On Sept. 26, Henderson employees attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the renovation of Hy-Vee Arena, formerly known as Kemper Arena in Kansas City’s historic West Bottoms. Associate Vice President James Dietz participated in the ceremonial dirt shoveling portion of the event. Mosaic Arena is being transformed into a multi-level facility for youth and adult amateur sports.

“The arena will handle a wide range of clients and will operate from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily,” James said. “It has the ability to handle 12 basketball floors at the same time and run graduations on each floor back-to-back. From an engineering standpoint, it was updating a 1970s facility to meet the current demands of a fully-functional arena.”

The historic facility was purchased by developer Steve Foutch and was officially transferred to Foutch Brothers, LLC in February. Foutch enlisted our Henderson design team along with McCownGordon Construction to execute the $30 million redevelopment of an arena that has hosted NCAA Final Four basketball games, professional basketball, football, hockey, and soccer, the 1976 Republican National Convention, numerous concerts, and the American Royal livestock show.

Henderson provided the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire & life safety, technology, and audio-visual design for the upgrade. Director of KCMO Operations | Vice President Julie Pierce led the project as the principal-in-charge.

During the ceremony, Foutch, KCMO City Manager Troy Schulte, and City Councilman Scott Taylor spoke to a crowd of nearly 100. Foutch gave a specific thank you to Henderson during his speaking portion and invited Dietz to join nine other city and project leaders in shoveling dirt and posing for photos for news media covering the event.

“We are invested in the success of Kansas City,” Dietz explained. “Kemper Arena is a cornerstone of the West Bottoms area and will spur growth for years to come. Henderson believes in creating great environments. This is just the start in the area.”

James wanted to pass along a specific thank you to our colleagues who have devoted many hours to this challenging project.

“The entire design team worked collaboratively with the owner to get them the value they wanted and needed to make this project work,” Dietz said. “It was a struggle at times, but was a team effort. Thank you to Joe Jursich, Marcus Perry, Austin Johnson, Bob Renton, Ian Wolfe, Julie LeClair, Nicole Schwarz, Laura Kate Assenmacher, Margaret Linder, and anyone else associated. Great work and thanks for your efforts.”