Downtown Baseball Stadium

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 10:27 am

With Jack Harry on the anti-downtown stadium, I'm on the positive side for sure now....that guys is the typical old school KC guy who doesn't want any change.

18th & Main has never been discussed as far as I know.

Parking revenues would be something to consider for the Royals but I believe they could easily make that up in extra luxury suites and yes probably higher ticket prices.

I've walked a LONG way in other cities going to baseball games. For example in Denver last year walked from our hotel through lodo to coors, that is easily double what someone would walk from KC Live to Washington Square park.....plus the BRT would be running right on that route.

tat2kc · Post by **tat2kc** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 10:57 am

the smaler stadium had been proposed for the site from 16th to 18th, from main to grand. (maybe i have the site wrong?)

scooterj · Post by **scooterj** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 11:01 am

tat2kc wrote:the smaler stadium had been proposed for the site from 16th to 18th, from main to grand. (maybe i have the site wrong?)

That would displace a lot of residential, much of it very new. It seems like there are better places it could go without evicting hundreds of residents. The last thing we need to be doing is reducing the population of the area.

LyRiCaL GanGsTa · Post by **LyRiCaL GanGsTa** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 1:19 pm

why wouldn't you park at crown center? its at 22st and grand. You're talking about walking 3 or 4 blocks at the most. I walk from 21st and wyandotte to 16th and walnut in 10 minutes. If a 4 block walk is too far for someone attending a sporting event, then I'd have to assume they have a disability and need handicapped parking, or that they are too dam lazy and scew em! Denver's ballpark does not have 30,000 parking spaces within a block or two of their urban setting, its a ridiculus assumption to think that a ballpark in an urban setting will have the level of parking that a suburban setting will have.

Kansas City is just too damn obsessed with the idea of parking within a few feet of the destination. We need to get off our fat asses and walk more than 100 feet to get somewhere!!

Exactly

... and also people already walk 5-10 minutes to thier cars in the mile-long surface parking lots at Kaufmann right now! They would certainly enjoy walking through cool downtown streetscapes and pass nightlife & entertainment than walking through a boring sea of vehicles.

tat2kc · Post by **tat2kc** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:10 pm

You got it, LG. Why not leave the ballpark, walk halfway to the car, to a club or coffe shop, hang out a bit, then head home? Way better than hiking past thousands of minvans and SUV's. Traffic would not be nearly as bad, because you'd have something to do before and after the game, so we would not have 30,000 people hitting the highway all at once.

KC Kropf · Post by **KC Kropf** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:20 pm

A look into the future.......

........ As I walk my way to Royals Stadium, I buy a hot dog from a cart on the street corner, talk with a group of buddies about to enter the stadium, and pick up a baseball for the kids playing catch outside the urban stadium. When the game is over I contiune to enjoy the downtown setting by taking my group to "RoyalVille" for some cold ones, to watch highlights of Beltrans game winning homerun.......

.... Reality Check .......

..........At the current "K" I walk like a cow as a part of a heard through a vast parking lot, at least there is a nice view of nothing significant to enjoy. There is no outside culture, no people enjoying outside patios blocks from the stadium. So after the game I amazingly somehow get hearded back to my car (I think I parked in Section X880) hop in to enjoy postgame traffic and wind up hanging out at a bar an hour away in some suburb. And just as reality fully sets in Beltran is not even a Royal anymore......

KC Kropf · Post by **KC Kropf** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:49 pm

I think Glass is the problem here.... Why did we give our team to someone who doesn't live in KC again???

Glass has never asked for a new stadium, and why should he? The K is just like all his freakin Walmarts. You drive to a big parking lot, park, walk, shop, walk, and leave. To him the K must be amazing. Glass does not care about KC and sure as hell doesn't care about Downtown KC (unless this option would make him more money) Until someone or WE (www.kcdowntownstadiumnow.com) convience him otherwise, this will never become an optoin.

BTW, why hasn't Kevin Keitzman signed the online petition yet? He is a huge supporter of a stadium downtown.

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:52 pm

I believe Glass was indifferent to the issue and is just going along with what people tell him. I don't think dissing Glass will help anything. The fact is we are better off with Kauffman than if Glass would threaten to constantly move the team. Glass is a good owner because he is not really pressuring or bullying the metro around as many others have done.

KC Kropf · Post by **KC Kropf** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:55 pm

Glass in an OK owner. He is too conservative. And my point is that he doesn't live here, so why would he even care about KC?? Until He wants a stadium downtown, we will not get one.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:59 pm

nobody knows of the site yet.

KC Kropf · Post by **KC Kropf** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:02 pm

KC wrote:nobody knows of the site yet.

Is it ready for people to know about it?

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:04 pm

not really......we're working on it. slowly

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:05 pm

KC Kropf wrote:And my point is that he doesn't live here, so why would he even care about KC?? Until He wants a stadium downtown, we will not get one.

Lamar Hunt lives in Dallas now and from what I understand...it is the Chiefs who are aggressively pursuing the stadium upgrades-- not the Royals. It would be nice to have hometown owners, but they are businessmen first.

KC Kropf · Post by **KC Kropf** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:09 pm

Glass the businessman doesn't care what happens as long as he gets the improvements to a new or the existing stadium. He wants more money out of it. It is our (the city, I guess) job to explain it to him that it is better for the city and downtown to put that money into a new stadium. I agree that he doesn't care either way, but how do we get him to support KC and Downtown instead of the old "K"?? I guess that is my question.

KCN · Post by **KCN** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:12 pm

Would a downtown stadium boost attendance numbers? That is the big question that everyone, especially the owners, want to know.

Helping downtown development is a big issue to us, moot to the owners.

KC Kropf · Post by **KC Kropf** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:16 pm

History shows that new stadiums do boost attendance in the first couple of years. Take Cleveland for example. But with the way the Royals season and future is looking, they probably won't need a new stadium to boost attendance. A pennant race will hopefully take care of that.

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 2:26 am

As The Star is constantly cosigning on the new stadium, why don't they put their money where their big fat mouth is...naming rights.

Knight Ridder Park or
Kansas City Star Stadium

aknowledgeableperson · Fri Apr 02, 2004 6:13 am

Most of the people providing comments to this have ignored the major question - How does one go about paying for the construction of the stadium? Hey, in an ideal world it would be best to have a stadium downtown along with an arena but we are dealing with reality here. At this time neither Kansas City nor Jackson County have the capacity to take on the debt to pay for the stadium. And for those that live in Lawrence, KS even with Bistate II, you would not have to pay for the debt.
So the challenge is how can we pay for the stadium? And be realistic about it.

Post by **bahua** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 6:27 am

KC Kropf wrote:I think Glass is the problem here.... Why did we give our team to someone who doesn't live in KC again???

Because he paid a shitload of money.

Post by **bahua** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 6:43 am

aknowledgeableperson wrote:So the challenge is how can we pay for the stadium? And be realistic about it.

In a perfect world, the Royals'd take some ownership of the situation, and carry most of the bill themselves. But, like you said, we're dealing with reality, where professional sports clubs threaten leaving town if they don't get their way, or have to pay for anything except players and staff.

The simple answer is taxes.

The complication behind that, of course, is that nobody wants to pay more taxes, because the systems of taxation we have now punish people for being productive, so if taxes in any form are raised, valuable residents leave town. So, my opinion, as always, is to change the system. Eliminate municipal property and income tax, and institute a system of taxing property owners for the value of the land their property occupies, and not for the value of the property they own. This will only encourage them to make improvements to their property, and make it more valuable and/or profitable.

This system rewards people for making efficient use of land, and punishes them for wasting land. In a city, land is the most scarce resource available, and efficient use of it must be encouraged. Our current system allows entire urban neighborhoods, sitting on valuable land, to turn into slums, and fosters a terrible chain of directly related problems: crime, unemployment, poor education, racism, poverty, corruption, dilapidation, and annexation of affluent rural/suburban places to pay the bills once the city gives up on the derelict neighborhoods.

Kansas City could easily pay for a new Ballpark, Arena, and more, if it only functioned properly, but our current system of taxation is seeing to it that we never have enough money to pay the bills, and that a massive portion of the population is effectively useless: a burden instead of a source of revenue.