PROJECT

World Headquarters Expansion Phase 1

Our integrated design and construction team provided design-build services for a four-story, 310,000-square-foot, Class A commercial office facility for up to 1,400 people. This world headquarters expansion provides a strong visual capstone for Ward Parkway, one of Kansas City’s most historic and prestigious boulevards.

The architecture is clean and simple with bold glass, metal and stone panels that crisply express a distinctive corporate image and culture. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls around the first-floor perimeter symbolize the company’s commitment to transparency. Visitors and clients can see employee-owners hard at work.

The expansion features new employee amenities such as an early learning center for 144 children, a pharmacy, a health care center, and a 2,500 square-foot rooftop terrace configured for employee and client events.

Our team completed site master planning and landscape design, architecture, MEP, structural design, space planning and interior design along with permitting, procurement and construction services for the developer, VanTrust Real Estate.

Client

Burns & McDonnell, VanTrust Real Estate

Location

Kansas City, Missouri

Region

Midwest

Services

Commercial Buildings

Workplace

Office Buildings

Architecture

Construction

Industry

Commercial, Retail & Institutional

Exterior features with appeal.

The finished 17.5-acre site — with 9 acres of landscaped campus — includes a dining terrace, an open lawn space and native plantings that highlight a restored stream. All outdoor spaces are connected by a pedestrian 800-foot walking trail, designed to optimize movement around the new and existing campus. The large outdoor courtyard influenced the buildings’ geometry and placement of key exterior amenities. More that 2,000 feet of public sidewalks improvements were completed, along with 1,802 employee and guest parking spaces, including an 885-car parking structure.

Photos by Alistair Tutton

Workspace primed for collaboration.

The interior workspace is simple and efficiently organized, creating a flexible, highly mobile, interactive environment. Low-paneled workstations allow for easy flow of information among team members, and modular work stations promote moving project teams together without reconfiguration. Flexibility is achieved through the floor plate design, placing structural columns at the building perimeter and along the inner core, providing column-free, open areas for simple reconfiguration of the space in the future. 

Moving offices and conference rooms to the inner core of the space allows employee-owners access to daylight and exterior views. The office layout encourages meetings and collaboration, with 60 conference rooms of varying size and configuration, four large training rooms, and a 250-seat auditorium.

Sunlight sensors on the roof control window blinds, limiting heat gain into the building. Hackberry wood, native to the Midwest, is used for unique feature walls, veneers and ceiling panels.