KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With STAR Bonds dominating recent discussions about possible stadium moves, KSHB 41 wanted to look back on how and why they began.
That curiosity led us to Wyandotte County, where the first-ever STAR Bond project in Kansas, the Kansas Speedway, sits.
“It saved Wyandotte County, there’s no question,” said Mike Jacobi, one of the founders of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas.
Jacobi was around when the Kansas Speedway opened in 2001. In fact, he was around long before that.
“We waited 11 full years after the interstate opened in 1987. Nothing," Jacobi said. “Not a gas station, not a fast food, nothing. Until we unified city and county government, and then it all just exploded.”
Jacobi said that’s thanks to STAR Bonds.
“The lenders lend that money, a lot of money, on the hope that they’re going to get paid back by future sales taxes,” he said. “Not a penny is the responsibility of the government.”
Or the taxpayers.
“STAR Bond projects are like any business: sometimes successful and sometimes not,” Jacobi said. “That’s why there’s a risk involved to the banks. Not to us, but to the banks.”
Construction began on the Kansas Speedway in 1999. At the time, STAR Bonds paid for 25% of the $283-million project cost.
“As originally envisioned, all the money that was captured was money that was driven by the development,” said Pat Warren, president of Kansas Speedway since 2011. “So the only dollars that come back to Kansas Speedway are dollars that we're directly generating.”
Warren said context is important when comparing the Speedway to future STAR Bond projects that followed.
“The area that we built in was a largely rural area,” he said. “There were about 110 homes on the property, and there was a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a gas station. That was really it.”
Another difference between then and now is that STAR Bonds can now be used to fund up to 50% of a project instead of 25%.
“Some of the challenges that we've seen with the STAR Bond law are people comparing themselves and using, frankly, inflated economic impact estimates and saying, ‘Well, the Speedway did it, and no one believed what happened then,'" Warren said. "And it worked, so they're trying to draw the comparison when maybe the comparison shouldn't have been drawn."
As discussions about STAR Bonds continues, Jacobi said the public deserves to be re-educated on the topic, especially with hopes of future projects on the horizon.
“It just needs to be the most open conversation that you could possibly have with the taxpayers,” Jacobi said. “And if they don't know it, we're not doing it.”
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