Downtown Baseball Stadium

[KCPowercat]

They said they were doing traffic studies not just for this for other projects coming too to see combined impact. It was posted here not too long ago. I mean obviously they would do that.

The question is do they do it and tell the traffic study people oak is closing so make the numbers look good enough or s true impact. We all know whomever you pay will tell you what you want to hear if you ask.

But we should trust this waiting to get to TIO committee and listening to staff. Lol

[GRID]

I am just genuinely curious as to how downtown would handle say a sold out event at T-Mobile at the same time as a decent crowd at a Royals game with all the different scenarios (Oak closed or open, Walnut closed or open etc).

I honestly think it would do fine even with Walnut, Oak and Grand closed. Downtown KC has the street capacity for probably ten times the normal daily traffic it currently gets. Even back in the 1980's, the streets were so much busier than they are now. And streets like Paseo were built to carry 50,000 cars a day and they used to in the 50s. I doubt Paseo cracks 15k today.

It would require modifications to other streets, better traffic control, forcing people to use specific exits during events, but I really don't see a major problem. I would bet closing Oak would do little, however it would be nice to at least keep it open as pedestrian and bike access otherwise, that's a huge superblock to have to walk around.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

I am just genuinely curious as to how downtown would handle say a sold out event at T-Mobile at the same time as a decent crowd at a Royals game with all the different scenarios (Oak closed or open, Walnut closed or open etc).

I honestly think it would do fine even with Walnut, Oak and Grand closed. Downtown KC has the street capacity for probably ten times the normal daily traffic it currently gets. Even back in the 1980's, the streets were so much busier than they are now. And streets like Paseo were built to carry 50,000 cars a day and they used to in the 50s. I doubt Paseo cracks 15k today.

It would require modifications to other streets, better traffic control, forcing people to use specific exits during events, but I really don't see a major problem. I would bet closing Oak would do little, however it would be nice to at least keep it open as pedestrian and bike access otherwise, that's a huge superblock to have to walk around.

Car traffic would be fine. But, the streetcar wouldn't. I don't care if there's occasional gridlock or slow moving for cars but any additional event/rush hour traffic on Main will screw streetcar operations for the entire route to UMKC. Also, echo the concerns about the super block for cyclists and pedestrians.

If Oak closes, I don't see how Grand can continue to close like it does. Big 12 tournament, sure, but just a normal event there? No. With Walnut, Grand and Oak closed, most N/S traffic through that area would divert to Main unless it's so backed up, people drive out of their way to avoid it. If we have to close a street in the park, I feel like it should be Main (except the streetcar) and keep the other streets open but that was never even presented as an option.

[GRID]

Need to make Main only accessible only for those accessing businesses, hotels etc on Main. Discourage through traffic on it. Right turns only. Big problem with doing that now is they have put the tracks in the curb lanes instead of center running. That means even cars using Main for local access and (all traffic must turn off main at every signal) will block the trams.

Building that thing in the curb lanes is going to haunt KC forever.

[DColeKC]

This is personal. This isn’t an attempt to change votes. I’m only being realistic and at some point you have to trust the people who actually make these things come to life. I don’t disagree that more details about the CBA would be nice but where I disagree is that we need more details or commitments on various aspects of the overall plan and design at this point. We have processes in place that require plans to be submitted and approved. The community can make their voices heard via city orgs, elected officials and committees. If closing Oak is a deal breaker, make sure your elected officials know this as they have the ability to deny that approval. Why do we need the royals to say right now that they won’t close it? If making sure Main isn’t negatively impacted is your concern, make sure your elected officials know this so they can address it as traffic management plans are submitted for approval. Why do we need the full plan from the royals now?

At some point, you have to trust the process and realize how to push for what you want while also knowing you won’t get it all. Voting no before we can even get into the weeds isn’t the move. It’s just small city nimby par for the course bullshit. In my personal opinion of course.

This vote isn’t a free pass for the royals to go and do whatever they want with no input from the community. It’s a baby step needed to even get serious about everyone’s opinions.

I would absolutely love to see you blow a gasket because some committee holds up the stadium over a technical code issue. Would you be trusting the process in that case? Honestly, the potential of that is swinging me to yes more than anything you've said.

You know how many times I've had to go back and modify plans due to them not being approved by a committee? More times than I've wanted to forget this site exists! I had a major design element canned and completely denied via a committee that has zero to do with zoning, planning, building or development. So yeah, I've blown gaskets but I'm familiar with the process and don't think we should be deciding as citizens anything at this point other than the question on the ballot. There are other mechanisms to offer your input besides simply voting no on step 1 and delaying this project to the point of some members of this forum being dead before opening day.

[DColeKC]

Not saying the traffic concerns aren't valid but this is a fairly simple thing to manage. It will cost the event hosts money, but that's the price of putting games and events downtown.

Police will man certain exits that will funnel incoming traffic to the specific event they're going to. Outbound traffic will be protected and managed to not overlap with incoming traffic. New permanent signage will need to go up and a lot of temporary, portable type signage will be deployed on game days and scaled up when there are multiple events.

Main will be highly protected, people don't need to travel down main to get anywhere. They only need to cross it to get in and out of downtown. Figuring out how to only allow access for those who are going to a business or location on Main will be difficult but possible. Ideally, you prevent all outgoing work traffic away from main and that direction in general.

It's a topic that's been discussed for a few years now, including the future of Grand closures when and if a baseball stadium happens.

[aknowledgeableperson]

"That's just it, there are many out there that do not trust it will be done right. Especially not much trust in city leaders."

Let me explain this more. There is a certain segment of Kansas City who definitely don't trust Mayor Lucas and other city leaders. Their take is Lucas and others are leading the city in the wrong direction, he blows off their concerns and he is more concerned about future public office after his term is up. With regards to the county don't have to say more than the property reassessment fiasco. With regards to the Royals well two things come to mind. Results on the field tied in subsidizing rich folks to make them money. Plus if the Chiefs don't need a new stadium then why do the Royals. Some of pointed out the sales tax money is not all of the public money the team owners need. The city is expected to commit an unknown amount of money which the city hasn't committed yet. Also the state is expected to commit money and that hasn't been approved by the state.
And there are a few that want to separate the requests by the teams. There is no problem with the Chiefs, recent proven results on the field along with the team staying put at TSC. And it been discussed many times about what is wrong with the Royals and their request.

[DColeKC]

"That's just it, there are many out there that do not trust it will be done right. Especially not much trust in city leaders."

Let me explain this more. There is a certain segment of Kansas City who definitely don't trust Mayor Lucas and other city leaders. Their take is Lucas and others are leading the city in the wrong direction, he blows off their concerns and he is more concerned about future public office after his term is up. With regards to the county don't have to say more than the property reassessment fiasco. With regards to the Royals well two things come to mind. Results on the field tied in subsidizing rich folks to make them money. Plus if the Chiefs don't need a new stadium then why do the Royals. Some of pointed out the sales tax money is not all of the public money the team owners need. The city is expected to commit an unknown amount of money which the city hasn't committed yet. Also the state is expected to commit money and that hasn't been approved by the state.
And there are a few that want to separate the requests by the teams. There is no problem with the Chiefs, recent proven results on the field along with the team staying put at TSC. And it been discussed many times about what is wrong with the Royals and their request.

Here's my take on this:

There will always be those who don't trust city leadership regardless of who it is. I don't know how the county messed up the property tax situation but I'm also not sure how that topic and this stadium topic coexist. Seems like two separate issues all together but I understand taxpayers being upset with them over property taxes and using it as a reason to vote no.

As for the Chiefs stadium being ok and the Royals not. That's so simple. It's about the math and 50 years worth of data. The Chiefs have a loyal fanbase that's not so dependent on winning. Yes, we've been spoiled lately but that's not always been the case yet people still show up when they're bad. The 2008 Chiefs were 2 and 14 but still came in at 5th in the league in attendance. They don't have a stadium location issue like the Royals do. The Royals struggle to get out of the bottom 8 in MLB attendance unless they're just crushing it.

I don't think we need the details at this point on the other funding mechanisms. We're not voting on that portion. The city and state won't waste time talking numbers if the teams can't get past step one. I think it only takes some common sense to assume the city and state have privately committed to helping fund these projects.

[KC_Ari]

The concern is still closing Oak. Sure, today it doesn't have alot of traffic. What does that look like in 10 years? 20? 50? If the stadium fulfills the hope of spurring growth to fill all of the lots in the Crossroads and the loop as part of a massive growth spurt for the city, how does it look then? I don't want to have to be fighting to keep one of the only compete N/S streets through the city open, It should be the Royals fighting to close it.

Realistically you could close Oak and reconfigure Locust to be a two-way street; But that might require a complete rebuild of that bridge. And you still lose the train track crossing in the south without a new bridge.

Mind you, I don't care about the car traffic all that much. People will figure it out either way. But the potential for pedestrians, cyclists, and the streetcar (or any parallel expansions of it) will be negativity impacted. Again, this are not the concerns for when the stadium open but the decades afterwards.

[DColeKC]

It’s all coming out. Not to take away from the Royals part but Frank White is equally if not more to blame for the late rollout. The royals tried to engage and negotiate the lease and CBA with him as soon as early fall 2023. He wouldn’t even sit down with them.

[KCPowercat]

I am just genuinely curious as to how downtown would handle say a sold out event at T-Mobile at the same time as a decent crowd at a Royals game with all the different scenarios (Oak closed or open, Walnut closed or open etc).

I honestly think it would do fine even with Walnut, Oak and Grand closed. Downtown KC has the street capacity for probably ten times the normal daily traffic it currently gets. Even back in the 1980's, the streets were so much busier than they are now. And streets like Paseo were built to carry 50,000 cars a day and they used to in the 50s. I doubt Paseo cracks 15k today.

It would require modifications to other streets, better traffic control, forcing people to use specific exits during events, but I really don't see a major problem. I would bet closing Oak would do little, however it would be nice to at least keep it open as pedestrian and bike access otherwise, that's a huge superblock to have to walk around.

Wait so you are saying you think Walnut/Grand/Oak can be closed during two events because Paseo, Paseo can handle it BUT only if other streets are modified (which ones, how much), "better" traffic control, reroutes (how many?) Like what does this even mean? Why are we so into all of a sudden breaking up our grid? Because you think there is capacity a mile east? What?

Grid, you think our streets are empty, that's fine, let's not all of a sudden succumb to closing every street (for all modes of transit) which will impact the streetcar because it will not become a transit only street ever, so it "feels busy". This is silliness.

[KCPowercat]

It’s all coming out. Not to take away from the Royals part but Frank White is equally if not more to blame for the late rollout. The royals tried to engage and negotiate the lease and CBA with him as soon as early fall 2023. He wouldn’t even sit down with them.

Those are the facts of life you have to deal with politicians. It is not at all an excuse for the Royals rollout, it's cover at best to spread the blame.

[DColeKC]

It’s all coming out. Not to take away from the Royals part but Frank White is equally if not more to blame for the late rollout. The royals tried to engage and negotiate the lease and CBA with him as soon as early fall 2023. He wouldn’t even sit down with them.

Those are the facts of life you have to deal with politicians. It is not at all an excuse for the Royals rollout, it's cover at best to spread the blame.

So the person who the Royals needed to engage with in order to have be prepared not sitting down and working them isn't an excuse? They finally got fed up and went around him and I'm sure the fact he's a former Royals player complicated the issue tenfold. He's certainly responsible a good amount for causing them to be so far behind the ball here.

This is why it's a good thing I'm not a billionaire. I would have no problem blaming those who deserve it and I'd have no problem putting Jill Cockson out of business for slandering my company day after day.

[KCPowercat]

It’s all coming out. Not to take away from the Royals part but Frank White is equally if not more to blame for the late rollout. The royals tried to engage and negotiate the lease and CBA with him as soon as early fall 2023. He wouldn’t even sit down with them.

Those are the facts of life you have to deal with politicians. It is not at all an excuse for the Royals rollout, it's cover at best to spread the blame.

So the person who the Royals needed to engage with in order to have be prepared not sitting down and working them isn't an excuse? They finally got fed up and went around him and I'm sure the fact he's a former Royals player complicated the issue tenfold. He's certainly responsible a good amount for causing them to be so far behind the ball here.

This is why it's a good thing I'm not a billionaire. I would have no problem blaming those who deserve it and I'd have no problem putting Jill Cockson out of business for slandering my company day after day.

You are correct, it is not an excuse. It's part of the deal if you are asking for public money and a vote. Could have been avoided w/o a vote that's for sure.

Hey it sucks I get it and I'm not at all a Frank White defender but if EV wasn't the move they had years to figure the moves out, not weeks.

We are where we are, this coming out now is certainly a spread the blame. It's in the past, let's inform the voters and get them to yes, this "news" doesn't do that one inch.

[GRID]

I just used Paseo as an example. All of downtown's streets are way under capacity. I'm not advocating the closure of Oak, I'm simply saying that downtown KC has way more capacity than it will use in any of our lifetimes. That doesn't mean it can't bog down due to bad traffic control etc, but there is plenty of capacity.

Again, you still would like to keep much of the grid in place for pedestrians etc.

[Cratedigger]

It’s all coming out. Not to take away from the Royals part but Frank White is equally if not more to blame for the late rollout. The royals tried to engage and negotiate the lease and CBA with him as soon as early fall 2023. He wouldn’t even sit down with them.

That’s true.

But those conversations should have started with earlier. And Frank is someone who won’t stake a position until he’s convinced everyone is for it

As with so many pieces of this the Royals should have better understood the game they were playing

[TheLastGentleman]

Living downtown while the big 12 has been going on, I’ve obvserved that there’s basically no traffic change outside of like, Main through the P&L district. I frankly agree with Grid on this point, I have zero idea why anyone on this board is concerned with the traffic engineering of closed streets when downtown KC really only utilizes maybe 20% of its streets at most.

To be clear, I think the GEOMETRY of the street grid is incredibly important to maintain. No city benefits from eliminating lots of streets. Basic urbanism. But I don’t think I’d have any issue with a pedestrianized Oak by the stadium.

All of our busy bustling moterists, going about their important business of driving about, will figure out how to get where they want to go eventually. It’ll be FINE

[aknowledgeableperson]

I don't think we need the details at this point on the other funding mechanisms. We're not voting on that portion. The city and state won't waste time talking numbers if the teams can't get past step one. I think it only takes some common sense to assume the city and state have privately committed to helping fund these projects.

Common sense to assume?????? One can also use common sense to assume the opposite. Look at Virgina and building a sports arena to house NBA/NHL teams. The governor is all for it but what did the state legislature do? How much of a financial commitment is expected from the city and state? This is being promoted as a project that has all of the funds coming from the sales tax and team owners and investors. And now it isn't. What else are they not talking about? And what is the timeline of development by the owners and investors?
Now what's the plan if the city and state don't commit funds to this endeavor? I'm not saying you ignore the negative points of this issue but you do seem to downplay what is said by those who oppose this stadium relocation. And I don't think you are they only one who does this. This whole plan was rushed with an artificial timeline to get the issue to ballot. Substituting the Crossroads site for the East Village site at the last minute gives the impression the Royals really are out of their league when it comes to stadium location and the public.

[Cratedigger]

The braves being a publicly traded company is a treasure.

Looks like the Battery brought in nearly $60 million dollars for the team last year. Up 10%

[bricknose]

Generally, how competent is KC’s civil engineering? Over the past month, there have been many legitimate-sounding concerns about which streets may be closed, how traffic could affect the streetcar, and so on, but although I assume some here have at least some civil engineering education, I do not.

Do things typically turn out ok when you trust the engineers to do their job, or are there examples of major oversights or poor choices that caused long-term, foreseeable problems that were not addressed due to incompetence?

I would hope they have a solid track record so this speculation is merely civic nerds headcanoning what happens in the next arc of their favorite civic manga, but really despite all the calls that “it will suck if X does Y”, it’s safe to trust the writers.