streetcar expansion and surrounded by scores of locally-owned restaurants and shops. Concertgoers will walk directly across Brush Creek into the Plaza before and after every show — a gateway to the destination you're building, drawing people to the Plaza year-round.
Purpose-built for today's music landscape — and for the long-term vitality of the Plaza.
A year-round engine for the restaurants, bars, hotels, and retail that surround it — with every event driving foot traffic to the Plaza.
With every seat within 145 feet of the stage and flexible capacity up to 4,600, the venue delivers powerful connection and presence — no matter the performance.
Owned by the Kansas City Symphony and operated by MEMI, a nationally respected operator behind some of the country's most successful music venues, ensuring benefits stay rooted in KC.
With its 72,000 sq ft of space, the venue adapts from seated orchestral films to high-energy general admission shows across genres like hip-hop, rock, country, and R&B.
Designed for clarity and impact with state-of-the-art sound reinforcement that elevates every amplified performance and lets artists deliver their vision exactly as they intend.
Programming calibrated to fill the venue 125+ nights a year — from premium experiences to high-energy sold-out shows that pack the surrounding Plaza.
This venue is cultural infrastructure, advanced by local civic and cultural leaders to serve Kansas City's long-term cultural and economic vitality. It fills a gap that has cost Kansas City touring acts, visitor nights, and economic activity for years.
With programming that spans genres and tiered experiences that attract the widest possible audience, this venue will give new audiences a reason to discover the Plaza.
The venue is modeled after similar venues that have driven economic, civic, and cultural success in their respective cities and transformed the districts around them.
As a year-round cultural anchor, it will welcome hundreds of thousands of guests annually, fueling local restaurants, bars, hotels, and neighborhoods, and strengthening the long-term cultural and economic vitality of the Plaza.
It will also generate jobs across tech, hospitality, and production.
We expect a similar impact in Kansas City — and would welcome the opportunity to model what this means specifically for the Plaza:
This venue is the kind of project that shapes the identity of a place for decades. A permanent cultural anchor at the gateway to the Plaza — drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors, fueling the surrounding neighborhood, and completing the vision of a revitalized, world-class destination.
The leaders who step forward now will be the architects of what comes next.
We would welcome the chance to sit down and explore how your vision for the Plaza and ours come together.