Downtown project filling up: A brewery, a lounge, two restaurants and a clothing store will be opening for business.
Backers of downtown Kansas City’s Power & Light District project announced five new tenants Tuesday.
One is the first business there that won’t focus on food, drink or entertainment — a men’s clothing store.
“I think maybe there were a few doubters. … The district was talked about for” said Blake Cordish, vice a long time: ‘Is it really going to happen?’ president with the Baltimore-based Cordish Co., developer and manager of the Power & Light District.
“Today you can look out the windows and see steel coming out of the ground. You can see walls coming. You can see an arena being completed, H&R Block (headquarters) occupied. It’s pretty exciting.”
New tenants announced Tuesday and set to open this fall:
•Gordon Biersch Brewery and Restaurant, an upscale brewery with California roots, will anchor an 8,500-square-foot space on the ground floor of the Kansas City Live block at 14th and Walnut streets. It will include an outdoor beer garden.
Gordon Biersch, which is now based in Chattanooga, Tenn., has 30 franchises in 14 states, including one in Denver. It will feature a silo to hold grain for its beer.
•Mosaic, a 7,100-square-foot ultralounge with a “sexy South Beach-style” decor, will be on the second floor of the block facing Grand Boulevard between 13th and 14th streets. Mosaic locations in Baltimore and Houston are recognized for their DJ talent.
•Famous Dave’s Legendary Pit Bar-B-Que, a 6,300-square-foot restaurant, will be in the district’s “Restaurant Row” on the south side of 14th between Walnut and Grand.
•Jos. A. Bank, a 4,300-square-foot men’s tailored and casual clothing, footwear and accessories store, will be on the west side of Main between 13th and 14th. The company has more than 350 stores nationwide.
•Chipotle Mexican Grill, a 2,400-square-foot restaurant serving burritos, tacos, burrito bols and salads, will open at the northwest corner of 14th and Walnut.
Financial terms of the new deals were not disclosed.
With Tuesday’s announcement, Cordish said the project now had “commitments” for 85 percent of the planned 450,000 square feet of retail/restaurant/entertainment component of the mixed-use project.
Backers of the Power & Light District, which benefits from a variety of local and state economic development incentives, hope to draw as customers downtown workers and residents, conventioneers and others from across the region.
The entertainment district is being built across Grand from the new Sprint Center arena and a few blocks from the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
Cordish said the district would be a draw like Bourbon Street in New Orleans or Beale Street in Memphis, Tenn. He said people would simply expect to find high-quality operations once they arrived.
“We understand the importance of picking the right operators, the optimal mix of tenants,” Cordish said. “Brands are somewhat fickle. What may be popular today may not be so popular 10 years from now. So we’re focused on picking the highest-quality operators who will make it work and the nimbleness to change.”
Bill Edmiston, a senior vice president at Gordon Biersch, said many downtowns wanted projects like this but lacked consolidated efforts — either one developer to do a big project, or individual landlords willing to work together.
Gordon Biersch operations also need to draw customers at four distinct times of the day — lunch, dinner, happy hour and late night, he said.
“We looked at Kansas City for several years, but there wasn’t any reason to be downtown after 5 p.m., and we need a reason to be here after 9 or 10 at night,” Edmiston said. “But with the mix of tenants, the residential, the office and the energy of a project like this, (it) gives us the ability to draw those four parts.”
“A downtown, done correctly, also will draw from all over the area.”
Willy Theisen, area franchisee for Famous Dave’s, opened a location in Kansas City, Kan., more than three years ago. It is now the top restaurant in the 145-location chain, serving more than 10,000 customers a week. So Theisen said he felt ready to go head to head with Kansas City’s legendary homegrown barbecue restaurants.
“You might say the gloves are coming off,” Theisen said. “It’s a challenge, not a threat, but I think we all will do very well. The Power & Light is a big-rent, high-volume project that takes major operators — an elite group of retailers. So we’re very proud to be picked.”
Previously announced tenants for
the Power & Light District
- AMC Mainstreet Theatre
- AMC Midland Theatre
- The Bristol Seafood Grill
- ChinaBar, an Asian fusion restaurant
- Cosentino's Downtown Gourmet Market
- Lucky Strike Lanes
-Vinino by Chef Paternotte