KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
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It’s been seven months since Jackson County voters soundly rejected a sales-tax question that would have renovated GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium and built a new baseball stadium in the northeast corner of the Crossroads Arts District downtown.
Currently, there are more questions than answers since 58% of Jackson County voters said "no" to extending a 3/8-cent sales tax for 40 years, leaving the future of the homes for the Chiefs and Royals uncertain.
Behind a tangle of non-disclosure agreements and messy politics, there is a lingering bitterness and distrust among some parties involved in the complex negotiations — particularly with respect to the Royals pursuit for a new stadium, according to multiple sources.
On one side, Kansas City, Missouri, hopes to avoid losing one or both teams — and the jobs, tax revenue, prestige and civic pride that come with them — to Kansas, which modified its STAR bonds tax-incentive tool in June and can redirect tax revenue to pay for 70% of the construction and maintenance of a new stadium.
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We’ll do our best to untangle the known options here — based on conversations with city, county, state and team officials — starting with the Royals stadium prospects.
Crossroads proposal fails
Let’s start with the failed Crossroads stadium idea, which became preferred because of its proximity to the KC Streetcar and as a way to catalyze the I-670 deck park project among other things.
It was going to take over the land where the defunct Kansas City Star printing press now stands and some of the surrounding neighborhood.
The Royals chose that site after prodding from the city, Downtown Council and the Power & Light District’s developer, The Cordish Companies, which also owns the soon-to-be-renovated KC Live! Block along with One Light, Two Light and Three Light.
For several months, city officials and even some tenants in the Crossroads neighborhood where the proposed stadium was to be built insisted that the site remained viable, but no one could answer how after the decisive April vote.
It’s a moot point after the announcement that Patmos would build a data center in the defunct printing press.
RELATED | Crossroads business owners react to data center at former printing plant
Remember the original finalists?
After the Royals announced plans two years ago to leave Kauffman Stadium for new digs in or close to downtown Kansas City, a 27-acre site in the East Village downtown became the front-runner for the site of a new Royals stadium.
It wasn’t a perfect concept, but it was one of two sites the Royals announced as finalists in August 2023.
East Village comes with infrastructure concerns trying to move an extra 40,000 people to and from that area 81 times a year. The tangle of interstates and highways on the east side of the downtown loop gets jammed up and congested without the added stress of game-day traffic.
The East Village site is a deceptively long and mostly uphill walk from the streetcar line, limiting effective mass-transit options to the proposed stadium, while many believed the proposed ballpark village around a stadium would cannibalize Power & Light’s clientele.
The second finalist the Royals announced was located cross the Missouri River in Clay County — a 90-acre site in North Kansas City, which included residential and retail development in addition to a ballpark village.
It wasn’t downtown, but it was close. However, the NKC proposal would require a new set of taxpayers, Clay County residents, to agree to split the cost with the team.
Given the smaller population and tax base in Clay County, it’s likely the Royals would have to ask for a bigger tax — probably a 3/4- to 1-cent sales tax — than the one Jackson County residents had authorized. That’s a tough sell — double the tax (or more) for half the number of teams.
Are those original finalist sites still viable? VanTrust, the real estate developer that assembled the East Village parcels, believes there “an opportunity for a catalytic project” at the site, according to the Kansas City Business Journal, but it’s unclear if it’s still an option for a new stadium.
Publicly, the Royals will only say they are “exploring all options,” so maybe East Village and NKC are still in consideration.
The other downtown location
Washington Square Park is another option — and one that gained attention during the summer.
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After Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City’s headquarters moved north, its former headquarters across Main Street from Union Station and just north of Crown Center drew attention as part of a stadium project at the underutilized Washington Square Park.
It’s a smaller footprint, but it’s well positioned in several respects.
It’s downtown, it’s on the streetcar route and it’s readily accessible from several major highways. It’s in a fairly well-established neighborhood, but there’s still room to build more density akin to a ballpark village.
Financing remains the major question for the site. The city can’t cover the roughly $1.3 billion construction cost on its own.
The Royals ownership group said in August 2023 that it planned to invest $1 billion into a stadium/ballpark village project, but that was specific to the East Village, NKC and Crossroads sites. There’s been no public comment — much less a similar commitment — to the Washington Square Park idea.
It’s also unclear if Jackson County would be willing to take part in the project and, if not, what the city’s plan for bridging the funding gap might be.
Would the Royals really go to Kansas?
Across the state line, the prospect of a new stadium at the Aspiria Campus — formerly the Sprint Campus, northwest of 119th Street and Nall Avenue — made headlines in recent weeks, but it’s actually been discussed as a possibility for more than a year, according to multiple sources.
The concept never progressed much beyond for a variety of reasons — it’s not downtown, highway access is poor and a stadium doesn’t really fit the character of the neighborhood.
But Kansas can offer attractive tax incentives. The state legislature has authorized STAR Bonds on billion-dollar stadium projects, which would redirect tax revenue from the development to pay for 70% of the construction costs.
The Kansas Legislature’s offer expires June 30, 2025, though the option for a one-year extension is baked in.
But STAR bonds give any site in Kansas a puncher’s chance, if funding doesn’t materialize in Missouri.
RELATED | 'A border surrender': Missouri leaders face challenge to keep Chiefs, Royals
Another intriguing Johnson County option near Antioch Road and I-435, at the site of the Brookridge Golf Club, also has legs.
It includes great highway access and space for developing a ballpark village, but it’s also miles from downtown.
Plus, the site already received approval for $200 million in controversial incentives for a planned mixed-use development that broke ground in 2023 but has stalled despite the Overland Park City Council’s blessing.
My sources didn’t know of any other sites being seriously considered in Johnson County and indicated there are no realistic JoCo sites for a new Chiefs stadium at this time.
Legends always an option
That leaves the Legends in Wyandotte County.
Building a stadium at the Legends, which has transformed since Kansas Speedway was built northwest of the I-70/I-435 interchange nearly a quarter-century ago, remains a possibility for both teams, even if that’s straying even farther from the downtown site the Royals initially envisioned.
Sporting Kansas City’s Children’s Mercy Park and the Kansas City Monarchs’ Legends Field are thriving at the Legends, where Buc-ee’s plans to build a travel center soon.
It will be an option for the Royals — and the Chiefs — at any time, even if there aren’t ongoing talks.
Chiefs' win-win situation
Compared to the drama around the Royals’ stadium saga, the Chiefs’ situation is much easier to distill, and it’s largely been described as a win-win for the NFL’s current dynasty.
Jackson County and the Chiefs continue to negotiate with County Administrator Troy Schulte expressing confidence they’ll reach a deal.
If and when the Royals vacate the Truman Sports Complex, Chiefs Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt’s vision to keep Arrowhead positioned as the Lambeau Field of the AFC will blossom — assuming the city and/or county can come up with a funding plan with an assist from the state.
If the money doesn’t come through in Missouri, and any county option probably would require approval from Jackson County voters, the Chiefs will take up Kansas on its offer and build a palace that puts the Las Vegas Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium to shame near the Legends.
But that’s a much more-expensive option for the Hunt family.
The Chiefs committed $300 million to renovating Arrowhead last winter, but — even with STAR bonds covering 70% of the construction costs — a new build in Kansas would cost the Hunts twice as much based on a $2-billion price tag, more if the cost went higher.
Final thoughts
More options have been proposed and considered, like a spot in western Shawnee near the Johnson County landfill, and may be discussed before the dust settles during the next several months.
Sources connected to the Royals' search for a new home describe the process as "disconnected" and "lacking direction."
City officials, including KCMO Mayor Quinton Lucas, said the team needs to pick a site before they can proceed.
The team is mum on any progress toward that goal and Jackson County Executive Frank White Jr.’s office doesn’t even bother to respond to requests for an interview to clarify his thinking on stadium-related issues, so it’s hard to get a clear picture of what the stakeholders want and who needs to take the reins to move the conversation forward.
Meanwhile, the Missouri legislature, which will convene in January, has limited options for funding a stadium.
The state might be able to help with peripheral infrastructure needs and the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority — a governor-appointed, state-controlled board, not a county entity as some mistakenly believe — has bonding authority, though it needs a revenue stream to secure any bonds.
But Missouri doesn’t have a tool like STAR bonds for the legislature to authorize and there’s unlikely to be much appetite for providing one-off assistance to the Chiefs and Royals, especially among those from St. Louis and southern Missouri.
It’s up to the county and/or the city to figure out a funding mechanism.
Short of that, the Overland Park Royals and KCK Chiefs will become a reality, especially if the fractured relationships and mistrust created during the run-up to last April’s vote aren’t repaired.
Whether the Chiefs and Royals stay in KCMO or go to Kansas, taxpayers almost certainly will be on the hook for more money now.
The Chiefs were prepared to sign a 25-year lease extension with three five-year options, while the Royals were committing to a 40-year lease at the new stadium.
Those lease agreements, which were contingent on the sales-tax question passing, are no longer valid along with the Community Benefits Agreement.
Any new deal would require a new round of CBA negotiations with the teams likely to be less generous than last April.
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