For three years, the western edge of the Country Club Plaza has sat barren and unused, becoming what Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas once called a three-acre “hole” or “pit.”
On Thursday, in a unanimous vote, the Kansas City City Council voted to do away with the 130-foot height restriction on the parcel where a new Nordstrom department store had once been planned, before the company backed out in 2022.
The ordinance now allows a building as high at 275 feet, or about 20 stories — twice the height of any surrounding building — to be erected on the lot, thus providing the Plaza’s new ownership group the leeway they insist they need to attract a builder or tenant willing to develop the spot and move the long-languishing shopping district forward…