Oracle Cerner moved to put at least 4.1 million square feet of its Kansas City-area office and support space on the market in the past 22 months.

That’s more than either the entire Northland or Country Club Plaza office submarkets — and nearly as much space as Downtown’s six largest office towers combined.

The timing carries as much significance as the amount of vacant space hitting the market. It comes as hybrid work environments force companies of all sizes, in and beyond the metro area, to rethink space needs.

The area’s largest office deal this year, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City’s lease assumption at 1400KC, clocks in at 260,000 square feet.

Indeed, the 28 largest office lease transactions since 2021, as tracked by Cushman & Wakefield’s local office, total only 1.44 million square feet — a little more than a third of what Oracle Cerner is putting on the market.

The available space could present immense opportunities, in the right hands. But backfilling or redeveloping it also will create clear challenges.

“You need a big enough company to want to have a campus, and then, if you find that group, they’ve got to want to have a campus where those (Cerner) buildings are,” said Ken Block, managing principal of Block Real Estate Services LLC. “Which one do you take? Do you take that one (in North Kansas City), or do you take the campus out there near the speedway?”

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