UMKC Breaks Ground on $41 Million Conservatory Expansion

Kansas City, Missouri, Sept. 24, 2026 /CourierPR/ -- University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC) has broken ground on a $41 million expansion of its Conservatory, adding 35,000 square feet to the Olson Performing Arts Center. The new addition, expected to take approximately 18 months to complete, will create new spaces for music, dance, and theatre, increasing the Conservatory’s capacity to serve students and the Kansas City community.

"Today has been decades in the making," said UMKC Chancellor C. Mauli Agrawal.

The new glass- and light-filled addition will extend from the east side of the Olson Performing Arts Center toward Volker Boulevard. It will include a large music ensemble rehearsal and performance space, two dance rehearsal halls, dance support spaces, a new accessible black-box theatre, and areas where students can gather and collaborate. The expansion will complement White Recital Hall, Spencer Theatre, and the McIlrath Lobby, creating a more connected performing arts district within the building.

The UMKC Conservatory offers more than 35 programs in music, dance, theatre, and integrated arts. Its faculty members have earned honors including the Pulitzer Prize, Grammy Awards, Guggenheim Fellowships, Fulbright Awards, and recognition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The Conservatory has a long history, with the Performing Arts Center opening in 1979. However, the Conservatory had outgrown the facility within a decade. Over the years, academic programs have been divided between buildings, with faculty and students adapting storage areas and other spaces to meet teaching, rehearsal, and performance needs.

The center was renamed the James C. Olson Performing Arts Center in 2008 in honor of the former UMKC chancellor and University of Missouri System president. Olson's daughter, Sarah, and granddaughter, Elizabeth, attended the groundbreaking and were recognized for their family's enduring commitment to the arts and higher education. Olson and his wife, Vera, championed the arts throughout their service to UMKC and the UM System. After their retirement, the Olson Fund was established to support arts programming across all four UM System universities.

This year also marks a century since a historic moment in the Conservatory's development. In 1926, the Conservatory merged with the Horner Institute for Fine Arts, founded in 1914 by Charles Horner. Horner's grandson, Charlie, joined the groundbreaking celebration as UMKC honored 100 years of shared history and looked toward the Conservatory's next chapter.

Longtime Conservatory supporters Warren and Jenny Erdman were among the advocates who sustained the vision through multiple campaigns and proposals.

Erdman, a former chair of the University of Missouri Board of Curators, UMKC Trustee Emeritus, and longtime Conservatory supporter, helped lead the effort to name the center for Olson. The project's premier benefactor is the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Family Foundation, led by Julia Irene Dennie-Kauffman. Hundreds of additional donors also contributed to the expansion.

For Conservatory Dean Courtney Crappell, the project represents far more than a new building.

The additional space will allow the Conservatory to increase enrollment in dance and theatre by as much as 40%. It also will support the new integrated performing arts minor, giving students studying subjects such as business, medicine, education, and engineering more opportunities to develop creativity, confidence, and communication skills through the arts. The expansion will increase the Conservatory's capacity for pre-college camps, after-school lessons, high school credit programs, competitions, master classes, and professional development for arts educators. Conservatory Bridges, which provides intensive instruction to young performers preparing to audition for selective university programs, could grow from serving approximately 80 students to as many as 600 annually.

Students and faculty also will continue bringing the arts into hospitals, schools, libraries, parks, and neighborhoods. Those efforts include the Healing and Harmony performance series in health care and hospice settings and music therapy research conducted across the region.