Downtown Baseball Stadium

[Chris Stritzel]

I'm happy that both visions focus heavily on connectivity and the need for mixed-use development to make their surrounding areas vibrant. 4000 seat venues, restaurants, retail and more are all welcome news at either of these.

East Village
This plan is about what I expected and I'm happy with it. I hope this one happens because it would make downtown more vibrant and would better connect to Paseo West. But the idea of developing spilling over into Paseo West is a concern to me especially since some have commented that a parking lot owner has been buying up land over there. This plan also feels too heavy on the office side of things instead of residential and hospitality.









North Kansas City
This idea clearly had a lot of thought put into it, but there's just one big problem. There's no way the Merrimans own all necessary land for this scope. The cost to acquire the additional parcels, since the scope is known, and the need to relocate businesses that call this area home will make this one a challenge. Coupled with the reluctance of Clay County residents to support a new tax, this one seems like an impossible project. While this vision is great to see for North KC, and would make it much more urban and vibrant, the idea of bulldozing a large swath of the industrial area for mixed-usages is a dream.

[GRID]

I thought I would be more impressed by this.

Says person who is never impressed by anything

I was just hoping for more details on how they would deal with the east loop and how they could tie the Paseo West area to the stadium. The bridge is nice, but if the Royals don't control development over there, it will end up being parking lots and then that will be the view from the stadium.

I'm not saying I'm not impressed, I'm saying I thought I would be more impressed. They need to take some of the ideas form the NKC site and add them to the Downtown site, include the stadium design ideas. It's early, feedback is good. I thought....

[kcjak]

Every image states 'for visual depiction only.' That means the stadium designs will change so don't get too set on materials and such at this point.

[GRID]

I still think overall it would be silly to go to NKC. But they seem to be taking the NKC site seriously. Do they really have that much land already in hand?

[DColeKC]

.

[GRID]

I'm happy that both visions focus heavily on connectivity and the need for mixed-use development to make their surrounding areas vibrant. 4000 seat venues, restaurants, retail and more are all welcome news at either of these.

A 4,000 capacity performance venue is not welcome news. This city can only sustain so many performance venues of similar capacities. We've seen this more than ever this year with a major amount of shows coming through KC and only a few selling out.

That's my only major beef with the NKC site besides just not being supportive of the location all together.

That and the new Current stadium will be competing for the same events I would think. Hopefully they help close down sandstone, that place is a dump and in the middle of nowhere.

Also, the NKC site would have an exhibition center? Do they mean a small convention center? That would also compete with similar venues downtown and by KCI right?

Why does the NKC site come with a hotel and the EV site doesn't? I would think a hotel would just as important for the EV site.

[TheSmokinPun]

The EV stadium looks like the K with modern takes. How anyone could compare that to the generic Marlins Park looking disaster on the other side is crazy. Put some more fountains & a crown video board up & it's pretty much fine with me.

NKC looks like they randomly tossed elements from Soldier Field's awful redo on MP without a roof & called it a day. It's hideous.

[Chris Stritzel]

Why does the NKC site come with a hotel and the EV site doesn't? I would think a hotel would just as important for the EV site.

A hotel comes with the East Village site. The site plan, if it's ever released, shows a hotel being on 12th Street.

[Jblanco]

So, make a retractable roof stadium facing west and open it once the sun goes down.

^^ this

[KCDowntown]

Here are the site plans taken from twitter - not the best graphics, sorry...

East Village
https://twitter.com/SamMcDowell11/statu ... 3983052952

NKC
https://twitter.com/SamMcDowell11/statu ... 4906547492

KCDowntown

[GRID]

The EV stadium looks like the K with modern takes. How anyone could compare that to the generic Marlins Park looking disaster on the other side is crazy. Put some more fountains & a crown video board up & it's pretty much fine with me.

NKC looks like they randomly tossed elements from Soldier Field's awful redo on MP without a roof & called it a day. It's hideous.

They have had months and months to apply some feedback like that to the EV renderings and they look basically the same as the renderings that have been around for a while. They added the bridge to Paseo West but in the meeting, they seem like they are totally hands off on what might happen there which means, it's very likely going to become cheap parking lots. They also mentioned that the EV site would be more commercial than residential. There is ZERO market for office space in cities right now.

At the same time, they went all out on a totally different design for NKC, it will have more revenue generating features a hotel and will be heavy on residential which is in heavy demand.

They may want to go to EV, but it looks to me like they are more actively pursuing the NKC site.

[KCMOJoe89]

From my perspective, everything about the process thus far says the Royals want to be downtown. They're dancing with Clay County because Jackson County hasn't exactly rolled out the red carpet (and committed to opening the wallet), but EV is their preferred site.

They talk about complementing P&L, having a positive impact on disadvantaged areas/communities, having a location that's not a traffic nightmare. All of this better describes EV than NKC.

Additionally, in the Q&A today the Royals said they want to ideally be playing in their new park by 2028 AND they wont break their lease. Sounds to me like they are just waiting for Jackson County to come grab them away from Clay County on the dance floor. This would also explain why they continue to be so vague on hard numbers as they want confirmation from Jackson County so they can make their numbers public. In the presser they mentioned the city of KC being great in the process and said John Sherman recently met with Frank White.

Clay County is getting a lot of air time from proponents and representatives, rightfully so, because they are clearly at a disadvantage in this process.

[DColeKC]

So, make a retractable roof stadium facing west and open it once the sun goes down.

^^ this

A retractable roof adds 500 million to the budget and just isn't worth it. Stadiums with retractable roofs look hideous when they're open.

[GRID]

Why does the NKC site come with a hotel and the EV site doesn't? I would think a hotel would just as important for the EV site.

A hotel comes with the East Village site. The site plan, if it's ever released, shows a hotel being on 12th Street.

Oh, okay, that's good. Is it just an added render or an actual part of the initial build plan? Many of the buildings in the EV rendering look to be added for looks (paseo west for and many of the buildings on the edge of the site) and not really anything real. Do you know what the Royals are actually building along with the stadium?

[GRID]

I was just hoping for a more creative rendering from KC's stadium design firms. Something that could help rotate the stadium around toward the city more. Get creative with the design to block any sun. I know it can be done.

[bhedges1987]

I was just hoping for a more creative rendering from KC's stadium design firms. Something that could help rotate the stadium around toward the city more. Get creative with the design to block any sun. I know it can be done.

honestly you would think with how packed it is on that side of the city if they rotated the stadium all the buildings would block the afternoon sun.

[DColeKC]

I was just hoping for a more creative rendering from KC's stadium design firms. Something that could help rotate the stadium around toward the city more. Get creative with the design to block any sun. I know it can be done.

Yeah, kind of blah at this point. I really hope it evolves into something far more iconic.

[Chris Stritzel]

Why does the NKC site come with a hotel and the EV site doesn't? I would think a hotel would just as important for the EV site.

A hotel comes with the East Village site. The site plan, if it's ever released, shows a hotel being on 12th Street.

Oh, okay, that's good. Is it just an added render or an actual part of the initial build plan? Many of the buildings in the EV rendering look to be added for looks (paseo west for and many of the buildings on the edge of the site) and not really anything real. Do you know what the Royals are actually building along with the stadium?

Screenshots from the press event. In the case of the East Village, everything rendered west of the highway would be under their control on day 1. Stuff In Paseo West could come later (unless they have an option to buy additional land). North KC is the same way. I could see the old bowling alley.go kart track, and security building all being built on, on day 1. But the other stuff, it's not clear to me.

[rxlexi]

Even with the more detailed renderings it's still hard to take these seriously, outside perhaps the stadium design specifically for East Village that's been floating around for a while. Every building and use outside of the stadiums themselves, in both sets of renderings, appears to be a placeholder that can/will change at any given moment going forward.

Was hoping we'd see a relatively concrete attached or adjacent design for at least a hotel or apartment tower for EV. I do still like the overall EV plan, stadium design, and especially the pedestrian bridge.

Then re: NKC, as Chris said, there is no way the team or friendly partners will be acquiring the land necessary to make that vision for the NKC site a reality - they show literally every existing building from Armour to 16th Ave and Erie to I-29/35 cleared and replaced. It's a cool concept that could be refined further, but nearly impossible to consider it in the realm of reality. And just dropping the stadium alone into the middle of NKC is lame; I would want to see something of this scale (lake/park/fountains) if the stadium is heading north, something that couldn't be accomplished at EV.

Love all the pretty pictures, but I guess we really are still in wait and see mode...

[beautyfromashes]

A retractable roof adds 500 million to the budget and just isn't worth it. Stadiums with retractable roofs look hideous when they're open.

First, it add about $100M to the cost of a stadium for a retractable roof. Second, we have the best design firms in the world located here. Surely, we can design the best retractable roof baseball stadium ever.