The Cordish Co. officially started construction Wednesday morning on downtown Kansas City's $800 million Power & Light District, scheduled to open in the fall of 2007.

The district encompasses an eight-block downtown area that will include about 450,000 square feet of retail shops, 1,200 residential units, 1.2 million square feet of offices and renovations of the Midland Theatre and the Empire Theater.
Mayor Kay Barnes and City Manager Wayne Cauthen also officially handed over development responsibility for the project on Wednesday to The Cordish Co., the Baltimore-based developer of the entertainment district.

Blake Cordish, head of the Power & Light District project for The Cordish Co., unveiled architectural rendering of the district at the ceremony and said that he hoped the more than $2 billion in construction taking place in downtown Kansas City would be finished within three years.

On July 20, the city completed its sale of $115 million in bonds for construction of the district. Combined with the $180 million in bonds sold in 2005, the sale represented the completion of the city's commitment to finance $295 million of the project's development costs.

Part of that money will go toward building parking garages and street improvements in a transportation development district Downtown.

The majority of the money will be transferred to Cordish, the Baltimore-based developer of the entertainment district.

© Kansas City Area Development Council