Venue: Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
Address: 1601 Broadway Blvd
Town: Kansas City, US

The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, USA, at 16th and Broadway, near the city's Power & Light District, the T-Mobile Center and the Crossroads Arts District. Opened in 2011, it houses two venues: the 1,800-seat Muriel Kauffman Theatre, home of the Kansas City Ballet and Lyric Opera of Kansas City; and the 1,600-seat Helzberg Hall, home of the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra. Both venues host a variety of artists and performance groups in addition to these three resident entities. Construction of the Kauffman Center played a large part in the redevelopment of downtown Kansas City. The project was launched under the 501(c)(3) non-profit laws but, unlike some other civic-construction initiatives, did not use taxpayer funds. The Center operates to this day as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The City of Kansas City contributed to and operates the large adjacent parking garage. Before 2011 the three resident entities performed at the Lyric Theatre, eight blocks to the north. Muriel Kauffman first discussed her idea for a performing arts center in Kansas City with her family and the community in 1994. After her death the following year, her daughter and chairman of the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation, Julia Irene Kauffman, began to move the project forward. A feasibility study was conducted in 1997; it resulted in a report that gave Julia Irene Kauffman and the rest of the board a practical foundation on which they could begin to build Muriel Kauffman's vision. In 1999, the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation purchased an 18.5-acre plot of land just south of the central business district. The Foundation announced that this site would be the home of the proposed performing arts center. By 2000, the then-named Metropolitan Kansas City Performing Arts Center board had narrowed down the pool of potential architects to four. They ultimately chose Moshe Safdie, an award-winning modernist known for such buildings as Habitat 67 in