26 years ago, he helped Country Club Plaza prosper. He’s back to help new owners revive it
Ed de Avila will tell you. Twenty-six years ago he had a gut feeling he'd one day return.
It was 1998, and for three years, de Avila had been vice president at the J.C. Nichols Co. in charge of development on the Country Club Plaza He lived in Mission Hills; his kids went to St. Paul's Episcopal Day School.
It was a time when Kansas City's iconic Spanish-styled shopping district was still great and prospering and de Avila was the guy creating the mix of tenants, shepherding construction, making sure the Plaza was unique and special beyond any mall. When Planet Hollywood looked to come to the Plaza, de Avila was the one who turned them down as not unique enough, calling the chain "Planet Everywhere."
Then Highwoods Properties took over. And de Avila was gone. He took a buyout and moved back to California to start a national career in high-end retail real estate development.
"Let me put it this way," de Avila said last week. "It's a premonition that I had when I left that I would somehow come back to the Plaza. And it's happened. Very strong feeling on my last day walking off the Plaza, that as great as the Plaza is, it can be a lot better."
Ray Washburne agreed.
In June, his family business, HP Village Partners of Dallas — owners of the luxury Highland Park Village shopping district — bought what had become a languishing Plaza from its most recent owners, The Macerich Co. and The Taubman Centers, for $175.6 million.
In doing so, Washburne, who leads and speaks for the company — traveling multiple times to Kansas City to speak with neighborhood groups, city leaders and the press — has vowed that they are "generational owners," committed to KC and the Plaza for the long term.
Their goal: to return the 15-block shopping district to its vibrant past glory, and make it even greater.
But as frequently as Washburne is in Kansas City, he lives in Dallas.
He has hired de Avila as the Plaza's managing director or what Washburne called the family's "24/7 guy in Kansas City," the man on the ground helping to fulfill the family's vision.
"He's great," Washburne said. "He knows everyone in the community. He knows the property well. He's kind of our catchall for everything."
De Avila is thrilled.
"This group, the ownership group that has acquired the Plaza, is world-class," de Avila said. "I have no doubt that they're going to take the Plaza to a much greater height than it's ever been."
Living again in Kansas City, he walks to the Plaza from his residence daily. The large windows of his Plaza office look north across West 47th Street at Barnes & Noble.
It was de Avila who ushered in the construction of Valencia Place , the 10-story office and retail complex that was finished in 2000 and is home to McCormick & Schmick's Seafood & Steaks and Lockton, the insurance company.
Before joining J.C. Nichols in 1996, he worked for AMC Entertainment and its founder, Stan Durwood, in an effort to revitalize downtown, acquiring the property that would later become the Power & Light District.
He was on the Plaza in the years when the push was for local or unique, when retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue were there. Halls, Mark Shale and a host of local restaurants.
De Avila has known Washburne since 1998, when Washburne, as an owner of the Mi Cocina chain, brought the Mexican restaurant to the Plaza. It left a decade later.
In the ensuing years, de Avila occasionally visited the Plaza, the most recent being eight years ago. The "neglect," he said, hurt his heart. Even more painful has been the sight of the 3-acre, empty plot on the west side of the Plaza where a Nordstrom department store was to go, before the plan was abandoned.
"Stopped me in my tracks," de Avila said. "This hole at the end of the street just kind of jarred me. And it still does."
When de Avila heard last year that HP Village had contracted to buy the Plaza, he contacted Washburne.
"I hadn't talked to Ed in, you know, 15 years, 20 years," Washburne said. "He said, 'Congratulations on buying the Plaza. If you ever want to know anything about it, or I can help you in any way, you know, let me know.' So I called him back. He flew to Dallas."
Hired first as a consultant, de Avila is now part of the team.
"As someone who focuses on doing that as a living," he said. "I am honored. I am thrilled. It's beyond belief to be able to sit here and say that I have another chance at working on a top-five asset in the country.
"We are open for business on the Plaza."
