What’s next for the Federal Reserve building in downtown KC after city action

Kansas City could soon move to get a blighted downtown building into the hands of someone else who could pursue rehabilitation.

The City Council’s finance committee advanced a plan on Tuesday to begin the receivership process on the former Federal Reserve building, 925 Grand Blvd. The historic building was once the home of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City before it moved out in 2008.

Since then, proposals for redevelopment have not panned out and the building has sat vacant for several years as it faces complaints and concerns about break-ins and its condition.

The building’s owner, a company called Delta Quad, has also faced multiple foreclosure proceedings since 2025, and the city terminated a financing incentive agreement for the property last spring.

If approved by the full council, the action would start the process of potentially giving control of the property over to a “receiver,” perhaps another developer or an agency like the Homesteading Authority, who could move to fix up the building and get redevelopment going.

Receivership, lined out in city code, has several steps that include giving the owner 60 days to address the site’s conditions. If the owner doesn’t take adequate action, the city could go to court and ask a judge to appoint a receiver — someone who could take control of the property and pursue rehabilitation instead.

Exactly what will happen remains to be seen, as there are multiple possible paths to follow and multiple possible outcomes — including the owner selling to the city’s preferred receiver, according to a city presentation.

“Kansas City has used this tool before, and it works,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a statement, referring to the city starting the process for the former Paul Robeson Middle School site, 8201 Holmes Road., last fall. “The same approach at the former Robeson Middle School led to remediation within months after nearly two decades of neglect.”

The Robeson site developer ultimately began demolition on that site over the winter, so the city did not have to carry out receivership there.

And officials suggested that the former Robandee Shopping Center, off Bannister Road in South Kansas City, has also been eyed for receivership. The Robandee has faced issues including another fire this week.

For the Federal Reserve building, the council’s plan would direct city staff to gather neighborhood and public feedback about what should happen at the site.

The city manager would also need to identify a possible receiver that the city could bring to a judge. If the receiver is picked through a non-competitive process, the choice would have to come back to the City Council for a vote.

“It’s very important that people have an opportunity to compete for these projects because that is how a lot of wealth generation is built in this city, so we need to make sure that it’s fair,” said council member Melissa Patterson Hazley, Third District at-Large.

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