1 Memorial Drive is the headquarters complex of the

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City is located in Kansas City, Missouri and covers the 10th District of the Federal Reserve, which includes Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and portions of western Missouri and northern New Mexic ...

. The 618,000 square foot complex consisting of a 14-story tower and two-story base containing its cash processing and operations facilities was designed by

Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Pei Cobb Freed & Partners is an American architecture, architectural firm based in New York City, founded in 1955 by I. M. Pei and other associates.

was dedicated June 11, 2008, and replaced its headquarters at

925 Grand 925 Grand is the former headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and was the oldest building in active use of any Federal Reserve Bank. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. In 1913 Kansas City and St. ...

Henry N. Cobb Henry Nichols Cobb (April 8, 1926 – March 2, 2020) was an American architect and founding partner with I.M. Pei and Eason H. Leonard of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, an international architectural firm based in New York City. Early life Henry N. ...

was the lead architect. The complex is located in

Penn Valley Park Penn Valley Park is an urban park overlooking the Downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The park was developed in 1904 on land through which the Santa Fe Trail had passed. It contains several famous landmarks: '' The Scout'' statue and the United Sta ...

opposite the

Liberty Memorial The National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri was opened in 1926 as the Liberty Memorial. In 2004, it was designated by the United States Congress as the country's official war memorial and museum dedicated to World War ...

on the site that was the former St. Mary's Hospital where Jo Zach Miller, Jr., president of the bank who oversaw the construction of 925 Grand, had spent his last days. It was the first Federal Reserve building built after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

prompted increased security at federal buildings. The complex (which moved from

Downtown Kansas City Downtown Kansas City is the central business district (CBD) of Kansas City, Missouri and the Kansas City metropolitan area. It is between the Missouri River in the north, to 31st Street in the south; and from the Kansas–Missouri state line east ...

) is in a park setting and its 15.7 acre property was landscaped by

Laurie Olin Laurie Olin (born 1938, Marshfield, Wisconsin) is an American landscape architect. He has worked on landscape design projects at diverse scales, from private residential gardens to public parks and corporate/museum campus plans. Early life Olin g ...

of Olin Associates.

Money Museum

Included in the building is the Money Museum. Its most prominent exhibit is a 27-pound gold bar valued at $400,000 which visitors are permitted to pick up. Other exhibits include a 463 piece coin collection on loan from the

Truman Library The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and resting place of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president of the United States (1945–1953), his wife Bess and daughter Margaret, and is located on U.S. Highw ...

which has coins from every Presidential administration. The coin collection was originally by Treasury Secretary John Snyder but was stolen in 1962. Snyder worked to replace it. The museum also has a window in which visitors can see the movement of cash in and out of its vault.

IOU/USA Sculpture

In 2011 it was the target of numerous demonstrations during the Occupy movement protests. A 65 foot high sculpture by John Salvest from

Arkansas State University Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage la ...

was temporarily erected on city property opposite the building that proclaimed "IOU" on one side and "USA" on the other. The sculpture was built with 117

shipping containers A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated boxes. In the context of ...

. It was financed by the Grand Arts, a non profit art museum in the city's

Power and Light District The Kansas City Power & Light District, or simply the Power & Light District, KCP&L or the P&L, is a dining, shopping, office and entertainment district in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, United States, developed by The Cordish Companies of Ba ...

. The Federal Reserve sent bomb sniffing dogs to check the containers during the installation.

References

{{coord, 39, 4, 33, N, 94, 35, 9, W, type:landmark, display=title Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank buildings Government buildings in Missouri Skyscraper office buildings in Kansas City, Missouri Office buildings completed in 2008