The former flagship location of Halls Kansas City, a Hallmark Cards luxury department store, at 211 Nichols Road on the Country Club Plaza. Open from 1965 to 2014, it was considered one of the most ornate retail spaces in Kansas City history. The building now operates as Plaza 211, a multi-tenant commercial property.
History
Hallmark Cards founder Joyce C. Hall opened the first Halls store in 1916 as a companion retail outlet to his greeting-card company, originally operating in the lobby of downtown Kansas City’s Gordon and Koppel Building before relocating to 11th Street on “Petticoat Lane.” The store specialized from the start in high-quality gift merchandise, extending the Hallmark brand into direct retail.
Halls came to the Country Club Plaza on October 4, 1965, opening a 55,000-square-foot store spanning a full city block in the shopping district. The Plaza location was by a wide margin the most lavishly appointed Halls store — and by many accounts the most ornate department store in Kansas City history — fitted with inlaid lapis lazuli floors, Baccarat crystal chandeliers, and the only Steuben Gallery in the Midwest.
A second location, Halls Crown Center, opened in 1973 as a three-level, 100,000-square-foot store designed by architect Paul László, anchoring the Hallmark-developed Crown Center complex downtown. For four decades Halls operated as a twin flagship, with the Plaza and Crown Center stores serving as complementary luxury anchors on opposite sides of the city.
In June 2013, Halls president Kelly Cole announced a consolidation of both stores into a single larger location at Crown Center. The existing Crown Center store closed in March 2014 to allow construction of the replacement. The Plaza store held its final sale and closed on August 3, 2014, ending 49 years of operation at 211 Nichols Road. A new 60,000-square-foot Halls Kansas City opened at Crown Center on September 21, 2014.
The building
The Halls Plaza building was constructed in 1965 within the Country Club Plaza district’s long-established architectural framework. The Plaza, planned beginning in 1922 by J.C. Nichols and designed in a Spanish Colonial Revival idiom heavily influenced by the architecture of Seville, Spain, required all buildings in the district to conform to its stucco-and-tile vocabulary. The Halls building carried that exterior character while giving way inside to a deliberately spectacular interior intended to signal luxury at the entry point.
The two retail levels were served by three additional floors of parking, including a rooftop deck. After the 2014 closure, the building was gutted and a new facade installed. The 29,000-square-foot first floor was subdivided into eight tenant spaces. The property was renamed Plaza 211.
Halls Kansas City
Halls Kansas City is a specialty department store and wholly owned division of Hallmark Cards, headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. Joyce C. Hall founded it in 1916 as a retail extension of his greeting-card business; his son Donald J. Hall Sr. later led Hallmark through the decades of the Plaza store’s operation. The store carries premium-branded apparel, cosmetics, jewelry, shoes, and gifts alongside Hallmark-branded products, positioning itself as a luxury alternative to national chain department stores.
Halls is currently open at Crown Center (2450 Grand Boulevard), where it has operated continuously since September 2014.
Current status
The former Halls Plaza building at 211 Nichols Road is now Plaza 211, a multi-tenant commercial property. The Halls Kansas City brand continues operating at Crown Center in downtown Kansas City.
See also
country-club-plaza, country-club-plaza-opening-1922, hallmark-cards, joyce-hall, crown-center, the-nichols-company, plaza-lights
See also
- Wiki
- country-club-plaza
- country-club-plaza-opening-1922
- hallmark-cards
- joyce-hall
- crown-center
- the-nichols-company
- plaza-lights