Downtown Baseball Stadium

[DMNBT_RCJH]

Already seeing people, at least in my limited circle, more excited about this site on the interwebs than either of the other two.

One would hope the city would not need to resort to eminent domain and condemnation proceedings for holdout properties to be acquired, but they ostensibly could as Missouri’s eminent domain laws are way less restrictive than many other states.

But does any party want another Kelo fight?

Talk about bad press and years of litigation.

[droopy]

Makes me a bigger fan of Madison Fitch. I’ve bought a couple things from their Stitch store and they have been excellent to deal with. I also have zero faith in some of the larger crossroads landowners to build garages. They will level buildings for surface lots before building a garage. I’m thinking of the large pay-lot across from Grinders and the owners quote of saying it’s a hot area so he replaced the lot and put in a pay for parking gate. Visionary stuff.

[wahoowa]

i love this godforsaken trash receptacle of a ballclub and still think 80 nights a year isn't enough activation to warrant the conversion of an imperfect but functional corner of the neighborhood into a big open air empty room for 75% of the year surrounded by a bunch of parking infrastructure. put it in dead space and build something special around it if you want something special around it or go F off to a burb somewhere.

[DColeKC]

Makes me a bigger fan of Madison Fitch. I’ve bought a couple things from their Stitch store and they have been excellent to deal with. I also have zero faith in some of the larger crossroads landowners to build garages. They will level buildings for surface lots before building a garage. I’m thinking of the large pay-lot across from Grinders and the owners quote of saying it’s a hot area so he replaced the lot and put in a pay for parking gate. Visionary stuff.

Look to Atlanta and The Battery as a prime example of how you can do this without ample surface lots.

[GRID]

I am back and forth on this. I mean I don't really get the love for the area around the star building. I just don't see it as a very thriving area and the building stock is extremely meh and it's still at least half surface parking lots.

I mean I hate the idea of tearing down buildings in general, but there is just not that much to lose there. The benefit is the stadium will be surrounded by pretty dense existing development right off the bat and will be so much closer (IRL or just mentally) to so much more stuff (P&L, Crossroads, 670 park, Crown Center, Union Station, 18th and Vine etc.

I just do not see the EV area developing into much of anything substantial. I see a stadium and a ton of parking and maybe one or two small residential projects. This idea that high-rises will be built all around a new EV stadium is a pipe dream IMO. By the time even a few blocks are developed into anything decent, the stadium will in need of a renovation. Look at the Sprint Center.

I just think the only way KC gets this urban stadium it wants is to place the stadium in an already developed urban area. That's just my opinion based on watching development happen around every other stadium in the country and KC is still a very slow growth city so KC would be worse than most other cities.

I would support the EV if that's what the Royals went with, but I don't think many are going to be happy with that location in 10-15 years.



Regardless, it's late November 2023 and even people on this forum are all over the place and in disagreement about the location of the stadium enough so that they probably wouldn't support the stadium's construction.

No matter what this is going to be a difficult and uphill battle to get this stadium built and even then it seems like there will be a lot of unhappy people no matter where it ends up.

[TheLastGentleman]

[UMKCroo]

Ive never been particularly excited about EV, ultimately seems like a much heavier lift to make it interesting, but of course miles ahead of TSC. If the crossroads location is doable, way more exciting and synergistic IMHO. How that land gets assembled I have no idea, and I have yet to see a serious proposed footprint or autopsy of which businesses will be lost. Ill personally head the relocation committee for any business that wants to relocate into any of the countless open retail spaces in the neighborhood. Im not advocating for eminent domain, but if they can do this and take care of the few businesses who are long term members of the community, seems like a major win. And as dcole said, could finally free up the EV location for non-baseball development.

[KCPowercat]

Would be a colossal waste to utilize that site, which is predominantly occupied buildings, instead of infilling the massive gaping hole in our downtown area, but that’s just me…

I get it. I guess I'm just curious to see what they come up with.

Wait when I said this same thing you said this area wasn't thriving and not worth holding back $2B development. ?

None of this would be built over the highest, come on.

[KCPowercat]

Would be an amazing location. Imagine it being tied to the 670 park.

Then just let the East Village build out, maybe around a new soccer stadium.

Please don't tear out a thriving neighborhood. Imagine the parking and access to highway bitching from there as well.

That's a strange way to look at it. I see it as adding to a thriving neighborhood and adding to the billions we've already invested in downtown opposed to creating a new little neighborhood that would just compete with all we've already invested in.

Parking and highway access would be addressed and this could be a far better deal for the tax payers.

The royals want to build a district around their stadium right? Either way there is going to be a creation of a neighborhood. Tearing out active 10 blocks is not adding to the neighborhood.

Addressed by added expense for both highway and parking. Both already exists in much better condition already in EV and would cost much less to address.

[KCPowercat]

Ive never been particularly excited about EV, ultimately seems like a much heavier lift to make it interesting, but of course miles ahead of TSC. If the crossroads location is doable, way more exciting and synergistic IMHO. How that land gets assembled I have no idea, and I have yet to see a serious proposed footprint or autopsy of which businesses will be lost. Ill personally head the relocation committee for any business that wants to relocate into any of the countless open retail spaces in the neighborhood. Im not advocating for eminent domain, but if they can do this and take care of the few businesses who are long term members of the community, seems like a major win. And as dcole said, could finally free up the EV location for non-baseball development.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Are us urban focused people on this site actually in favor of ripping out another swath of the few areas we actually have active and built up organically? All while another big empty swath sits there ready to go? It just seems to go against every bit of logic of this site so I assume I'm missing something.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Talk about a monkey wrench thrown into the process. The Royals had what 5 sites that were narrowed down to two and now one of the five is added back in.
This whole process looks more and more like a botched operation.

[FangKC]

I'm with you KCPowercat. I'm opposed to ripping out more existing built environment when development of the EV has been held up for years, and a huge part of the Downtown Loop has already been assembled and cleared anticipating a stadium there.

I'm opposed to demolishing older retail buildings that have active businesses in them. People seem to assume that these businesses will stay downtown if forced out. Many of them probably won't and some may just shut down entirely. That little stretch of older retail on the east side of Grand south of Truman provides something we have very little of Downtown: cheap retail spaces that allow organic small restaurants and bars to operate that aren't copy-and-paste chains that are in every Cordish development. These businesses pay sales and property taxes to the City without needing subsidies for bond payments!

Some on this forum NEVER learn the lessons of downtown redevelopment even though we have entire threads on how demolition often does more damage than it fixes.

Not only that, demolishing all these additional buildings adds to landfill. The Metro has a problem right now finding new locations to place landfill as our current facilities are nearing capacity.

[TheUrbanRoo]

Two things can be true:

-The Crossroads site would be way cooler and more iconic than the E.V. site

-The EV site is still better for the overall downtown because it’s an empty hole and we don’t have to tear anything down


We have too many empty gaps in downtown to be tearing down existing active buildings for a project like this. Even if it would be way cooler.

[TheUrbanRoo]

The most slam dunk scorched earth idea of all time would be putting the Royals at the KC Star site and the new Arrowhead in the East Village.

[Rusty Irish]

Heard tonight from credible source that Royals have competition for the EV site. They better stop messing around if they want that location. ::back to my hole::

In terms of a similar major development/masterplan? EV needs something of that nature as opposed to small piecemeal development IMO.

[beautyfromashes]

Heard tonight from credible source that Royals have competition for the EV site. They better stop messing around if they want that location. ::back to my hole::

In terms of a similar major development/masterplan? EV needs something of that nature as opposed to small piecemeal development IMO.

Similar use masterplan.

[DMNBT_RCJH]

Heard tonight from credible source that Royals have competition for the EV site. They better stop messing around if they want that location. ::back to my hole::

In terms of a similar major development/masterplan? EV needs something of that nature as opposed to small piecemeal development IMO.

Similar use masterplan.

Hmmmmph. Your source better be credible to be saying and alluding to things like that.

[Anthony_Hugo98]

Well, once a decision is made and if that decision isn't EV, you'd think the land bankers would have no reason to sit on it anymore and could get started on development. It's only never been developed because they've been planning for a baseball stadium for the last decade.

This would allow them to be move on.

Wrong. Two decades, at least.

Aren’t they committing to a 40 year lease?

[DColeKC]

This plan would address a major problem. The massive star press building that will never sell and be utilized in its current form. Sure, there are some businesses that would need to relocate but how do we know any of them are doing well? I’m not willing to agree that this particular section of the crossroads is “thriving”.

The royals wanted to build a big ballpark district but this shrinks the size of the development needed as it sits in or near a pre-existing entertainment district.

EV would have been developed by now if they weren’t holding out for the stadium. It’s not like it will never develop if a stadium doesn’t go there. The star press building will only ever go away for something huge like this. So pick your poison.

And this isn’t a monkey wrench tossed into the process. The process wasn’t processing. This could be a more viable option and certainly has more power backing it.

[DColeKC]

And let’s be honest. The existing buildings in the area being discussed will be developed at some point. Once the cap is done, the property adjoining or in close proximity becomes even more highly desirable for residential, commercial and office. Not putting the stadium here may delay this by a decade but it’s inevitable.