Even on a weeknight, KC Current fans fill nearly every parking spot at the women’s soccer stadium at the Berkley Riverfront.
Parking spaces are in short supply by design — to encourage people to stick around after games and to rely on public transit.
Five months into a season of sold-out games, fans are getting the hang of it. But some of them would like to see a little more parking.
“It would definitely help,” said Taylor Kelly, who attended a game with his family against the Tigres on Aug. 1.
But what if tax dollars were used to help pay for it?
“That might be different,” he said. “I don’t know how much support there would be if it was with taxes.”
A proposal making its way through City Hall would do just that. The Parking Co. of America, or PCA, wants three kinds of public subsidies to build a 1,500-spot parking garage next to the stadium, near where the temporary parking currently sits.
The KC Current says that the setup with temporary lots is working for now while the streetcar extension and other riverfront developments are under construction.
But the Port Authority of Kansas City, which oversees the riverfront, still faces complaints about a parking shortage.
That factors into an ongoing debate among city planners and residents about how to manage cars in denser, more urban areas of the city that aim to be more walkable and transit-friendly.
The parking company is headed by a man who has contributed heavily to the campaigns of some Kansas City Council members. They will get final say on whether to back the bonds for a garage.
Tax dollar subsidies
Port KC and Kansas City Hall are in negotiations with the PCA over how to pay for the proposed parking garage, according to the Kansas City Business Journal. (You can read this story for free using a Kansas City library card here.)
It’s planned for a parcel of land just south of the stadium.
It would have parking spaces for 1,491 cars for a total cost of around $92 million. The riverfront already has just shy of 1,900 public parking spaces.
PCA is asking for public dollars through three subsidies:
- Port KC would likely give the parking garage a property tax break, as it does with most developments at the riverfront.
- The city would contribute $1.8 million per year from its Bally’s Casino fund. That’s money that Bally’s Casino pays to use city-owned land at the riverfront.
- If the parking garage doesn’t generate enough revenue to pay off PCA’s debts, the city would be on the hook to cover the gap. The parking company’s own projections show it falling $8 million short on payments spread over seven years.
PCA has also asked Port KC to limit the amount of parking elsewhere on the riverfront to drive customers to its garage.
The latest parking garage proposal is a fraction of what PCA initially requested. Kansas City Hall balked at their first proposal, which requested $20 million more for a garage twice the size.
“If the city were to assume the risk, we would be better off building, operating, and maintaining it ourselves,” City Manager Brian Platt told Port KC in an email, according to the Business Journal.
Morgan Said, the former chief of staff for Mayor Quinton Lucas, told Port KC that Kansas City would not be able to provide that amount of financial assistance.
But Kansas City and Port KC resumed negotiating with PCA after it shrank its request and accused Port KC of mishandling the negotiations.
Port KC has the authority to issue a tax break for PCA, but the other two kinds of financial support will need to be approved by Kansas City.
Richard Chaves, the president of PCA’s Kansas City division, came under fire last August when he requested incentives for roundabouts as part of a $5.5 million retail and parking development near the Kansas City airport.
Chaves had donated nearly $30,000 to Lucas and six City Council members during the election a few months earlier. He’s also the chairman of the Northland Strong PAC, a pro-Northland, pro-police and pro-development group that spent over $100,000 on the 2023 City Council elections.
Some members of the public raised questions during a City Council discussion of the roundabout subsidy as to whether Chaves had been trying to sway the council to his favor with his donations.
“When I watched (Chaves) over here donate upwards of $100,000 to City Council candidates in the last election,” Kansas City resident Brynne Musser said in her public testimony, “I knew it was just a matter of time before he came looking for a return on his investment.”
PCA did not respond to The Beacon’s request for an interview for this story.
The company initially planned to bring the proposal to Kansas City Council in mid-July. Jazzlyn Johnson, a spokesperson for Lucas, said there’s no legislation on the table right now.
Subsidized parking
Parking is always a complicated question for developers. Build too little, and you lose possible customers who figure it’s not worth the hassle to make the trip. But build too much, and you make it harder to walk and use public transportation, and you can waste valuable property on empty lots.
In dense, urban areas like downtown, the River Market and the new Berkley Riverfront, neighborhood planners argue the city should prioritize public transportation and walkability. They fear too many parking lots can come at the expense of housing and retail.
“Kansas City has always had a lot of parking available,” said Sean O’Byrne, the executive director of the Downtown and River Market Community Improvement Districts for the KC Downtown Council. “We like the idea of having to walk a little ways because at that point, you find a dry cleaner, a little bar or a pub or a bank that you didn’t know about, and you stop in.”
That may be frustrating for drivers accustomed to plentiful parking downtown. But O’Byrne said that if they can get past the initial learning curve, downtown Kansas City can offer more vibrant neighborhoods in places like the riverfront.
In two years, the riverfront will be connected to the streetcar, and riders will be able to reach the riverfront by taking it from as far as the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
At that point, stadiumgoers will be able to park at Union Station, Westport or the Country Club Plaza to get a drink before taking the streetcar directly to the stadium.
Dan Moye, the vice president of land development at the Economic Development Corp. of Kansas City, hasn’t formed a position on subsidizing the garage. But if tax money is involved, he said, that demands scrutiny on the city’s return on investment.
Parking lots “are expensive and they don’t generate a lot of revenue,” he said. “The city’s got to consider, are they getting value out of it?”
Those garages do have value, he said, which can bring in property tax revenue down the line once the tax breaks expire. In the riverfront, most of the land is sitting undeveloped and is not generating any property tax revenue as it stands.
But taxing jurisdictions, like Kansas City Public Schools or the Jackson County Community Mental Health Fund, usually prefer that those empty lots be turned into housing or offices when they’re being asked to give up property tax revenue.
An apartment development provides a place for the school district’s students to live, and business offices bring employment opportunities for their parents. Moye said the taxing jurisdictions tend to see parking as more of an amenity, rather than something that drives economic growth.
If the city guaranteed the parking garage debt payments, that could stick taxpayers with another bill.
Kansas City made a similar agreement with Cordish Cos. when it built the Power & Light District. That agreement has cost the city an average of $10 million per year — more than $160 million in total.
“This was never meant to be a high parking location, ever” said Port KC representative Meredith Hoenes.
Port KC brought the PCA proposal forward when the rest of the riverfront was still in early planning stages. But now that the stadium district’s plans are more solid, Hoenes said that the stadium only needs a fraction of what was anticipated when Port KC sent out a request for parking proposals last year.
“In all of those details, we realized we’re only going to need a fraction of that in Parcel 9,” she said, referring to the piece of land PCA wants to use for a garage. “We’ve started this process with this company, and we have to see this process through.”
What do stadium-goers think?
On Thursday night, thousands of fans poured in from the three gravel parking lots, bike racks, downtown shuttles and the Riverfront Heritage Trail.
Overall, they didn’t seem too frustrated by the parking.
“It was really easy, and the people were really helpful,” said Patricia Souza.
Karly Gadell said she had trouble navigating some of the street closures around the riverfront (the Grand Street viaduct is closed to cars on game day), but the parking lots were not a problem.
“Once we got to the parking area” Gadell said, “it was like, park, get out, and we’re right here.”
Mary O’Connell bikes to every game from her home in Pendleton Heights, and she’s excited that the KC Current, unlike other teams around the metro, has made it so easy to access the stadium from urban areas.
“Biking is the best way to get here,” she said. “We live right here, and it’s super cheap.”
But a parking garage with taxpayer help?
“Don’t do it,” she said.
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
