The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City will occupy a large, centrally located and exceptionally prominent hillside site just south of Liberty Memorial, bounded by Main Street to the east and Penn Valley Park to the west. Here, where St. Mary’s Hospital once stood, the Bank will be housed in a limestone-clad tower comprised of 12 office floors above a 2-story base containing its operations facilities.

The office tower, placed near Main Street at the northern end of the site, is shaped in such a way as to achieve a well-scaled and classically-proportioned civic presence, while at the same time appropriately deferring to the splendid Memorial of which it is privileged to be the neighbor. The tower’s distinctive form is composed of a five-bay screen rising above a columned porch and standing in front of a gently-curved wall that frames the screen and extends westward beneath it to form the north face of the 2-story base. A glazed entry pavilion placed in front of this extension welcomes visitors arriving on foot through the park or by car from Memorial Drive.

The Bank’s 2-story operations building, extending westward and southward from the office tower, is tucked partially into the rising hillside so as to present a low-lying profile both to Main Street and to Penn Valley Park. The building is set back from Main Street, providing space for a layered landscape composed of interspersed flowering under-story and canopy trees, arranged in terraced groups along its entire length. By contrast, the landscape treatment on the north and west sides is informal, so as to be seen as a natural extension of the adjacent parkland. At the southernmost end of the site, the parking garage is nestled into the hill in such a way as to minimize its bulk as seen from Main Street. Trucks will enter the Bank’s service yard from Wyandotte Street, so as to leave Main Street unencumbered by the turning movements of service vehicles.

As the foregoing description suggests, the generous size and hillside topography of the 15.7-acre site have permitted a building configuration that comfortably and efficiently accommodates the Bank’s functional requirements. Of equal importance, this splendid site has invited, indeed commanded, a work of architecture embodying the stability, dignity and civic responsibility that characterize the Bank’s mission as the regional presence of the Federal Reserve System.