Downtown Baseball Stadium

[DColeKC]

How many times do I need to say something before it's listened to? I've said it about 20 different ways that there will be losers in this and that it's a sad reality. I've tried to preface dozens of times that by not kowtowing to this specific business owner, I'm not trying to not have empathy. She's got thousands of people to bite on her social media, she doesn't need me. She does in fact have some legitimate concerns, no disagreement there and she can stick to those things as her reason why this should happen while leaving the misinformation out of it.

I don't want to devolve this thread into a critique of how you write about things but you only ever offer these "prefaces" seemingly as a means to make yourself not sound like an asshole, not because you actually care or believe them. If you did, you wouldn't be posting time after time about how a small business owner defending her business and employees isn't being factual enough for you. Like, somebody with empathy doesn't need to "try" to have empathy.

Someone with empathy shouldn't have to prove it. I'm not sure when we started dumbing down as a society but I can be empathetic and supportive, even bullish about this at the same time. I can call someone out for using misinformation to their advantage while also understanding they have valid points. I don't argue that her business could be harmed or even ruined. Where I seem to fall into the asshole category is when I say the quiet part out loud.... the resulting stadium and impact is worth it.

I've had more shots of rumple mints with a friend and directly impacted business owner over the last week than I've had in a decade while discussing this. Guy goes from near tears to smiles as our conversation stretches later into the evening. I get that it's bitter sweet for some, sad for others and existing as hell for many. Thus my comment that were will be some losers.

I've only posted in here about the one particular owner because of her inaccurate twisting of information or flat out wrong comments. I did this thinking most people would find this morally fucked but that's not entirely the case. I should have known she has some fanboys in here.

I'd just like to keep the debate honest and not further damage or perpetuate the inaccurate thoughts that downtown has suffered from for years. Namely, traffic and parking combined with it's dangerous.

[dnweava]

Why is it so damn hard for the Royals to get out in front of all these issues? Like how hard would it be for them to do some short form content that is shareable on social media or a youtube video that addresses all the major concerns or even just throw out some olive branches by addressing the issues, I mean they can spend a million on the PR campaign, they can spend a little of that money on relocating those businesses and would probably get an even better ROI, I can put zero effort into this and build them a campaign off the top of my head, here you go royals....

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You: Worried about the arts scene
Royals: we will work with MLB to avoid home games on first Fridays and use an event space in the stadiums as an gallery showcasing local artists. We will play short films from local artists on the new crown vision on first Fridays. (I mean it's not that hard to come up with a ton of easy ways the Royals could use the stadium to compliment first fridays)

You: worried about parking, have you seen the KC Current parking prices?
Royals: we got you covered fam, use this parking app, ride the streetcar to this stop, ride one of these 30 or 40 bus routes with no transfers from your neighborhood to the bus depot 3 blocks from the stadium, etc. There are 40k parking spots within x number of feet of the stadium and supply and demand will mean they are fighting for you businesses which will mean reasonable parking prices within blocks of the stadium

You: but the busses don't run often or late
Royals: we are already working with KCATA to make sure every route runs late on gamedays

You: But you are closing oak and that is a dealbreaker
Royals: fine, we will keep it open, sheesshhh

You: we don't like that you are displacing small businesses
Royals: we are working with their landlords to make sure they find new homes and are paying each business 10k for relocation expenses.

You: But what about parking for local businesses
Royals: our games are mostly at night, and many of the street parking spots are 30min to 1hour only parking spots so game attendees won't be able to use them without getting ticketed and/or towed so those will remain open for local business customers.

You: But we like the K.
Royals: Downtown baseball is the Bee's Knees. Ask your friends from Tulsa, Wichta, Omaha, Springfield, STL, etc about downtown baseball, they all love it and you will too because it's fun as hell and better than watching semi trucks drive by during a game.

You: But I hate billionaires and capitalism is crushing my generation that can no longer afford rent..
Royals: we get it, but um.. yea, I got no rebuttle for this one. maybe tell KC Tenants to stop blocking every new development.

You: But you deserve to be shot into the sun for putting ads on a baseball jersey
Royals: don't worry, there is a special place in hell for the people who ruin the sanctity of baseball. The person who invented the DH rule is already there suffering.

You: I use terms like "sportsball" when discussing the stadium online
Royals: you are insufferable and need to touch grass... hey there will be a free public park over the highway where you can go touch grass.

[DColeKC]

^ I will say I drove down Oak today and I understand the desire to keep it open. Tunneling it wouldn't be idea because it would still be closed down on game days. It would be ideal if it somehow wrapped all the way around the village portion so it could remain open.

Oak staying open likely means this could go beyond Locust.

[grovester]

Why is it so damn hard for the Royals to get out in front of all these issues? Like how hard would it be for them to do some short form content that is shareable on social media or a youtube video that addresses all the major concerns or even just throw out some olive branches by addressing the issues, I mean they can spend a million on the PR campaign, they can spend a little of that money on relocating those businesses and would probably get an even better ROI, I can put zero effort into this and build them a campaign off the top of my head, here you go royals....

-------------------------

You: Worried about the arts scene
Royals: we will work with MLB to avoid home games on first Fridays and use an event space in the stadiums as an gallery showcasing local artists. We will play short films from local artists on the new crown vision on first Fridays. (I mean it's not that hard to come up with a ton of easy ways the Royals could use the stadium to compliment first fridays)

You: worried about parking, have you seen the KC Current parking prices?
Royals: we got you covered fam, use this parking app, ride the streetcar to this stop, ride one of these 30 or 40 bus routes with no transfers from your neighborhood to the bus depot 3 blocks from the stadium, etc. There are 40k parking spots within x number of feet of the stadium and supply and demand will mean they are fighting for you businesses which will mean reasonable parking prices within blocks of the stadium

You: but the busses don't run often or late
Royals: we are already working with KCATA to make sure every route runs late on gamedays

You: But you are closing oak and that is a dealbreaker
Royals: fine, we will keep it open, sheesshhh

You: we don't like that you are displacing small businesses
Royals: we are working with their landlords to make sure they find new homes and are paying each business 10k for relocation expenses.

You: But what about parking for local businesses
Royals: our games are mostly at night, and many of the street parking spots are 30min to 1hour only parking spots so game attendees won't be able to use them without getting ticketed and/or towed so those will remain open for local business customers.

You: But we like the K.
Royals: Downtown baseball is the Bee's Knees. Ask your friends from Tulsa, Wichta, Omaha, Springfield, STL, etc about downtown baseball, they all love it and you will too because it's fun as hell and better than watching semi trucks drive by during a game.

You: But I hate billionaires and capitalism is crushing my generation that can no longer afford rent..
Royals: we get it, but um.. yea, I got no rebuttle for this one. maybe tell KC Tenants to stop blocking every new development.

You: But you deserve to be shot into the sun for putting ads on a baseball jersey
Royals: don't worry, there is a special place in hell for the people who ruin the sanctity of baseball. The person who invented the DH rule is already there suffering.

You: I use terms like "sportsball" when discussing the stadium online
Royals: you are insufferable and need to touch grass... hey there will be a free public park over the highway where you can go touch grass.

Whichever way anyone is going to vote, got to agree that this was a great post.

[dnweava]

^ I will say I drove down Oak today and I understand the desire to keep it open. Tunneling it wouldn't be idea because it would still be closed down on game days. It would be ideal if it somehow wrapped all the way around the village portion so it could remain open.

Oak staying open likely means this could go beyond Locust.

DO IT! Heck, they could even go all the way to Cherry or Holmes with their village. Oak is the critical street.

[moderne]

Easy peasey. Would change a few votes to aye. Any hotel,apartments,offices across the street will most probably (it Is Kansas City) be sitting on a parking podium so there would be still good views into the ball park.

[DaveKCMO]

The KC Current parking thing is going to be the nail in the coffin for this stadium. Jesus. First the shooting at the parade and now everybody thinks it will cost at least $50 to park. What next?, a family accidentally drives their SUV off the top of a downtown parking structure?

The Current stadium will be a mess till the area is more developed and has parking structure and the streetcar opens. When those happen, there will be plenty of affordable and never free options to park for that stadium. In the mean time, the Current should do what it takes to get the cost for parking down to a reasonable price.

The city jacked up on-street parking along the super bowl parade route to $40/hr and we didn't hear a peep.

[Eon Blue]

Why is it so damn hard for the Royals to get out in front of all these issues? Like how hard would it be for them to do some short form content that is shareable on social media or a youtube video that addresses all the major concerns or even just throw out some olive branches by addressing the issues, I mean they can spend a million on the PR campaign, they can spend a little of that money on relocating those businesses and would probably get an even better ROI, I can put zero effort into this and build them a campaign off the top of my head, here you go royals....

-------------------------

You: But you deserve to be shot into the sun for putting ads on a baseball jersey
Royals: don't worry, there is a special place in hell for the people who ruin the sanctity of baseball. The person who invented the DH rule is already there suffering.

You have my vote, Mr. Sherman!

[KCPowercat]

^ I will say I drove down Oak today and I understand the desire to keep it open. Tunneling it wouldn't be idea because it would still be closed down on game days. It would be ideal if it somehow wrapped all the way around the village portion so it could remain open.

Oak staying open likely means this could go beyond Locust.

Why would a tunnel matter for closing on gamedays? Going further east isn't much of a threat, there is less that way although FD is there so that would be another hurdle. City is much more likely to be okay losing Locust than Oak.

[DColeKC]

^ I will say I drove down Oak today and I understand the desire to keep it open. Tunneling it wouldn't be idea because it would still be closed down on game days. It would be ideal if it somehow wrapped all the way around the village portion so it could remain open.

Oak staying open likely means this could go beyond Locust.

Why would a tunnel matter for closing on gamedays? Going further east isn't much of a threat, there is less that way although FD is there so that would be another hurdle. City is much more likely to be okay losing Locust than Oak.

Well if simply going further east isn't a big deal, why does it matter if Oak goes away? I guess I was suggesting that if they'd like to truly keep Oak open, they should figure out a way to do so that wouldn't require it to be closed 100 days or more a year.

Btw, saw some surveying being done today on the site.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Why isn't there a concentrated push to counter misperceptions about parking?

One person's perceptions is their reality. And that reality is hard to fight.
Right now in the news the woman's soccer team is going to charge $50 to park in their lot. People see that and are wondering what parking costs will be to attend a downtown Royals game. At TSC the Royals control parking prices and keep the revenue. Downtown there will be no team control of parking prices with the revenue going to the parking lot operators and not the team.
There may not be a parking garage controlled by the team at the beginning but I can see the team eventually wanting to have one, or two.

[aknowledgeableperson]

This whole thing is just way too much about the Royals when it needs to be about the Chiefs

I don't think people are concerned about the Chiefs. If this vote fails there will soon be another structured differently.

[KCPowercat]

^ I will say I drove down Oak today and I understand the desire to keep it open. Tunneling it wouldn't be idea because it would still be closed down on game days. It would be ideal if it somehow wrapped all the way around the village portion so it could remain open.

Oak staying open likely means this could go beyond Locust.

Why would a tunnel matter for closing on gamedays? Going further east isn't much of a threat, there is less that way although FD is there so that would be another hurdle. City is much more likely to be okay losing Locust than Oak.

Well if simply going further east isn't a big deal, why does it matter if Oak goes away? I guess I was suggesting that if they'd like to truly keep Oak open, they should figure out a way to do so that wouldn't require it to be closed 100 days or more a year.

Btw, saw some surveying being done today on the site.

Because Oak is a bigger street that handles traffic. Locust is not. Closing Oak for 81 days for 5 hours is much more agreeable than 100% of 365 days.

[DColeKC]

^ Going to be more like 7 to 8 hours closed per game. 81 is bare minimum, well over 100 on a playoff year combined with a few summer concerts.

What I'm suggesting is finding a solution that doesn't require this. All home games start at 6:40pm or 1:10pm with rare exceptions.
1:10pm Games:
Oak closes: 11:00am
Oak Opens: 6:00pm

6:40pm Games:
Oak closes: 4pm
Oak Opens: 11pm

These are actually tight in the grand scheme of things, I'd expect longer closures.

It would be great if they could figure out a way where Oak bends over, joins locust before returning to oak. All between Truman and 17th.

I'm just thinking of a way to make everyone happy regarding Oak. Maybe there's no magic pill here.

[KCPowercat]

This is getting too in the weeds (along with the times being off for first pitch for most of the year). The whole goal here is find a way to keep Oak a street. This how many hours it's closed doesn't really matter. It's still a third of the year at most and not even all day at that, the city needs to keep Oak a street. Bigger cities can figure it out I'm quite sure KC can.

[DColeKC]

This is getting too in the weeds (along with the times being off for first pitch for most of the year). The whole goal here is find a way to keep Oak a street. This how many hours it's closed doesn't really matter. It's still a third of the year at most and not even all day at that, the city needs to keep Oak a street. Bigger cities can figure it out I'm quite sure KC can.

Weren't you one of the most vocal members on here talking about how little these stadiums are open vs how often they're dark and dormant, but now a "third of the year at most" isn't a big deal?

I'm literally saying they should try to figure out how to keep Oak a street by modifying it to not require a constant closure for game days. The best of both worlds. I want oak to remain too, but it's not possible to fit a MLB stadium within 600' of width which is the distance between Grand and Oak. Progressive Field is the smallest park in the league and it's 750' wide.

Oak can't remain in its current configuration. So if you're lobbying to keep it a street, it will need to be modified substantially.

[KCPowercat]

A third of the year is dark 67% of the year. That's a lot and one of the biggest reasons people don't want this in this location. My opinion hasn't changed here.

Totally agree let's find a way to keep oak open. Tunnel works too.

[dnweava]

^ Going to be more like 7 to 8 hours closed per game. 81 is bare minimum, well over 100 on a playoff year combined with a few summer concerts.

What I'm suggesting is finding a solution that doesn't require this. All home games start at 6:40pm or 1:10pm with rare exceptions.
1:10pm Games:
Oak closes: 11:00am
Oak Opens: 6:00pm

6:40pm Games:
Oak closes: 4pm
Oak Opens: 11pm

These are actually tight in the grand scheme of things, I'd expect longer closures.

It would be great if they could figure out a way where Oak bends over, joins locust before returning to oak. All between Truman and 17th.

I'm just thinking of a way to make everyone happy regarding Oak. Maybe there's no magic pill here.

Why did the royals move the start time up to 6:40 instead of 7:05 like they always had.

Being downtown I wonder if they will push it back? Then they could keep oak open til 4:30.

[KCPowercat]

To help families with school nights.

[aknowledgeableperson]

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=65DDF9D2

Not sure of the source for this downtown stadium redevelopment plan back in the early 60's.