NEWYou can now listen to PK Press Club articles!
The Kansas City Royals are moving from their longtime home at Kauffman Stadium to the Crown Center downtown, partnering with Hallmark Cards on a $3 billion project that includes a mixed-use development with a new ballpark as its centerpiece.
Royals owner John Sherman was joined by Hallmark Chairman Don Hall Jr., Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, along with other local and state dignitaries, to make the announcement Wednesday near Hallmark headquarters.
Although the finalized master plan is not yet complete, Sherman said the $1.9 billion stadium will break ground next year in the middle of the Crown Center as the first phase of an 85-acre project. Two-thirds of the funding will come from private sources and the remaining third from public partners, including money set aside by the state for stadium projects.
“This is a partnership between two valuable Kansas City institutions,” Sherman said. “We are committed to creating a vision that honors our history, the rich past of both organizations, while invigorating and reimagining what our future can be together.”
The announcement came about a week after Kansas City officials passed an ordinance authorizing City Manager Mario Vasquez to negotiate a $600 million deal to help the Royals move downtown. Most thought the stadium would be located in Washington Square Park, which is next to Union Station, but instead it will be located just south of it, with the park included in the development.
Hallmark intends to build a new headquarters in the area, which will be connected by a light rail to the Power & Light District, where the T-Mobile Center serves as an anchor. This part of downtown Kansas City will serve as a backdrop beyond the outfield fence.
Officials touted the availability of public parking already in the area and the smooth flow of traffic from nearby highways.
Missouri’s contribution comes from a law enacted last year that authorizes bonds covering up to 50 percent of the cost of new or renovated stadiums in the state, plus up to $50 million in tax credits for each stadium and unspecified aid from local governments.
“We think this is a great investment for our Missouri taxpayers because it doesn’t impact existing programs,” Kehoe said. “The ripple effect of this facility will have far-reaching reach throughout rural Missouri and other parts of the state.”
The Royals insisted they would vacate Kauffman Stadium when their lease at the Truman Sports Complex expired in 2031, and Sherman’s intention since purchasing the club in 2019 was to build a downtown ballpark to replace it.
However, Wednesday’s announcement was not without pitfalls.
The biggest stumbling block came in April 2024, when the Kansas City Chiefs joined the Royals in a plan to renovate Arrowhead Stadium and replace Kauffman Stadium. The plan hinged on extending a sales tax to fund stadium maintenance, and voters in Jackson County, Missouri, overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, forcing franchises to go their own way.
The legislature in neighboring Kansas has aggressively pursued the Chiefs, agreeing last December to issue $2.4 billion in bonds to cover 60 percent of the cost of a new $3 billion domed stadium in Kansas City, Kansas. The NFL franchise has finally decided to move across the state line, where it will also build a new training facility in the nearby suburb of Olathe, Kansas.
Kansas officials also briefly pursued the Royals, but their interest in the MLB franchise has always been lukewarm.
The Royals were considering several options over the past few months. But they ultimately rejected an option in suburban Overland Park, Kansas, and passed up a deadline for a site north of downtown and across the Missouri River in Clay County, Missouri.
Economists have long concluded that subsidizing stadiums is not worth it for communities because the venues divert economic activity from other parts of the region, instead of growing the overall economy. Yet states and cities continually provide money to renovate stadiums or build new ones: 49 of the 60 stadiums used by MLB or NFL teams are publicly owned or located on public land.
One of the stadiums Sherman cited as an example of what’s possible in Kansas City is Truist Park in Atlanta.
The stadium was a public-private partnership in which the Cobb-Marietta Coliseum & Exhibit Hall Authority issued up to $397 million in bonds, the county raised millions more through transportation taxes and the companies added millions in cash. The Atlanta Braves contributed the rest of the money for the park and The Battery, a mixed-use development, for a total cost of more than $1.1 billion.
“There are many great baseball districts in Major League Baseball,” Sherman said, “but this is a larger project with more land downtown and in the heart of the city. We are bringing our fans a modern, cutting-edge stadium experience, closer to our public transportation and where more people work and live.”
Associated Press reporting.
