After being discussed in private for a while, plans have now gone public for a new venue owned by the Kansas City Symphony.

Planned at the southeast corner of 49th and Main in the South Plaza neighborhood, the Symphony is setting sail on an ambitious plan to build the largest indoor theater venue in the Kansas City region. Holding up-to 4600 seats, the new venue will be able to host everything from symphony events to concerts for both national touring acts and new live music artists.

The KC Symphony hopes that the venue can host over 100 events in any given year, drawing over 300,000 new visitors to the Plaza-area in the same timeframe, benefiting neighborhood businesses and offering something big close to Country Club Plaza. The world-renowned Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts’s “Helzberg Hall” in the Crossroads will remain the primary home of the Symphony.

The site is presently a grassy, and hilly, field that was previously home to an office building. VanTrust Real Estate tore the previous building down in 2022 with the intent of building an office building on the site. Most recently, VanTrust envisioned “One South Plaza“, a 6-story, 221,000sf Class A office building with some ground floor retail space. They never formally submitted plans to the City for review.

The South Plaza venue is a roughly quarter-mile walk to the UMKC Streetcar stop at 51st and Brookside.

The venue, which doesn’t have a name yet, is being designed by Populous and will be managed by Music and Entertainment Management Inc (MEMI – a subsidiary of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra). McCownGordon will be the contractor. The Symphony intends to begin construction towards the end of this year (2026) and open in 2028.

Unlike other performance venues around town, this one fills a specific niche. It’s larger than the Midland, Uptown, Music Hall and Folly Theaters offering room for larger performances (from concerts to Broadway shows), but isn’t large like Municipal Auditorium and T-Mobile Center. It’s enclosed, meaning it can truly be used year-round, unlike Kansas City Live!, Azura Ampitheater, the new Morton Amphitheater, and the Starlight. It’s also larger than the planned 1400-seat performance venue that’s to be part of the 800 Grand project in Downtown. For reference, Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall holds 1600 and the Muriel Kauffman Theatre holds 1800.

To wrap up, the Symphony applied for a “Nonesidential Development Plan“, Rezoning, and Area Plan Amendment for the venue today (March 30th) via Compass KC.