For more than two decades, Zona Rosa has been one of the Northland’s most prominent shopping destinations—a walkable, open-air district of shops, restaurants and gathering spaces near I-29 and Barry Road. Now, the sprawling development is changing hands, and its new owner says a major revitalization is ahead.
Florida-based CTO Realty Growth purchased the 768,000-square-foot mixed-use center for $63.3 million, or about $82 per square foot, according to a Sept. 14 announcement from the publicly traded real estate investment trust. The purchase marks CTO’s first acquisition in the Kansas City market.
The company sees plenty of room for growth. Zona Rosa is currently 67% leased, according to CTO. Company president and CEO John Albright told KMBC that the goal is to bring occupancy to 97% or 98% by signing new leases as quickly as possible.
Repositioning underperforming shopping centers is familiar territory for CTO, which specializes in open-air retail and mixed-use properties where it sees opportunities to fill vacancies, redevelop underused space and add tenants. In 2022, for example, the company purchased The Collection at Forsyth, a 560,000-square-foot lifestyle center outside Atlanta that was about 80% leased at the time. CTO now lists national tenants including AMC, Academy Sports and Sephora at the property.
“There’s no plan to boot anybody out,” Albright says. CTO has hired commercial real estate firm JLL to work with the existing leasing team to recruit new businesses.
There’s also room to physically reshape the property. According to CTO, the 64-acre acquisition includes about 10 acres of land ready for new development and roughly 100,000 square feet of underutilized space. The company describes its plans for Zona Rosa as a “long-term, multi-phase revitalization opportunity.”
Zona Rosa opened in 2004 with an ambitious concept: create something with a small downtown feel, complete with streets, sidewalks and public gathering spaces. But the development struggled when what is known as The Great Recession hit (roughly 2007 to 2009) and has had a hard time since. In 2018, a new ownership group took control of the property and brought in Fort Worth-based Trademark Property Co. to manage and rethink it. A multimillion-dollar redevelopment followed, including demolition of some retail space and the creation of new public areas where outdoor activities, such as winter ice skating, summer concerts and children’s soccer games, are sometimes held.
The latest sale comes as Zona Rosa has added several recognizable retailers, such as Urban Planet and Toys“R”Us.
CTO is betting that the Northland can support considerably more. In its acquisition announcement, the company said about 100,000 people live within five miles of Zona Rosa, with an average household income of approximately $124,000. The center, located about six miles from Kansas City International Airport, attracts an estimated 5.5 million visits annually, according to CTO.
The real estate company also stated that extensive renovation work is planned, though a detailed plan has not been made public.
For a development that has spent years trying to recapture its early momentum, the $63.3 million deal brings another reinvention—and a new owner betting there’s plenty of life left in Zona Rosa.
