In 1999, the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation purchased an 18.5-acre plot of land just south of the central business district.

By 2000, the then-named Metropolitan Kansas City Performing Arts Center board had narrowed down the pool of potential architects to four.

[1] They ultimately chose Moshe Safdie, an award-winning modernist known for such buildings as Habitat 67 in Montreal, Canada; the Khalsa Heritage Centre in India; the Marina Bay Sands resort in Singapore; and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

[2] Soon after, he arrived in Kansas City to see the site for himself, and while at dinner with Julia Irene Kauffman he sketched an idea for the center on his napkin.

Safdie presented his plan in May 2002, and four years later, on October 6, 2006, ground was broken for what had now been officially named the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

The building, which took nearly five years to complete, contains 40,000 square feet of glass, 25,000 cubic yards of concrete, and 27 steel cables.

For those inside Brandmeyer Great Hall, the glass puts Kansas City on display; for those on the outside, the Kauffman Center becomes like a terrarium, revealing the thousands of attendees backlit against the white interior.

The balconies and boxes, which feature seats covered in various shades of red, also boast balustrades that glimmer with gold lighting and dim when the performance begins.

The undulating walls of the theatre are painted with a brightly colored mural, designed and carried out by students at the Kansas City Art Institute, under the guidance of Moshe Safdie.

Helzberg Hall also houses a 79-stop, 102-rank pipe organ built by the firm Casavant Frères in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada.

The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts also provides partnership opportunities for local, regional, and student organizations in the Kansas City area.

Through the Open Doors Transportation Fund, donations help make the cost of bringing children to performances at the Kauffman Center more affordable.

[7] On February 13, 2012, The Grammy Museum announced that it would debut its Music Revolution Program at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in June 2012.

Construction projects typically disrupt the natural ecosystem of green spaces, so Bruce and his team worked to re-establish the sustainability of the new front lawn, which consists of fescue and Reveille, a low-water-use grass.

It is an area for outdoor events, and the garage's green roof reduces the destructive heat inherent to more traditional paved lots.

Named after the Muse in Greek mythology who ruled over choral song and dance, the installation is a combination of original musical compositions played over speakers in the ceiling and a four-story "light organ".