Washington Square Park. A cluster of lots in North Kansas City. The former Sprint Campus in Overland Park. Perhaps even the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority’s headquarters, just west of 18th Street and the Paseo.
In more than a year since Jackson County voters resoundingly rejected a sales tax to help finance a stadium in the Crossroads, the Kansas City Royals have pondered sites across the metro area.
In the meantime, the Kansas Legislature passed a law that would allow STAR bonds to be used to help cover stadium expenses for the Royals and the Chiefs. But experts warn that the Kansas deal may not generate enough tax revenue to cover the 70% of stadium costs that the state is promising — particularly if both teams moved to Kansas.
The Missouri General Assembly, meanwhile, approved a state funding bill for Chiefs and Royals stadiums during its recent special session.
Time is running out. The Royals have said that they will not renew their lease at Kauffman Stadium once it’s up in 2031, and they’re putting pressure on local officials to get a new stadium constructed before that time. The Kansas Legislature will meet on July 7 to consider extending the deadline for a stadium deal with the Chiefs or Royals.
That means six years to select a site, negotiate a deal, hold any necessary elections for a subsidy, then start — and complete — construction. (Notably, if the stadium is not built in time, the team has the option to renew its lease for five years and stay until 2036.)
So what’s the holdup?
Local officials say they can’t move forward until the Royals pick a site.
“There is only one entity that knows what’s happening, and that’s the Royals,” said Clay County Commissioner Scott Wagner.
But the Royals remain tight-lipped. A spokesperson for the team declined to say what the timeline is for a decision.
“We’ve been consistent that we’re exploring all options,” Royals spokesperson Sam Mellinger told The Beacon in an email, “and when we have something that’s ready to share we will do it.”
Here’s where that leaves the proposals on the Missouri side of the state line.
Still no funding plan for proposed sites
When Jackson County voters were given the choice to subsidize a Crossroads baseball stadium in April 2024, there seemed to be more questions than answers.
The leases hadn’t yet been negotiated, nor had a community benefits agreement. More importantly, there was no clear funding plan for the stadium.
That document, called a sources and uses statement, outlines how much the stadium was going to cost and how it was going to be financed.
Without a funding plan, Jackson County voters were being asked to help pay for a stadium without knowing how much money the team was expecting Missouri or Kansas City to contribute, or how much money the Royals themselves were planning to pitch in.
That, former Jackson County Administrator Troy Schulte told The Beacon at the time, was the primary reason why County Executive Frank White Jr. opposed the stadium.
Decision makers in Jackson County, Clay County and North Kansas City do not want to repeat the mistake of working out details after it’s been placed on a ballot.
“We’re not going to make the mistake Jackson County made,” Wagner said at a town hall in North Kansas City on Monday, “of not knowing what the heck we’re getting into before we put it in front of you.”
This time, Missourians already have one new detail that they didn’t have last time: the state’s potential contribution.
An estimated $15 million of annual state tax revenue from a potential Royals stadium could support an estimated $300 million to $400 million in funding for construction.
That means more than half of the estimated $1 billion to $2 billion stadium remains unfunded.
The Royals may fill some of that gap, but Mellinger declined to tell The Beacon how much the team would invest.
However, a funding plan from the 2023 North Kansas City proposal for the stadium showed a $527 million contribution from the team. Even with that amount of private investment, a significant portion of money would still be needed from local sources, likely using revenue from a sales tax.
Next steps for Kansas City, Missouri
The primary site under consideration south of the Missouri River is Washington Square Park, across Main Street from Union Station near Crown Center. Another potential site emerged last week, near 18th and Vine streets, proposed by Gates Bar-B-Q owner Ollie Gates.
Washington Square Park is already owned by Kansas City, and because it’s currently a park, it would need to go to a public vote before it could be sold to the Royals. The would-be ballpark site also includes the former Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City office building and spans over adjacent railroad tracks.
If the park land remains under government ownership, it would remain exempt from paying property taxes, although the city could charge the Royals a payment in lieu of taxes.
There have been rumors that Port KC may play a role in a development at Washington Square Park, but a spokesperson for Port KC said that the agency is not officially involved in stadium conversations at this time. Notably, Port KC oversaw the development of the KC Current’s soccer stadium on the riverfront.
In theory, the Royals could ask for another countywide or citywide vote for a sales tax to subsidize the stadium.
But other sources have been used in the past. In 2004, Kansas City voters overwhelmingly approved rental-car and hotel taxes to finance the T-Mobile Center arena downtown.
Jackson County Legislator Sean Smith, who represents southeastern portions of the county, said the county won’t put another sales tax on the ballot until the team announces that it has selected a site within the county. The team will also need to commit to paying for a certain amount of the stadium.
“I can’t imagine why we would want to take any action until (the Royals) have committed to a site and resources that they’re willing to contribute,” he said. “Until they do something, we’re kind of just, you know, waiting in the wings.”
Caleb Clifford, White’s chief of staff, said that the county executive agrees.
“Before we move forward, we’ll need to have a funding plan in place,” he said. “One of the county executive’s concerns has always been making sure that we’re not only advocating and bringing a good proposal back to the voters, but that we’re doing so in a clear and easily understandable manner.”
A spokesperson for Kansas City declined to comment for this story, saying that the city was not ready to discuss the details of a stadium plan.
Next steps for North Kansas City and Clay County
The North Kansas City site has a slightly more complicated road ahead.
The site, located south of Armour Road where there’s currently a smattering of industrial buildings, would need to be evaluated for infrastructure upgrades, such as widening nearby Interstate 35 or reworking some of the traffic flow.
If the Royals pick that site, the county would likely put a sales tax on the ballot for Clay County voters.
“The last time there was a poll done, which was done by the team,” Wagner said, “they were polling a question that suggested a half-cent (sales tax). Is that where we land? I don’t know. That decision has not been made.”
That amount is more than the sales tax rate the team wanted for its Crossroads stadium proposal last year.
The county would begin negotiating the leases, and it would need to establish a Clay County Sports Complex Authority, which would serve as the landlord for the team and oversee the distribution of sales tax revenue — much like the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority currently does for Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums.
At the town hall on Monday evening, North Kansas City Mayor Jesse Smith and Clay County Commissioners Wagner and Jason Withington sought feedback from the audience.
Responses were mixed, with some residents excited at the thought of being able to walk to a Royals game, while others had serious concerns about whether it was financially responsible and whether it would bring unwanted traffic to an otherwise quiet community.
And in the meantime, Smith told one of his constituents that he’s seeing development in other parts of the city slow to a crawl as prospective developers wait to see what happens with the stadium proposal.
“It’s been a very frustrating holding pattern for me as somebody on the council,” he said, “because you’re right, when is the last time a major development happened?”
He’s eager to get a decision from the Royals soon so the city can start moving forward, whether it’s on the stadium or with another developer who may have put their plans on hold amid stadium discussions.
“I would love to see things start moving again, but it’s kind of that logjam right now,” Smith said. “Once that decision comes down from the team, I think you’re going to see something start moving, and I’m hopeful that they stick to that late summer, maybe early summer.”
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
