The American Royal finally has its own home after 127 years, Walt George told a crowd gathered last Thursday to celebrate the completion of a new American Royal Barns and Exhibition Hall near the Legends in Kansas City, Kansas.
“We have always held our events in buildings that were owned by someone else,” George, board chair for the nonprofit American Royal, continued. “But tonight, welcome to our house.”
“These barns are built with purpose,” he added. “And it’s designed for things like this to bring people together around agriculture to compete, to learn, to do business, and to build relationships and carry our traditions from one generation to the next. And tonight is more than just a celebration of the opening, it’s a celebration about persistence, partnership, and the work it took to get here.”
The new $375 million, 390,000-square foot American Royal campus — designed by Multistudio and JE Dunn — features five distinctive barn gables, 3,744 cattle ties, 1,528 horse stalls, and up to eight simultaneous arenas. The new barns played host this weekend to their first of five fall events, welcoming the Royal Showcase Horse Show to the complex.
“This is a building for food and agriculture,” said Jackie McClaskey, president and chief innovation officer for the American Royal, noting the campus is nearly the size of seven football fields. “This is a building to be able to showcase our state’s and our country’s most important industry — an industry that is led by people with grit and passion and persistence.”
At the barn warming celebration, the nonprofit dedicated to championing food and agriculture welcomed those who helped make it happen: construction crews, contractors, American Royal members, partners, sponsors, and community supporters, campus neighbors and strategic partners, plus elected officials – including Kansas City, Kansas, Mayor Christal Watson and Kansas District 2 Representative Derek Schmidt.
“For generations, the American Royal has honored agriculture, education, competition, and the values that bring people together,” Watson noted. “Now, its future in Kansas City, Kansas, represents something even greater: new investment expands opportunities for our youth and a destination that will welcome visitors from across the country. Wyandotte County is proud to be the future home of this treasured institution. Together, we are building more than a new campus. We are creating a place where tradition meets innovation, and where the American Royal’s legacy will continue to grow.”
The celebration also included a ribbon cutting featuring the first horses entering the new barns and the unveiling of a giant horseshoe over an entrance to the barns.
“When a barn is finished, tradition speaks that you hang a horseshoe,” explained Lindsey Patterson Smith, board chair-elect. “It brings prosperity, it brings luck, and it brings tradition and protection to that barn. You hang it upside down, so all that luck holds in there and protects the barn and the people and animals within it.”
