Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas says there is momentum in Royals stadium talks toward the team moving downtown — and that specifics might be known sooner rather than later.
With the pressure of Kansas courting the team, the Jackson County Legislature must decide before January 23if it will advance a ballot measure that would renew the team's 3/8th-cent sales tax for 40 years. Then, voters would decide whether or not to approve the stadium sales tax in April.
Decisions still have to be made regarding the site of a downtown ballpark — Lucas says both the East Village site and the former Kansas City Star printing press location are being actively considered — and specifics around what financing that deal might look like.
But Lucas told KCUR's Up To Date that he expects "final deals and arrangements" in the days ahead in order to meet that end-of-month deadline.
"There is active work in a number of different jurisdictions engaged —including the city of Kansas City — because any big investment in a part of our city will require zoning conversations as well as probably incentive discussions," Lucas said. "That is something that I think gets decided soon. Then, I think we can put this issue to bed."
