KANSAS CITY, Mo — Kansas or Missouri? The Chiefs haven’t decided, but President Mark Donovan reiterated that the clock is ticking to make a decision.
“We need a place to play in ’31,” Donovan said during an interview on the broadcast of the preseason opener between the Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars. “If you think about the timeline of that, it’s really trying to work back from that and say, ‘OK, we’ve really got to get going now, especially if we’re going to build a new building.’ We’ve got a lead time we’ve got to get going for and then, if you’re going to renovate like we want to do, you need additional lead time there.”
Two recently built stadiums, Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, took 2 1/2 years to construct, but there’s typically another year of design work before shovels go in the ground.
If the Chiefs began working on a stadium design in mid-2027 and construction started by the spring of 2028, a new stadium could be in place before the 2031 season. But Donovan set a six-month deadline to settle the Chiefs’ stadium future during a press conference last month at training camp.
The Royals previously said they wanted to have a new stadium by 2028, a much shorter timeline for the Chiefs’ co-tenants at the Truman Sports Complex.
But it’s clear both teams want the stadium questions settled sooner rather than later.
“We have options,” Donovan said. “We are talking to people in the state of Kansas. We are talking to people in the state of Missouri. There’s a lot of interest, for obvious reasons, in both our stadium and our training facility.”
Donovan didn’t specify whether the team is in contact with city, county or state officials in Kansas or Missouri, but Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas signaled a willingness to work the Chiefs on a new practice facility Wednesday at training camp..
He said the city “is very ready to be in the practice facility conversation. We have had conversations about ‘what could a practice facility look like and where would it be?’ I think that the locations in Kansas City could be vastly more dynamic than perhaps what you see in greenfield development on some edge of our region, no matter where it is.”
The Chiefs have played at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium since 1972 and the team’s training facility is on the western side of the Truman Sports Complex, but Jackson County voters shot down a 3/8-cent sales tax that would have renovated Arrowhead and built a new stadium for the Royals.
Now, all options are on the table.
“We’ve obviously had the starts and stops with the vote and then the STAR Bond initiative in Kansas,” Donovan said. “I would say this to our fans that we’re in a good position.”
The Kansas Legislature passed a modification in June that would increase the amount of STAR Bonds available for qualifying projects to 70%. There’s a one-year sunset, though that could be extended.
“There’s a lot going on right now,” Donovan said. “There’s a lot of good discussions and a lot of people very interested in making this work. So, we’ll go through the process and we’ll make the right decision for our fans, for this franchise and for our future.”
The odds that the Chiefs will remain in Missouri went up Tuesday when Mike Kehoe won the Republican primary for governor.
His main two GOP opponents, Bill Eigel and Jay Ashcroft, said they weren’t interested in working with the Chiefs and Royals on building or renovating their stadiums, but Kehoe sees it as an economic-activity driver and will consider an investment as such.
“The conversation has to be like all economic-development conversations,” he said Monday at a campaign stop. “You have to have a good return on the taxpayers' dollars. You can’t just throw money at this program. You’ve got to find out what it takes to have the right recipe to make sure we keep an opportunity here that’s creating incredible revenue and opportunities for Missourians.”
Kehoe’s Democratic opponent, Crystal Quade, also pledged to work with the Chiefs and Royals.
“As governor, Crystal Quade will work with the teams to get a deal done that keeps them home while making sure we support our workers and small business owners,” her campaign said Thursday. “We won’t bail out billionaires on the backs of taxpayers and any deal will need to benefit local businesses and the workers who help make Kansas City a world-class city.”
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