Downtown Baseball Stadium

Discussion about new sports facilities in Kansas City
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FangKC
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Re: Downtown ballpark and condos

Post by FangKC »

The only people that probably count are season ticket holders. And if it requires a public vote, then voters.

The question that should be asked right now is if voters would approve bonds for a new downtown baseball stadium; if voters would approve bonds for a new baseball stadium at TSC; and if voters would approve bonds to update the existing Kauffman Stadium. The answers to those three questions now would provide some direction on how to proceed.
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Re: Downtown ballpark and condos

Post by alejandro46 »

IIs there any appetite to re-build at TSC? I know it's private but that seems like the least likely. It's renovate or move. I would add that any renovation would be an extension of the sales tax only and it would need to fund general clean up of the area around the stadiums. The stadiums themselves are actually great in my opinion. I love Kauffman and especially after the last renovation I honestly wouldn't change a thing except location. Maybe freshen up or add more suites, but overall I love it, and I think a lot of people in KC feel the same way. I mean, it is just go to the game, tailgate (since there isn't anything else to do) then leave. A lot of people like that, and that's OK. It is convenient with good highway access. It's a really crappy part of town.
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Re: Downtown ballpark and condos

Post by WoodDraw »

GRID wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 1:58 pm Still don't see how they do it when 80-90% of the fans don't want it. It will be interesting to see what they have come up with.
This is completely false. The scientific polling is mostly positive.

Financing is still an issue, but they’re just getting the ground ready
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by KCDowntown »

Pure speculation on my part, but my thought was maybe the Mayor and Royals already know exactly where they are going, and the Mayor just got a little ahead of himself because he knows the whole plan.

KCDowntown
earthling wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:21 pm Curious that the mayor hyped up as news of the day unless there's other big news today?
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by AlkaliAxel »

Just some general observations from scouring tons of social media comments today…

It seems to me most people are open to the idea, and a large amount are very excited for it. Eric Bunch even said he couldn’t imagine 10 years ago this many people would support it.

The anti-downtown crowd are all about 90% circling around traffic as their biggest rallying point. Not the tailgating, not even as much the parking…but the traffic. It’s all “we have absolutely no transportation so we’ll be stuck there for hours” and “let me tell you about this time I went to St Louis and I sat in the parking garage for 3 hours waiting!!” and “downtown can’t support that much traffic, it’ll break down!” and on and on from that crowd. They’re having meltdowns about it.

Side note- I bet that same crowd would gladly support NBA/NHL team, because that traffic is a-okay! But the Royals aren’t allowed to make traffic, only NBA and concerts are. That’s the logic.
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by wahoowa »

KCDowntown wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 11:24 pm Pure speculation on my part, but my thought was maybe the Mayor and Royals already know exactly where they are going, and the Mayor just got a little ahead of himself because he knows the whole plan.

KCDowntown
earthling wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:21 pm Curious that the mayor hyped up as news of the day unless there's other big news today?
i thought the exact same
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Re: Downtown ballpark and condos

Post by AlkaliAxel »

GRID wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 6:07 pm
KCPowercat wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 5:59 pm
GRID wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 1:58 pm Still don't see how they do it when 80-90% of the fans don't want it. It will be interesting to see what they have come up with.
This is not accurate.
You may be right, but good god, the people that don't want it are super vocal about it. Maybe it's closer to 70% that don't want it. I don't thin it's anywhere near half.

I know you can't base anything off social media platforms, but it's close to 90% on social media.
Aaron Ladd, the reporter for KSHB, ran a poll online and it said:
55% support
34% against
11% indifferent

The support number probably only grows as the campaign grows bigger. Wherever we're at now with the public currently is the floor.
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Re: Downtown ballpark and condos

Post by AlkaliAxel »

aknowledgeableperson wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 6:35 pm
KCPowercat wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 6:23 pm I'd bet the majority are for it. Social media is a super poor way to judge anything public opinion wise.
Majority of who? I think it all depends on where the people live who take the poll. If it is of people who live in central KC it just might be the majority. If it is all of KC residents it just might be around 50/50. If you have all of Jackson County, and the whole metro area, I would say a large majority would say no.
There is a silent majority for the stadium, and a very very loud minority that is against it because they're afraid of change- and their fear is the reason why they are acting so much louder. Most comments today were positive.
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by AlkaliAxel »

I want to throw this out there for y'all:

Let's say Royals move and Chiefs have the whole place to themselves- instead of assuming they would just build up the lot a bit, wouldn't they be smarter to just move to Legends where the *exact* area is already they'd be looking to build up would already be there (saves money) & has been proven it can host other sport teams? Not to mention a massive incentive package I'm sure they'd get?
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by FangKC »

That is, and will always be an option, until the choice is made. It will always come down to where they can get the financing deal.
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by Riverite »

AlkaliAxel wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 1:44 am I want to throw this out there for y'all:

Let's say Royals move and Chiefs have the whole place to themselves- instead of assuming they would just build up the lot a bit, wouldn't they be smarter to just move to Legends where the *exact* area is already they'd be looking to build up would already be there (saves money) & has been proven it can host other sport teams? Not to mention a massive incentive package I'm sure they'd get?
You could always cut the chiefs in on a real estate deal. The hunts have experience with Real Estate. I mean otherwise if they move to Legends it would be built out, but if they got a train and were half or full owners of an adjacent district then that’s way more money on the table
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by FangKC »

wahoowa wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 12:52 am
KCDowntown wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 11:24 pm Pure speculation on my part, but my thought was maybe the Mayor and Royals already know exactly where they are going, and the Mayor just got a little ahead of himself because he knows the whole plan.

KCDowntown
earthling wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:21 pm Curious that the mayor hyped up as news of the day unless there's other big news today?
i thought the exact same
I agree, but my thought is a bit modified from yours. I think they have two places in mind, and know their preferred one. However, the second one is still an option and the final choice will be based on where the financing package comes from. My bet is their preference is the East Village in downtown with Jackson County financing it. Their second choice is Village West in Wyandotte County with Kansas Star Bonds.
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by AlkaliAxel »

FangKC wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 2:04 am
wahoowa wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 12:52 am
KCDowntown wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 11:24 pm Pure speculation on my part, but my thought was maybe the Mayor and Royals already know exactly where they are going, and the Mayor just got a little ahead of himself because he knows the whole plan.

KCDowntown

i thought the exact same
I agree, but my thought is a bit modified from yours. I think they have two places in mind, and know their preferred one. However, the second one is still an option and the final choice will be based on where the financing package comes from. My bet is their preference is the East Village in downtown with Jackson County financing it. Their second choice is Village West in Wyandotte County with Kansas Star Bonds.
Lol. Faced with the prospect of moving to Kansas, I wonder how quickly those "we will never support taxpayer dollars going to this!" would fade away.
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by Riverite »

Here’s another thing to think about I know the streetcar could never adequately take more than a few thousand to the stadiums but how about buses. There are loads of areas in KC that have adequate bus service to downtown which people might consider rather than driving. Parts of the Northland, East Side, South KC, KCK and Johnson County if they run a direct one to metcalf. I bet once people figure out that the bud is free and pretty direct to downtown then we could get at least a few thousand more from just the buses. Might also make people more likely to go if they don’t pay for parking

I’m honestly warming up to this idea, I think having downtown as an incredibly strong hub or core makes transport more simple and less likely to take an outrageous amount of time, next step more hobs downtown although I know we’ve talked about that ad nauseam.
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by AlkaliAxel »

Riverite wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 2:12 am Here’s another thing to think about I know the streetcar could never adequately take more than a few thousand to the stadiums but how about buses. There are loads of areas in KC that have adequate bus service to downtown which people might consider rather than driving. Parts of the Northland, East Side, South KC, KCK and Johnson County if they run a direct one to metcalf. I bet once people figure out that the bud is free and pretty direct to downtown then we could get at least a few thousand more from just the buses. Might also make people more likely to go if they don’t pay for parking

I’m honestly warming up to this idea, I think having downtown as an incredibly strong hub or core makes transport more simple and less likely to take an outrageous amount of time, next step more hobs downtown although I know we’ve talked about that ad nauseam.
Streetcar taking a few thousand might be all we need to take care of any transport issues. Also consider that by 2031 how much more area the streetcar could be covering.

My hot take on the downtown stadium is that this is our best shot ever to get mass-rail- it will create a demand to get it in KC because nimby’s think it’s impossible to get downtown for a game. Wanna complain about how the parking or traffic is so bad downtown for games? Fine, vote for light rail then.
Last edited by AlkaliAxel on Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by AlkaliAxel »

To that point^ almost every comment about why they don’t want downtown stadium is because they claim we lack the transportation and the traffic is overloaded. So then why the hell would you not vote for light rail then if you believe that to be the case? I assume most people who are pro-stadium are already for light rail no matter what, so wouldn’t the nimby’s quasi be admitting they want it too if they think traffic is that bad? I’d really like to see this polled
Last edited by AlkaliAxel on Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:42 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by Riverite »

You might see it that way but there are some people who just want cars and honestly do not give a shit if it’s bad for the city, environment etc. They wouldn’t see it as hypocritical because the only infrastructure they recognize is roads and highways. Which ironically downtown has more access to highways, and getting out of the stadiums is not as easy as people make it out to be seeing as there is really only one off ramp
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by AlkaliAxel »

I know you all probably already know this, but you realize their parking and traffic jam logic can be dispelled in like 2 seconds by showing that when the TMobile center has concerts with 20k people the downtown doesn’t go to hell. Nobody ever says “I’m NOT going to that Britney Spears concert because of the traffic!!”. So if it worked fine with concerts why would the Royals suddenly be the grenade that destroys downtown? They’d be the exact same volume of crowd…it’s nonsensical
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Re: Future Stadium Plans: Chiefs and Royals

Post by Riverite »

AlkaliAxel wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:49 am I know you all probably already know this, but you realize their parking and traffic jam logic can be dispelled in like 2 seconds by showing that when the TMobile center has concerts with 20k people the downtown doesn’t go to hell. Nobody ever says “I’m NOT going to that Britney Spears concert because of the traffic!!”. So if it worked fine with concerts why would the Royals suddenly be the grenade that destroys downtown? They’d be the exact same volume of crowd…it’s nonsensical
Of course it’s easily disprovable. There is a wide subset of people that will do anything and make any excuse to stop any modicum of change. That’s not to say it is illegitimate to disagree with moving the stadiums, rather that there are many who will de facto argue in bad faith.
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Re: Downtown ballpark and condos

Post by flyingember »

AlkaliAxel wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 1:42 am
aknowledgeableperson wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 6:35 pm
KCPowercat wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 6:23 pm I'd bet the majority are for it. Social media is a super poor way to judge anything public opinion wise.
Majority of who? I think it all depends on where the people live who take the poll. If it is of people who live in central KC it just might be the majority. If it is all of KC residents it just might be around 50/50. If you have all of Jackson County, and the whole metro area, I would say a large majority would say no.
There is a silent majority for the stadium, and a very very loud minority that is against it because they're afraid of change- and their fear is the reason why they are acting so much louder. Most comments today were positive.
I bet 2% are for, 2% are against and 96% don’t care either way as long as they don’t pay a lot more for it.
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