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The family investment partnership that owns the Highland Park Village luxury retail center in Dallas has completed its purchase of the iconic Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. On tap is a $100 million infrastructure overhaul of the century-old Midwest shopping and dining district.
An affiliate of HP Village Management LLC closed the deal June 28 after several months evaluating the property’s aging infrastructure. The deal was first reported as a possibility last October.
Terms of the transaction, including the price, were not disclosed.
The new owners plan to spend more than $100 million on wide-ranging improvements at Country Club Plaza, said Ray Washburne, president of HP Village Management. The roughly 1-million-square-foot center in Missouri's biggest city is much like the venerable Highland Park Village in Dallas — only bigger, Washburne said.
"It’s about four times as big," he said. "It’s 15 city blocks. It’s a massive property."
Country Club Plaza was the first shopping center built in the country, Washburne said.
"It looks just like the Highland Park Village, really. They were built at basically the same time," he said. "Our plan is to buy it and do just what we did in the Highland Park Village, transform it into what it used to be, which was a fabulous, internationally recognized piece of property. It's spectacular. It's just that for last few years, it had been over-indebted and kind of languished for years and years."
The previous ownership group, joint venture between The Macerich Co. and Taubman Centers, defaulted in May 2023 on $295.2 million in outstanding acquisition debt with lender Nuveen stemming from a $660 million acquisition in March 2016, according to Kansas City Business Journal, a sibling publication of Dallas Business Journal. Nuveen had solicited interest in a sale of the debt among local and national groups. Dallas-based real estate investment banking firm Eastdil Secured LLC advised Nuveen on the sale of its loan in connection with the transaction.
The improvements will include "a massive cleanup," repaving streets, storefront upgrades, lighting, landscaping and re-tenanting the center, Washburne said an a June 28, some of the new owners' first comments about their post-acquisition plans. Preserving the architecture, enhancing existing structures and creating more pedestrian-friendly gathering places will be priorities, he said.
Major tenants now include an Anthropology, Apple Store, Capital Grill, Cheesecake Factory, Coach, J. Crew, Sephora and Tiffany & Co., he said. Washburne declined to name new tenants to be targeted but said they will be similar to the lineup in Highland Park Village and the Knox Street neighborhood. HP Village Management advises on leasing, marketing and management of existing Knox Street properties and is an investor in a major expansion underway.
"We’re going to focus [in Country Club Plaza] on contemporary brands, kind of the Knox Street lineup of tenants, as well as a lot of luxury," Washburne said. "I can’t announce who they are today, but we’re going to upgrade the entire luxury collection like we have in Highland Park Village and bring a lot more contemporary type tenants in like the Rag & Bones of the world and things like that."
Asked about the timetable for the Kansas City project, Washburne said "it’s immediate."
"We’ll be up there Monday with our maintenance crews starting to scrub it down and clean her up," he said.
The new investors will work with local police to improve security at the property, he said.
"Security’s been an issue, like in a lot of cities, and it hasn’t really been addressed," Washburne said. "We’re going to address it like we have" in Highland Park Village.
In 2009, HP Village Partners acquired the 250,000-square-foot Mediterranean Spanish-style Highland Park Village for $171 million, the highest total price for a retail property that year. The group since has invested millions of dollars in infrastructure improvements, including from a $225 million refinance through Nuveen in 2017, and positioned the center as a luxury retail destination.
Most recently, Highland Park Village underwent a roughly $6 million infrastructure improvement project launched in early 2020 that included a newly paved parking lot, new underground utilities and landscaping and lighting upgrades.
Knox Street, spanning about a half mile from Central Expressway to Abbott Avenue, is lined with luxury retailers and high-end restaurants. Michael Dell-affiliated investment firm BDT & MSD Partners and Dallas-based firms Trammell Crow Co., The Retail Connection and Highland Park Village Associates own multiple properties in the district and are developing a three-tower project with a hotel, restaurants, retail space and residences.
HP Village Management is a privately held company led by descendants of Margaret Hunt Hill.
While Washburne and his companies are perhaps best known in Dallas for Highland Park Village and their Knox Street holdings, they own, manage, operate and invest in numerous high-profile projects.
In Dallas’ central business district, Washburne's Charter Holdings owns the 8-acre former Dallas Morning News property on Young Street and the nearby landmark Founders Square building, a 1914 office property renovated in 2015. Washburne added the Founders Square property on Jackson Street to Charter Holdings' portfolio in 2023.
Washburne purchased the DMN site in 2019 and is working with developer Matthews Southwest on plans to redevelop the site. The newspaper moved to new offices in the Old Dallas Central Library on Commerce Street in 2017.
The newspaper site redevelopment has been paused because of the $3 billion redevelopment of the adjacent Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, which held a groundbreaking June 26. The convention center expansion, which is also being spearheaded by Matthews Southwest, could incorporate 130,000 square feet of the former DMN headquarters. Washburne in February told DBJ that he wants to redevelop the former DMN site in a way that’s "accretive to the convention center."
“I want to do hotels and entertainment that benefit that convention center,” he said.
In Kansas City, buying Country Club Plaza is what Washburne considers "a legacy investment," and he said several prominent families joined in the deal.
The new owners have engaged multiple Kansas City-based architects to help with the master plan and design.
Leading leasing efforts is Stephen Summers, whose family co-owns HP Village Management. Summers said future visitors should expect a retail mix that includes the addition of unique local and national chef-driven food and beverage destinations and elevated fashion retail.
"Country Club Plaza is a historic and world-class asset deserving of the best brands in the world, and we look forward to bringing them to Kansas City," Summers said in a statement.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas was quoted in the announcement and said the redeveloped plaza will deliver world-class shopping, more housing and office options and a safer environment.
"Today’s news ensures the Country Club Plaza will be a vibrant part of our community for generations," Lucas said in a statement. "I thank Ray Washburne and his team for confirming what many around the world are seeing. It is a great time to invest and do business in Kansas City."
Washburne, Summers and Lucas are slated to share plans for the plaza at a media event July 1 in Kansas City.
Country Club Plaza originally opened in 1923 as the first planned suburban shopping center to accommodate shoppers arriving by car, according to the announcement. It was designed by architect Edward Delk in Baroque Revival and Moorish Revival styles akin to the architecture of Seville, Spain, one of Kansas City’s sister cities.
Washburne said the new owners have met with and heard from Kansas Citians who are passionate about restoring the shopping center.
"In our discussions with the Plaza’s neighbors, we received important feedback," Washburne said in a statement. "We have assured them that our plan is to preserve and protect the unique architectural charm and history of the Country Club Plaza like we have at Highland Park Village in Dallas."
This story was updated to reflect Eastdil Secured LLC's role in the transaction.
