DST Plans to Redevelop the Lyric Theatre into a Federal Training Facility

By Gabriel Circiog, Associate Editor

The Lyric Theatre could be redeveloped into a federal training facility after the Kansas City Council passed a request for $27 million tax increment financing. However, the Kansas Business Journal reports that the Federal Aviation Administration has not yet decided where to move its Center for Management and Executive Leadership, currently located in Palm Coast, Fla. The Federal Aviation Administration is also looking into six other cities which are hoping to land the project that would create an estimated 100 jobs.

The Lyric Theatre was bought in 2007 for $2.2 million from the Lyric Opera of Kansas City by DST Realty Inc., a division of Kansas City-based DST Systems Inc. The fate of the building was sealed when the new 285,000-square-foot Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts became the prime venue in town.

DST is hoping to capitalize on the opportunity as the project could also generate financial benefits for another property the company partially owns: the Marriott Hotel. Located in downtown Kansas City, at 200 West 12th Street, the 22-story hotel is near the project site and could benefit from the hundreds of travelling FAA officials who would visit the facility.

Kansas City is competing with Los Angeles, Denver, Cleveland, Orlando, Atlanta and Milwaukee for the facility.

DST Realty, through an affiliate, is also currently developing a 1.1 million-square-foot facility for the Internal Revenue Service in downtown Kansas City. The project will revitalize the old Main Post Office on Pershing Road and the Railway Express Building at Union Station.

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