National Bank of Kansas City, better known as NBKC, will be moving its headquarters and hundreds of local employees back to Johnson County, where the bank started 27 years ago.

Currently headquartered on Ward Parkway in Kansas City, Missouri, with a handful of branches around the metro, the bank has acquired an office building in Overland Park’s College Boulevard and Metcalf Avenue corridor that will serve as its next headquarters.

That new headquarters, which company officials say the bank will occupy sometime next year, will be in the multistory office tower located at 7400 W. 110th St.

It’s the latest corporate cross-border jump into Kansas for a locally recognizable brand, following Lockton’s announcement late last year it would take up residence at a bespoke Leawood campus and the Kansas City Chiefs’ move to build a new domed stadium in KCK and team training facility in Olathe.

NBKC’s move will also pave the way for a new bank branch within the Overland Park corporate headquarters building, the farthest west the bank has had a branch.

“The decision by NBKC to locate its headquarters in Overland Park is a powerful endorsement of our community’s business climate and talent base,” said Libbey Tucker, senior vice president for economic development at the Overland Park Chamber of Commerce, in an emailed statement. “This move reinforces our region’s growing strength in financial services and innovation, and we are excited to welcome NBKC’s continued investment and leadership in our community.”

NBKC opened in Johnson County in 1999

The local, family-owned bank that’s expanded its digital operations around the country, opened in 1999.

In the early days, it had a branch location in the Ranch Mart shopping center at 95th Street and Mission Road and a headquarters near Interstate 435 and Nall Avenue.

But, eventually, the operation grew too large for that space, and the bank found a new corporate home across the state line on Ward Parkway, where it’s been leasing office space since 2017.

“That was a somewhat transformative affair for us, because we needed more space, and we were betting on some growth at the time,” NBKC CEO Michael Bartkoski told the Post. “It’s been a wonderful home for us.”

NBKC kept a foothold in Johnson County, with branches near Ranch Mart and in the Mission Farms area of Leawood.

And now, due to what Bartkoski referred to as changing “business dynamics” in the past few years, the bank is looking for a more permanent place for its corporate operations. At the same time, NBKC is anticipating another era of growth on the horizon, which means the bank needs more space.

“This is the start of a really good chapter for us,” he said.

Bank bought office building near College, Metcalf

After a search for a new place to call home, NBKC decided to acquire one of the buildings in the Commerce Plaza office tower campus at the northwest corner of College and Metcalf, directly west of the Marriott hotel.

That 127,000-square-foot building met a lot of the bank’s parameters, Bartkoski said, including its proximity to I-435. At the same time, it puts NBKC at the center of a changing area that’s drawn a lot of attention recently.

At the heart of Overland Park, the College and Metcalf corridors have long served as the economic engine for the city, acting as hubs for larger-scale office parks that are the primary industry in Johnson County’s largest city.

However, as office culture changes post-pandemic and different generations of corporate workers look for different things in the workplace, more and more of these office buildings are seeing increasing vacancies.

That has led Overland Park officials to start to reimagine what the future of the corridor might look like.

The city’s current vision, crafted through multiple planning processes, is to remake some of the underutilized office developments and their seas of excess parking into more walkable mixed-use areas with amenities to serve both workers and visitors.

Overland Park’s plan to relocate its city hall to a seven-story office building at 6201 College Blvd., is part of that vision. The city is also planning millions of dollars in walkability and bikeability improvements in the area.

Private redevelopment is also starting to shape up in that area, as well.

The first major test case came when the Overland Park City Council this week approved Price Brothers’ plan to convert hundreds of unused parking spots at the Lighton Plaza office towers — across the street from NBKC’s new building — into retail shops and apartment buildings.

“I think that it’s going to be an area that gets some reinvestment,” Bartkoski said of College and Metcalf. “I want to see us be part of that, and that corridor getting some reinvestment. I think it’s going to make it a really good home.”

He thinks the redevelopment already in the works, including the Overland Park City Hall plan, will “inject a lot of life into that corridor.”

Overland Park Mayor Curt Skoog said in a written statement that he’s “pleased” to see the bank’s headquarters returning to the Johnson County area, as well.

“Their move to College and Metcalf is a major win for our city and a testament to the success of our investments in the College Boulevard corridor,” he said, adding that NBKC’s move will help the city “continue to build this into the premier center for business and community growth.”

NBKC brings 350+ employees to Overland Park

Today, NBKC has about 380 employees between its corporate and customer-facing operations. The majority of those are hybrid office workers, who would be coming to work at the Metcalf building.

Additionally, Bartkoski said the bank is expecting to expand some of its operations in the next few years, necessitating an uptick in new hiring. He said he anticipates those new hires to be fully in-person workers, which would increase the daily headcount in the building.

The bank will also continue to lease out space in the building to existing tenants and possibly new tenants in the future, the company said.

What comes next for NBKC?

• NBKC will officially move its headquarters into a portion of the Metcalf building sometime next year, though the exact timeline is unclear.
• In the meantime, the bank is working with architects on some planned renovation work to the building, including the addition of amenities and a space for the NBKC bank branch on the lower level.

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