KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A potential Kansas City Royals ballpark in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, could create benefits and drawbacks, according to one real estate expert.
"Of course, it's going to help in economic ways, but it's also going to hurt from an infrastructure standpoint," Daniel Brocato, with Block Real Estate, said.
Brocato said problems with a potential downtown ballpark could include more traffic and lack of parking.
"You have a lot of issues with people coming into downtown, a lot of people are there for work on a day-to-day basis, you have daytime games, traffic starts going crazy and people getting in and out of their offices is going to be a big problem if there's a downtown stadium," he said.
However, he argues extra people in the area would bring a financial benefit.
"The upside is it would boom for businesses down there, restaurants and bars," Brocato explained. "Just to have a fun atmosphere to work knowing that the Royals are playing right across the street."
The real estate expert said right now the real estate health of downtown is strong.
"It's on the upswing, there's lots of renovation," he said. "There's lots of apartment development. There's lot of offices reinstating their work from office policy, so there's a lot more traffic and restaurants and bars are doing better because of that."
Royal's owner John Sherman said one trend in many cities is to construct stadiums in high density areas. He said he looks at Atlanta as one example.
"Downtown is where, if you look about higher density areas, that's certainly where the most attraction is. It's also where I think if it works and if the community wants to do this, we can really kind of round out our central business district in a way that would be good," Sherman said.
Sherman added that a potential site has not been selected, but the community would not be forgotten in the process.
"Wherever we play, this is about what's in the best interest of our community," Sherman said.
On opening day, Royals fans braved windy and cold temperatures while tailgating outside Kauffman Stadium.
Kauffman has been home to the Royal's since 1973 and some fans prefer to keep it that way.
"It's one of those things where this is big part of what we do every opening day and if we don't have access to this kind of space to have fun and tailgate, then it's not going to do us a lot of good," Royals fan Josh Schmutz said.
