UMusic Hotel Kansas City

Universal Music Group's hotel brand and Kansas City developer BR Companies want to turn the century-old Scarritt Building into a 169-room, studio-equipped hotel at the heart of an $465-484M downtown redevelopment. Zoning and tax-incentive approvals have advanced through 2025-2026, but construction has not yet visibly begun.

The place

The hotel occupies the Scarritt Building and Arcade at 818 Grand Boulevard in downtown Kansas City, at the corner of 8th, 9th, Grand and Walnut. Completed in 1907 in the Chicago School style, the 12-story building was the city's second skyscraper and is a designated historic structure. An affiliate of BR Real Estate Development and UMusic Hotel Development acquired the building on September 12, 2025, after a period of vacancy that left it with roof water damage and facade deterioration.

The concept

The project is an adaptive reuse of the Scarritt Building into the first UMusic Hotel in the Midwest, part of Universal Music Group's music-branded hospitality concept: in-house recording studios, a podcast studio and radio station, and a music school run in partnership with Kansas City Public Schools and the Playing For Change Foundation. The hotel is one component of the larger '800 Grand' megaproject, which also adds a 24-25 story residential tower (roughly 300-319 apartments), 28,000-44,000 sq ft of retail/F&B space, and a 1,400-1,600-seat Populous-designed music venue, for a total estimated cost of $465-484M. Financing relies on public support: Port KC approved a resolution for up to $480M in taxable revenue bonds in July 2025, and Kansas City's City Council unanimously approved a roughly $109M TIF package on December 11, 2025. A special use permit for the 169-room hotel cleared the City Plan Commission and Board of Zoning Adjustment in June 2026. As of August 2026, the site is fenced with traffic controls in place around the block, but no groundbreaking or start of building construction has been confirmed. Two-phase construction is planned to run from 2026 into 2029 or 2030, with the hotel phase targeted to open in 2028: treat this timeline as speculative given the project's size, its dependence on stacked public incentives, and the fact that UMusic Hotels' own website currently lists only its Madrid property as operating, with no Kansas City listing yet.

Dining & wellness

No restaurant, bar, or spa concept has been named publicly. The master plan allocates roughly 28,000-44,000 sq ft of retail and food-and-beverage space across the building and adjoining tower, alongside the separate music venue, but operators and brands for these spaces are unannounced.