Butch Rigby has developed real estate in and around the Kansas City area for over 30 years. He redeveloped his first property in 1980 during the time that he was a full time student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies, and a Juris Doctor from the UMKC School of Law.

 

He developed residential property during the 1980s and moved into commercial development during the early 1990s. In 1994 he redeveloped the long vacant Commonwealth Theatres Building in Kansas City’s Historic Film Row District, in what is now part of the Crossroads Arts District.  Soon thereafter he developed the Universal Pictures Building, Film Row Arts Building and the former Mid-Central Fish Company Building, (now known as the Screenland Theatre Building) all within that same district. At the same time, he founded Old Film Row Inc., a not for profit corporation dedicated to preserving and recording the history of Kansas City’s Old Film Row District.

 

Butch founded the Screenland Movie Theatre Circuit, and as a part of that venture, he restored the Historic Granada Movie Theatre Building located at 1015 Minnesota Avenue in downtown Kansas City Kansas. He then renovated the historic Armour Theatre Building in downtown North Kansas City, Mo. He placed the latter two buildings on the National Historic Register, and has renovated most all of the buildings to national and State Historic Standards.

 

In the 1990s he formed Thank You Walt Disney Inc., and as Chairman of that organization, he and a group of volunteers purchased Walt Disney’s first cartoon studio, the Laugh-O-Gram building and took the building off of the city’s condemned building list, restored its structural integrity and have prepared it for re-use as an interactive historic site. 

 

Most of the buildings Butch took on were long vacant structures that were not only repurposed historically, but have had very high occupancy rates over the past twenty years since their renovation.  The planned renovations of the Westport Middle and Swinney Elementary schools are very much in line with the buildings and historic renovations Butch has been involved in during the past three decades.