On the evening of May 21, the patio at the former Macy's building filled with families collecting frosted pint glasses, kids getting their faces painted, and a line that didn't let up much before closing. Big Grove Brewery's grand opening capped a two-day stretch that started with a quiet Tuesday soft launch, one that reportedly did five figures in sales before the doors had even opened to the public. Fire pits, corn hole, an artificial turf patch for kids, garage bay doors rolled up to the outdoor seating. For a building that had sat empty since 2020, it was hard to miss.
If you were only watching Big Grove, though, you missed where the actual change to your week is coming from. It's in the same building, one floor down, and it hasn't opened yet.
Six Years Empty, One Groundbreaking That Never Happened
The corner of 71st Street and Mission Road lost its last department store when Macy's announced its closing in 2020. What followed was a stretch of stalled plans rather than steady progress. The Prairie Village Planning Commission approved one redevelopment proposal that included a 2023 groundbreaking that never materialized. Construction on the current plan didn't actually start until 2025, and even then it hit a setback early in the year when a transformer fire in a basement near the old Macy's complicated an already slow process.
By the time crews held a wall-breaking ceremony in 2025, the building had already sat empty for five years. First Washington Realty, the shopping center's Maryland-based landlord, told the Prairie Village City Council in December 2025 that the shell would be finished by April 2026, with tenant buildouts to follow and the first openings expected sometime between early summer and Labor Day. Big Grove beat that window by more than three months.
What The Brewery Actually Replaced
The taproom itself runs a little north of 12,000 square feet on the building's upper level, open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, pouring roughly 20 beers including its own Easy Eddy Hazy IPA alongside local pours from Boulevard and Martin City Brewing. The menu leans on a tuna poke bowl, a two-patty Taphouse Burger, a fried chicken sandwich, and bao buns in pork belly or Reuben styles. It's Big Grove's first Kansas location and only its second outside Iowa. A dollar from every case of the brewery's Neighborhood Beer line goes toward local micro-grants of $250 to $1,000, which the company's foundation is now extending into the Prairie Village area.
None of that is the part residents will actually feel in their weekly routine. A brewery is a place you choose to go on a Friday night. It doesn't replace a stop you were already making somewhere else.
The Move That Changes Your Week, Not Just Your Weekend
Hen House is relocating from its longtime spot elsewhere in the Shops into the lower level of that same redeveloped building, with an opening targeted for September. Once the move is complete, the grocer's old space is expected to be carved into five or six smaller storefronts. That's the piece of this redevelopment that touches a resident's calendar every week rather than every once in a while.
| Big Grove (upper level) | Hen House (lower level) | |
|---|---|---|
| Opened | May 21, 2026 | Targeted for September 2026 |
| Typical trip | Evening or weekend, optional | Weekly, routine |
| Hours | 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily | Not yet announced |
| What it replaces | Years of vacant retail space | The grocer's own former spot in the same shopping center |
For a few months this fall, the same building will be doing double duty: a social destination on top, a routine errand on the bottom, both still settling in. That overlap is the actual story of this redevelopment, and it's easy to miss if the only headline you caught was the brewery's opening weekend.
What The Reshuffle Cost
New tenants don't arrive for free, and this one had a visible toll on the businesses that were already there. Scoobie, a boutique that had been at the Shops for seven years, closed its doors and its online store this year after what its owner described as 17 months of construction disruption she couldn't outlast.
"That was the beginning of the end. A slow, painful death," said Scoobie owner Sarah Jabbour, describing the fallout from a basement transformer fire and a courtyard project that blocked store entrances. "We would have four people a day if that. Parking alone is a nightmare."
Village Hairstyling closed in August 2025 after 77 years at the center. One of its longtime barbers relocated to Lenexa, opening Old Town Barber at 7793 Quivira Road with the same staff, citing renovation and code-compliance costs that made staying put untenable.
Set against those exits, the arrivals list is longer and more varied than a single brewery. GolfTRK is opening a flagship location and new corporate headquarters at 7068 Mission, just west of Big Grove on the upper level. Clairvaux, a locally owned boutique, relocated from the Shops at Fairway into the former Chico's space at 3944 W. 69th Terrace after six years, with founder Joni Johnson citing a center with more traffic and more of a community hub feel. Scratch Gourmet Kitchen moved into the former Story restaurant space. Rimann Liquors is expanding into a former barber shop space for a dedicated tasting area. Pride Cleaners shifted to the east side of the center near Chipotle, freeing up its old Tomahawk Road spot for neighboring French Market to expand.
Across Mission Road, The Same Story Without A Press Release
While Big Grove's opening generated coverage across multiple Kansas City outlets, a parallel reshuffle has been happening at Corinth Square, an older grocery-anchored center a short stretch down Mission Road at 83rd Street, and almost nobody's been talking about it the same way.
CASA, a Mexican-inspired kitchen from the founder of Billie's Grocery, is slated to open in the former Salty Iguana space at 83rd Street and Mission Road. Taco Republic is bringing a second location from its County Line Road original. Summer, a new frozen-treats concept from Curtis Thurston, is taking the corner spot vacated by Mely's Yogurt & Ice Cream, which closed after 35 years when owner Mely Ballard retired. The Lash Lounge opened a second location at 4155 Somerset Drive, and Tyler Kingston Mercantile, a vintage and handmade home-goods shop, is opening its second location in the same center.
Same underlying signal, same ZIP code, half the attention. That gap between the two centers says something about how residents actually track change in their own neighborhood: a single ribbon-cutting with giveaways and face painting travels farther than five smaller openings spread across a season, even when the smaller openings add up to more square footage.
What This Means For Getting Around This Fall
The tenant changes aren't happening in isolation from the rest of daily life. Residents on the streets east of Mission have already noticed patio overflow from Big Grove on Friday nights, and parking is expected to stay tight through the Hen House transition and whatever fills the grocer's old footprint. Crews working on the 83rd Street reconstruction between Mission Road and North Wenonga Road are aiming to finish that stretch before school starts this fall, though the remaining section east to State Line Road isn't expected to wrap until mid-December, according to the city's own construction updates.
The reshuffle has already worked its way into community events, too. The Prairie Village Art Show marked its 69th year over Memorial Day weekend with more than 15,000 guests, and this year's lineup included Cocina Club KC, powered by Scratch Gourmet Kitchen, alongside a Big Grove mobile bar pouring Easy Eddy and Citrus Surfer along Mission Lane. The tenant changes aren't a future event. They're already showing up on the calendar.
The Part Worth Remembering
The version of this story that traveled furthest was the one with balloons and a beer list. The version that will actually reorganize how Prairie Village residents spend a Tuesday afternoon or a Saturday morning is still a few weeks out, sitting one floor below the taproom, and getting almost none of the coverage its counterpart received. Watch September, not just May.
Neighborhoods that keep rebuilding their own gathering spaces tend to be neighborhoods people want to stay rooted in. If watching this year's changes has you thinking about what's next for your own address in Prairie Village, Andrea Plowman is glad to talk it through whenever you're ready. Schedule a consultation to start the conversation.
