KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
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Kansas City has a rich history of visionary sports owners.
Chris and Angie Long, who co-own the Current with Brittany and Patrick Mahomes, certainly seem to be cut from that mold.
“Angie and Chris Long are game-changers in Kansas City, like people like Lamar Hunt and Ewing Kauffman have been,” Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas said Wednesday during a ceremonial groundbreaking at the Berkley Riverfront.
The hallmark of how Hunt and Kauffman approached team ownership in Kansas City was a civic-minded, community-centric approach.
“Those are people that we seek to emulate,” Chris Long said. “Those are role models who have changed this city, changed this region, changed their sport. So, it's very flattering to hear that, but we're just Chris and Angie Long.”
And without the Longs, there is no KC Current and CPKC Stadium, the first stadium in the world purpose-built for a women’s pro sports team, doesn’t exist. There also wouldn’t have been a groundbreaking for a $200-million development adjacent to the stadium.
“As we were looking at building the stadium, we had the opportunity to be on the Missouri River in a boat — in a speedboat, going back and forth and just getting, sort of, a tour of the Missouri River at sunset,” Angie Long said. “That view and that perspective makes you realize what a special place it is here that we're standing on.”
The Current are developing the Berkley Riverfront in partnership with Port KC, which owns and operates the land, Chicago-based Marquee Development and Palmer Square Real Estate Management, which the Longs also own.
Crews started work at the site, which is located southwest of CPKC Stadium, in December 2024 and plan to begin going vertical soon, according to the team.
Creating a new neighborhood
The $200-million initial phase of a planned $1-billion, privately financed development includes 429 apartment units, 48,000 square feet of retail space and more than two acres of gathering space, including a town square and riverfront promenade.
“I want to just share my exhilaration — really, not just with the stadium itself, not just with the team, but with the development we're building, too,” Lucas said. “You can build a great venue and also build a great community.”
The Longs envision a neighborhood anchored by a “new culinary epicenter of our region” with “a focus on local chefs and restaurateurs,” but there are other exciting projects expected to be included as well.
“We've been talking with the Longs ever since, ever since they first started this wonderful dream,” Oscar- and Grammy-winning rock star Melissa Etheridge, a Leavenworth native, said. “I heard all the way out in Hollywood about the stadium that was being built a couple years ago. It really thrilled me that my home, Kansas City, was doing something so forward-thinking, coming to women's sports, and I said, ‘Hey, I really want to be a part of this.’”
The goal is to bring “some Midwestern Hollywood right here, make a little Studio City right here,” Etheridge said.
“It's totally going to be a new neighborhood, a brand new diverse district,” Chris Long said. “... It's a game-changer for our city.”
The area along the Missouri River will remain central to the Current’s identity, but it also will become so much more — eventually connecting to the Origin Hotel, existing apartments and spaces like Bar K Kansas City to the west.
“We've always envisioned Berkeley Riverfront as this incredible, dynamic extension of our downtown that is of Kansas City,” Port KC President and CEO Jon Stephens said.
Transforming KC’s skyline
Construction is expected to go vertical soon.
“That, to me, is when I really feel it,” Angie Long said. “But even now, when I walked in here today, I'm like, ‘This is really happening. This dream, this vision that we've had for a long time, and that the city has had for decades, is really happening.”
Lucas recalled visits to Riverfest, a child in the sweltering heat with no shade in sight. Berkeley Riverfront is different now and continues to evolve.
“Could little kid Quinton have imagined a streetcar that I can catch to a women's professional soccer stadium next to apartments along the river? Absolutely not,” he said. “I am so proud to be in a city of dreamers.”
People like the Longs — the Hunt and Kauffman families before them.
“Those are some pretty big shoes to fill,” Angie Long said. “So, we're going to keep taking this one step at a time. We're just grateful to be in this city that also supports us and our team so much.”
The first phase of a planned $1-billion development during the next 10 years should be completed sometime in 2026, but plans for the second phase already are percolating.
“What we could share today is — think luxury hotel, think office,” Chris Long said. “We've had a lot of demand to be down here and with the activation coming from the multifamily (housing) and the retail and the stadium and the events and the festivals and on and on and on, who would want to also work down here and who also wouldn't have a luxury experience down here in the form of a hotel.”
VCC Construction is the general contractor for the project, which will also bring changes to Berkley Parkway.
“The riverfront, when it was first kind of conceived as a development, had a curved road of (Berkley) Riverfront Drive,” Stephens said. “This (development) will straighten that out so that we can create micro blocks.”
There will be “very pedestrian friendly” roads, which will allow for some street parking and deliveries flanked by “outdoor dining” and a dense, community-centric neighborhood.
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