Downtown Baseball Stadium

[Rusty Irish]

Seen a semi viral tweet today from another prominent local activist against this whilst a couple of posts later lording it up in a suite at the St. Louis Blues game earlier. Got to love the dedication to the grift.

[KCDowntown]

Sherman speaking about the effect of the stadium on the Crossroads area in this clip...

https://twitter.com/BallySportsKC/statu ... 3743631777

KCDowntown

[Belvidere]

It's still super disappointing in the leadership of KCMO (Platt, Q, etc) and JaxCo to make this backroom location "deal" with the Royals when the Royals were claiming to be so open with their fans and the taxpayers and all they knew it was EV, based on their own site as of a week ago. A few random rumors came out about this site but the general public wasn't very aware that this site was a real possibility. Didn't involve the neighborhood association which is well organized. Typical but disappointing.

There's so much more to how this all went down and I'm not making excuses for The Royals. One day, I've private message those who are interested and explain what I was privy to but that'll be after the shovel hits the dirt. It wasn't nefarious, it was just unorganized.

East Village is out, it's not the backup plan. If we want downtown baseball, East Crossroads is the only option. Maybe they'll say that when they start up their campaign.

But they've been thinking about this, supposedly, for years. There are articles going back at least a 2019 or so? Why would it be disorganized?

[DColeKC]

It's still super disappointing in the leadership of KCMO (Platt, Q, etc) and JaxCo to make this backroom location "deal" with the Royals when the Royals were claiming to be so open with their fans and the taxpayers and all they knew it was EV, based on their own site as of a week ago. A few random rumors came out about this site but the general public wasn't very aware that this site was a real possibility. Didn't involve the neighborhood association which is well organized. Typical but disappointing.

There's so much more to how this all went down and I'm not making excuses for The Royals. One day, I've private message those who are interested and explain what I was privy to but that'll be after the shovel hits the dirt. It wasn't nefarious, it was just unorganized.

East Village is out, it's not the backup plan. If we want downtown baseball, East Crossroads is the only option. Maybe they'll say that when they start up their campaign.

But they've been thinking about this, supposedly, for years. There are articles going back at least a 2019 or so? Why would it be disorganized?

Hate to be obtuse but it's complicated. This is what I hope to shed some light on one day.

[FlippantCitizen]

Well, I'm trying to be clear that these are my opinions as to not hurt feelings but.... I think it makes for a fucking fantastic experience for people who will go to the games and enjoy downtown. The main entrance to the stadium is at ground level on the south side along Grand. There are multiple points of entry at ground level and nice, wide sidewalks too.

I also enjoy having a way to cross traffic safely that doesn't requiring shutting down streets, so there's that.

I actually like the bridge element well enough and think it's great for people attending games, totally in agreement with you there. I'm talking about the closing of Oak being a net negative for pedestrians. If this is the site that is fated then keeping Oak is a hill I would be willing to would die on. I think the hotel, offices etc. need to be pushed across a maintained Oak and not attached to the stadium thereby creating a bigger superblock. The bigger the superblock, the worse for pedestrians. The bigger the thing you have to walk around the more of a pain in the ass it is if you're just trying to live your life and get from A to B. Not everyone downtown will be going to a game, for most people on most days it will be an obstacle not an experience they are participating in.

[Highlander]

There's so much more to how this all went down and I'm not making excuses for The Royals. One day, I've private message those who are interested and explain what I was privy to but that'll be after the shovel hits the dirt. It wasn't nefarious, it was just unorganized.

East Village is out, it's not the backup plan. If we want downtown baseball, East Crossroads is the only option. Maybe they'll say that when they start up their campaign.

But they've been thinking about this, supposedly, for years. There are articles going back at least a 2019 or so? Why would it be disorganized?

Hate to be obtuse but it's complicated. This is what I hope to shed some light on one day.

I would expect it to be very complicated. I've been involved in planning 100 million dollar plus investments for my company where we had significantly more control over the process than Sherman does in downtown KC and still there were thousands of moving parts. Working with partners, all of whom had different concepts of the way forward, changing political environments, not to mention the technical aspects etc... It's par for the course in the business world.

[DColeKC]

Well, I'm trying to be clear that these are my opinions as to not hurt feelings but.... I think it makes for a fucking fantastic experience for people who will go to the games and enjoy downtown. The main entrance to the stadium is at ground level on the south side along Grand. There are multiple points of entry at ground level and nice, wide sidewalks too.

I also enjoy having a way to cross traffic safely that doesn't requiring shutting down streets, so there's that.

I actually like the bridge element well enough and think it's great for people attending games, totally in agreement with you there. I'm talking about the closing of Oak being a net negative for pedestrians. If this is the site that is fated then keeping Oak is a hill I would be willing to would die on. I think the hotel, offices etc. need to be pushed across a maintained Oak and not attached to the stadium thereby creating a bigger superblock. The bigger the superblock, the worse for pedestrians. The bigger the thing you have to walk around the more of a pain in the ass it is if you're just trying to live your life and get from A to B. Not everyone downtown will be going to a game, for most people on most days it will be an obstacle not an experience they are participating in.

Honest question and not trying to be dismissive. If someone is walking down Oak, heading south with intentions to go further into the crossroads. Is walking west 580 feet to get to Grand a major deal? Or 306 feet to get to Locust?

I don’t do a great deal of walking outside of recreational purposes downtown. So I’m unfamiliar with what kind of inconvenience this may be.

[Chris Stritzel]

Honest question and not trying to be dismissive. If someone is walking down Oak, heading south with intentions to go further into the crossroads. Is walking west 580 feet to get to Grand a major deal? Or 306 feet to get to Locust?

I don’t do a great deal of walking outside of recreational purposes downtown. So I’m unfamiliar with what kind of inconvenience this may be.

I've walked every street in greater downtown since moving down here in June and to me, it's not that big of an inconvenience. I'd prefer to keep Oak open though for pedestrian connections, especially if new stuff is built. Right now, there's just not much going on on Oak or Locust between Truman and 17th to make the trek through that area worthwhile.

[KCPowercat]

You’d have to think the teams will release details of the plan before the vote. If they don’t and lose the vote it’ll be their own fault. To me, transparency is an issue because we’ve had problems with stadium leases in the past where teams threatened to leave due to obscure language. The best way to button down a legal contract is to have more people look at and question it.

Voting as started though!

[KCPowercat]

It's still super disappointing in the leadership of KCMO (Platt, Q, etc) and JaxCo to make this backroom location "deal" with the Royals when the Royals were claiming to be so open with their fans and the taxpayers and all they knew it was EV, based on their own site as of a week ago. A few random rumors came out about this site but the general public wasn't very aware that this site was a real possibility. Didn't involve the neighborhood association which is well organized. Typical but disappointing.

There's so much more to how this all went down and I'm not making excuses for The Royals. One day, I've private message those who are interested and explain what I was privy to but that'll be after the shovel hits the dirt. It wasn't nefarious, it was just unorganized.

East Village is out, it's not the backup plan. If we want downtown baseball, East Crossroads is the only option. Maybe they'll say that when they start up their campaign.

They don't need you to help them or make excuses either. Just call it what it is, they failed at their promise of keeping this transparent and undercut a neighborhood. talk about being the bad new neighbor.

[KCPowercat]

Honest question and not trying to be dismissive. If someone is walking down Oak, heading south with intentions to go further into the crossroads. Is walking west 580 feet to get to Grand a major deal? Or 306 feet to get to Locust?

I don’t do a great deal of walking outside of recreational purposes downtown. So I’m unfamiliar with what kind of inconvenience this may be.

I've walked every street in greater downtown since moving down here in June and to me, it's not that big of an inconvenience. I'd prefer to keep Oak open though for pedestrian connections, especially if new stuff is built. Right now, there's just not much going on on Oak or Locust between Truman and 17th to make the trek through that area worthwhile.

It may not be a big deal to walk that for those of us who do walk. That still doesn't make it easy for everyone and mega blocks are bad urban design. it's city planning 101.

[beautyfromashes]

Voting as started though!

Which makes the process look SO dysfunctional. It’s almost like an online poll: “Do you want a new stadium?”, except this is monumental decision for the city, so much can go wrong or right. What was the rush?!

[KCPowercat]

Sherman speaking about the effect of the stadium on the Crossroads area in this clip...

https://twitter.com/BallySportsKC/statu ... 3743631777

KCDowntown

Like what he's saying. I've met him a couple times through mutual friends and I believe he's authentic here. I just hope those words are backed up by action.

[FlippantCitizen]

Honest question and not trying to be dismissive. If someone is walking down Oak, heading south with intentions to go further into the crossroads. Is walking west 580 feet to get to Grand a major deal? Or 306 feet to get to Locust?

I don’t do a great deal of walking outside of recreational purposes downtown. So I’m unfamiliar with what kind of inconvenience this may be.

From my experience the finer grain the street grid is in a city or neighborhood there is a high degree of correlation to good pedestrian experience. Big institutional uses like hospitals, convention centers, sports venues, etc. that take up outsized footprints requiring superblocks, or areas with massive blocks to begin with correlate strongly to poor pedestrian experience. If you were walking down Oak from the loop and wanted to go to International Tap house or Brewery Imperial, e.g. destinations also on Oak then you need to double those distances that you go out of your way because you have to also cut back on the other side.

Additionally the insult to a pedestrian is greater when passing inactive spaces and despite the possibility of some retail/restaurant frontage built into the stadium (not sure on that) the majority of the stadium frontage will as presumably be inactive space (to non ticket holders and on non gamedays). I mean there's a reason everyone agrees the Star Building is a disaster for the flow and liveliness of the area, and replacing it with a bigger block that is inactive (granted not all the time like it is currently) at least most of the time would be to double down on a problem.

I see your vision Dcole of the "gameday experience" for the ticket holder on a beautiful June night. I'm just imploring everyone to think about what this does to the area on a night in February or any of the 284 nights there is no game, or the 18 hrs of even the game days that nothing is really happening either. It's basically a huge deadzone, IMO it should be more peripheral (EV). And if it has to be in the Crossroads it should be as easy for pedestrians, cyclists, and busses to navigate around and bypass as possible.

[moderne]

Correct. It's not rocket science.

[KCPowercat]

Honest question and not trying to be dismissive. If someone is walking down Oak, heading south with intentions to go further into the crossroads. Is walking west 580 feet to get to Grand a major deal? Or 306 feet to get to Locust?

I don’t do a great deal of walking outside of recreational purposes downtown. So I’m unfamiliar with what kind of inconvenience this may be.

From my experience the finer grain the street grid is in a city or neighborhood there is a high degree of correlation to good pedestrian experience. Big institutional uses like hospitals, convention centers, sports venues, etc. that take up outsized footprints requiring superblocks, or areas with massive blocks to begin with correlate strongly to poor pedestrian experience. If you were walking down Oak from the loop and wanted to go to International Tap house or Brewery Imperial, e.g. destinations also on Oak then you need to double those distances that you go out of your way because you have to also cut back on the other side.

Additionally the insult to a pedestrian is greater when passing inactive spaces and despite the possibility of some retail/restaurant frontage built into the stadium (not sure on that) the majority of the stadium frontage will as presumably be inactive space (to non ticket holders and on non gamedays). I mean there's a reason everyone agrees the Star Building is a disaster for the flow and liveliness of the area, and replacing it with a bigger block that is inactive (granted not all the time like it is currently) at least most of the time would be to double down on a problem.

I see your vision Dcole of the "gameday experience" for the ticket holder on a beautiful June night. I'm just imploring everyone to think about what this does to the area on a night in February or any of the 284 nights there is no game, or the 18 hrs of even the game days that nothing is really happening either. It's basically a huge deadzone, IMO it should be more peripheral (EV). And if it has to be in the Crossroads it should be as easy for pedestrians, cyclists, and busses to navigate around and bypass as possible.

Great points..if we are in this location it has to have non game activity and interaction.

[DColeKC]

It's still super disappointing in the leadership of KCMO (Platt, Q, etc) and JaxCo to make this backroom location "deal" with the Royals when the Royals were claiming to be so open with their fans and the taxpayers and all they knew it was EV, based on their own site as of a week ago. A few random rumors came out about this site but the general public wasn't very aware that this site was a real possibility. Didn't involve the neighborhood association which is well organized. Typical but disappointing.

There's so much more to how this all went down and I'm not making excuses for The Royals. One day, I've private message those who are interested and explain what I was privy to but that'll be after the shovel hits the dirt. It wasn't nefarious, it was just unorganized.

East Village is out, it's not the backup plan. If we want downtown baseball, East Crossroads is the only option. Maybe they'll say that when they start up their campaign.

They don't need you to help them or make excuses either. Just call it what it is, they failed at their promise of keeping this transparent and undercut a neighborhood. talk about being the bad new neighbor.

I'm not making excuses for them, I'm simply saying that there's more to this than a simple idea that the Royals failed this and that. I understand the idea of wanting transparency but at the same time, if these deals were transparent from the beginning, they'd never gain the average voters confidence because they get insanely crazy at times behind the scenes. The biggest failure and once again, this isn't solely on the Royals is just not having everything detailed and buttoned up. They should have had the PR campaign, media buys and everything ready to go same day as the press conference.Than again, they're a baseball team, not developers. It would have benefited them to talk to a developer months, actually, years ago instead of trying to go at it alone. It's costing them.

[Belvidere]

https://globalsportmatters.com/business ... s-stadium/

[KCPowercat]

Transparency was their mantra, not my request. Weird you keep carrying their water just because you got the site you wanted. Both things can be true.we all know these deals take back room dealing but to never make their site public on their own site until it was selected is just a failure. End of sentence. Even Sherman slides to it in his comments.

Moving on.

[Highlander]

https://globalsportmatters.com/business ... s-stadium/

If you dig into the associations of the author, you will find that he's affiliated with a right wing conservative organization (The American Enterprise Institute) with some Libertarian's tendencies that fundamentally opposes public/private partnerships as such. By all means read but take don't expect an unbiased conclusion.