The Plaza's Redevelopment Has a Construction Calendar. Buyers Nearby Should Read It Block by Block.

The headline figure is $1.49 billion. That number makes the Country Club Plaza redevelopment sound like one event that will reshape the district all at once. The documents behind it describe a schedule. New construction could start on one block in 2027 and on another not until 2033. Every residential unit in the published plan is an apartment. If you're weighing a condo along Ward Parkway or a house a few streets away, the useful question is which block sits closest to you and when its turn comes up.

That $1.49 billion is a ceiling on conduit bonds, which Gillon Property Group repays, not taxpayers. Port KC CEO Jon Stephens told the board it reflects "the capacity and the general expectation of how much private investment the Gillon Group will be making in the Plaza in the coming years," according to The Beacon. KSHB reported that the work is expected to play out over about 15 years.

The calendar, one block at a time

The clearest view of the sequence comes from Economic Development Corporation documents reported by the Kansas City Star in August. The dates are earliest possible starts, and the Star called the list a partial one.

Add up the apartment rows and you get 824, the same residential total Port KC's deal describes. Gillon vice president Dustin Bullard told the Star the Nordstrom site is "really the lowest hanging fruit." That's the vacant lot along Jefferson Street, cleared in 2019 for a store that never got built.

So the near-term construction sits on the western edge. The Mill Creek Parkway corner, home to the Giralda tower and some of the Plaza's most photographed architecture, is at the far end of the list.

What the May vote locked in

On May 21, 2026, the City Council passed the Plaza's master planned development, Ordinance 260443. It's a preliminary plan, so it doesn't approve any specific building. It does set the outer limits for every building that follows.

The map in The Beacon's May coverage allows taller buildings on blocks D, J, M and O. The two blocks farthest east, along Mill Creek Parkway, are capped at 178 and 120 feet. Two blocks along Ward Parkway are capped at 150 and 178 feet. For scale, the Giralda tower is 138 feet tall. The plan also requires at least half of every new facade to be brick, stone, tile, terra cotta or stucco, and it sets a minimum of 2,500 parking spaces across the development.

Put the height map next to the calendar and a pattern appears. The taller caps run along Ward Parkway, facing the condo towers and homes to the south, and along Mill Creek Parkway to the east. Neighbors raised that point before the vote:

"By walling off the Plaza, it becomes exclusionary to other residents and even visitors that this district attracts. A maximum height of 75 feet on the four sites would help preserve the investment of the adjacent communities, residences and other property owners."

Chris Koch, president of the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association, said that at committee, The Beacon reported. Historic KC raised concerns about the 1923 Mill Creek Building. It also objected that under the plan, final development plans could be approved by the City Plan Commission without a direct vote from the council. In practice, the caps are settled. What actually rises on each edge, and how tall, gets decided later, one block at a time, before a smaller body.

What is still under negotiation

The rules are mostly settled. The money and the timing aren't. As of mid-October 2026:

• Tax incentive. Port KC's August 24 vote was a bond inducement, the first of three board steps. Bond authorization and issuance are still ahead, and The Beacon notes the City Council doesn't vote on the incentive.
• Phase approvals. KSHB reported that commissioners must approve bond authorizations for each construction phase at future meetings, and that the Master Memorandum of Understanding was still being negotiated.
• Sidewalks. Ordinance 260445 would transfer the Plaza's sidewalks to Gillon. It has not passed. Its latest recorded action was "Held on Docket" on October 8, 2026.
• Start date. KSHB's August 24 report said the first phase was expected to begin this fall, starting with underground infrastructure. The documents the Star reported two days later put a possible phase-one start in 2027.

Taken together, buildings on the edges come later in the sequence, and each phase still has to clear a bond vote before construction begins.

Every planned home is an apartment

This part matters most to condo owners. Gillon's 824 planned units are all apartments, and so are the other projects in the pipeline nearby. In 2024, Port KC announced support for The Madison, a 279-unit tower, and a 321-unit conversion and new build at Plaza Corporate Center, 600 rentals between them. At the time, construction on both was expected to begin in 2025. The Kansas City Star reported that EPC Real Estate Group proposed a 278-unit, five-story building on the block bounded by West 45th Terrace, West 46th Street, Broadway and Wornall. Reported rents ran $1,800 to $2,400 for one-bedrooms and $2,500 to $4,500 for two-bedrooms, with completion anticipated January 31.

None of these projects adds a unit for sale. If you're buying a Plaza-area condo to live in, that means the new construction near you won't be competing with your unit on the resale market. If you're buying a condo to rent out, it's the opposite. Your tenants will be choosing between your unit and a pipeline of new, amenitized apartments at the rents listed above.

The tax deal starts from a lowered baseline

The incentive works through payments in lieu of taxes. For 30 years, Gillon pays 100% of the existing real property taxes, rising 2% a year, plus additional fees on new construction, per Port KC's agenda as reported by KSHB. Those payments begin in 2027.

Mayor Quinton Lucas's office says the Plaza has lost nearly half its appraised value since 2020, so the existing-tax portion of those payments starts from a value that has already dropped. The mayor says schools and other taxing jurisdictions won't see their revenue fall as the Plaza rebuilds. The Beacon put the revised property tax break at about $149 million, down from a first request of $309 million. Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Jennifer Collier said the deal "does not fully meet the district's reasonable requests." In a statement reported by KSHB, she also warned against asking "our residential taxpayers to take on more of a burden." For 30 years, the base of the Plaza's tax contribution is tied to today's lowered value and rises 2% a year. New buildings add separate PILOT fees on top of that base.

The market around the calendar

You're buying into this schedule during a slower stretch. KCRAR's Local Market Update for Jackson County in September 2026, current as of October 7, showed a median sales price of $285,000, up 3.6% from a year earlier. Homes took 40 days to sell, up 17.6%. Supply stood at 2.9 months, and sellers received 96.5% of their original list price. Across the metro that same month, the median was $332,000, with 42 days on market. KCRAR's public reports break down to the county level, not to Plaza ZIP codes or condos specifically. Read these figures as the county trend. Your building's recent sales will tell you more.

Longer selling times give buyers more room to negotiate. They also give you time to line up an address against the block table above. A unit facing the Ward Parkway frontage between Pennsylvania and Broadway sits next to a 2028 start. A home east of Mill Creek Parkway is next to a corner the documents push to 2033.

For condo buyers, one lending check sits on top of all this. Fannie Mae says the leading reasons condo projects were ineligible as of August 2025 were inadequate master property insurance and critical repairs. It doesn't publish project eligibility decisions, but buyers can ask their lender or the HOA to check a building's status. This post is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm the details of your own purchase with your lender, attorney or tax professional.

If you're weighing a condo or home near the Plaza and want to know how a specific address lines up with the redevelopment schedule, Paul Michael Homes can go through the block plan, recent sales in that building, and the timing questions with you. Schedule a free consultation, or if you already own nearby, get a free home valuation that accounts for what's planned next door.