The opening of the Black Movie Hall of Fame inside Kansas City’s historic Boone Theater has been delayed after construction crews encountered additional work while renovating the century-old building and navigating simultaneous streetscape construction in the 18th and Vine Historic Jazz District.
Shawn Edwards, the Kansas City film critic leading the creative direction for the Hall of Fame, said the project expected complications because the Boone is more than 100 years old and has been vacant for decades.
“Going into the project, we were well aware of how the timeline would play out,” Edwards said. “It’s a 100-year-old-plus building and you kind of know going in when you’re renovating a building that old that hadn’t been occupied since the ’70s that they were going to discover some things.”
The original construction schedule discussed publicly at the groundbreaking shaped how the Hall of Fame planned its launch, he said. The project broke ground officially in October of 2024 and according to Edwards they projected for construction to be finished by October of 2025…