Will apartments and stores replace historic Plaza tennis courts? KC asks for proposals

Kansas City is asking developers how they might repurpose the 3 to 4 acres at 4747 Mill Creek Parkway where the Plaza Tennis Center is now located. Apartments, stores, some combination of the two?

The city is asking for proposals that would include those uses and possibly others, along with a plan for relocating the 14 tennis courts. Preliminary plans are due by Nov. 1.

If city officials find any of them appealing and the City Council chose to move forward with a particular plan, that would set off an extensive public engagement process that would culminate with an election.

The city charter requires voter approval every time it wants to sell or transfer ownership of even the smallest scrap of park land.

Kansas City’s announcement on Tuesday comes nearly two years after City Manager Brian Platt and Mayor Quinton Lucas began exploring options for those two blocks on the north end of the Country Club Plaza that have been under public ownership for a century.

Tennis courts were installed on the site of a former baseball field and open park land in the 1920s around the time the Plaza opened for business..

The four original clay courts are long gone, and the tennis center was twice expanded. The city had allowed the hard-surfaced courts to fall into such disrepair that the University of Missouri-Kansas City gave up on hosting the Summit League’s tennis championship tournament for men and women that was to have been held at the tennis center in 2023.

When The Star reported last year on the city’s desire to repurpose the tennis center land for residential and retail uses, Kendall Hale, coach of the UMKC women’s tennis team, said he was concerned what the loss of those courts would mean to his program and those of at least three other schools that use the center regularly – Rockhurst University, among them.

But he also said the community would suffer the loss of a civic landmark.

“The historical significance of that place is unbelievable,” Hale said. “What was it, since 1928 that it’s been in existence? And it’s been pivotal in hosting national championships and brought tons of revenue into the city multiple years. I just think they’re (the courts) a goldmine, if people would just understand that, but it’s hard to get business people to think that way.”

Kansas City Manager Brian Platt first convened a meeting to discuss the potential for redeveloping the land in September of 2022. Platt believes the land has higher and better uses than for tennis courts.

One thought is to relocate the tennis courts to the roofs of the buildings that might be constructed on the site. Or they could be moved to city-owned property along Brush Creek.