Downtown Baseball Stadium

[AlkaliAxel]

You might see a bit of a shift in demographics for the royals. I'm not sure many of my friends would get off work and want to spend three hours stuck in a stadium watching a shitty team with expensive/crappy beer and food.

We've talked before about the need to change how baseball stadiums are built, multi-purpose, etc.

I'm fully on board with downtown soccer though. Urban soccer is great, and we'd get to host lots of international games.

I think you'd definitely see a big shift in demographics. That's why it doesn't really matter when you hear people say "Well the suburban fans won't like downtown..." because it's not gonna be a fully suburban based group anymore. What will happen is all the people who live on the streetcar line and transport to games for free will start attending alot more, and suburbanites less so. It should result in a younger base at the stadium. But, a game won't then be all about the game. It can be more about going downtown too. Right now if you go, you're only going for the game like he said^

I like your enthusiasm, but I don't see many people taking the street car after work and then walking to the East village. Maybe around the margins.

I'm still hoping to be won over by the design though

Young people with no kids, I could definitely see it. Even students at UMKC.

[WoodDraw]

I think you'd definitely see a big shift in demographics. That's why it doesn't really matter when you hear people say "Well the suburban fans won't like downtown..." because it's not gonna be a fully suburban based group anymore. What will happen is all the people who live on the streetcar line and transport to games for free will start attending alot more, and suburbanites less so. It should result in a younger base at the stadium. But, a game won't then be all about the game. It can be more about going downtown too. Right now if you go, you're only going for the game like he said^

I like your enthusiasm, but I don't see many people taking the street car after work and then walking to the East village. Maybe around the margins.

I'm still hoping to be won over by the design though

Young people with no kids, I could definitely see it. Even students at UMKC.

you seem to consistently overestimate how much free money young people have and how desired they are by people building stadiums.

These people are using their gifted corporate tickets, from clients, or going with family.

[AlkaliAxel]

I like your enthusiasm, but I don't see many people taking the street car after work and then walking to the East village. Maybe around the margins.

I'm still hoping to be won over by the design though

Young people with no kids, I could definitely see it. Even students at UMKC.

you seem to consistently overestimate how much free money young people have and how desired they are by people building stadiums.

These people are using their gifted corporate tickets, from clients, or going with family.

It costs like $5 to go to a Royals game. Now imagine that you didn't even have to pay parking money either because you could ride the streetcar to downtown for free.

Yeah, I think young people in the core will take that deal.

[normalthings]

I think Alkali is generally right but is assuming $5 nosebleeds would come downtown. If $5 nosebleeds exist downtown the stadium is going bankrupt.

I see SM posts every game day of Royals fans friends in the nosebleeds because tickets were $5. Stadiums are too far from downtown to attract a lot of tourist and convention traffic. Even amongst locals who aren’t dedicated friends it’s seen as too much of hassle to get all the way out there to Alkali’s point.

$5 tickets do not pay for the structure they were built on. Either need to charge more in a downtown stadium or more likely just not build them. Especially if this is going to be done without a public subsidy.

[WoodDraw]

Yeah, my assumption is that the effectively free tickets would go away in a new stadium that's better sized.

If they build some GA bars where people can sit table style I think those would be popular.

But games are expensive over you factor in drinks and food.

[normalthings]

I think Alkali is generally right but is assuming $5 nosebleeds would come downtown. If $5 nosebleeds exist downtown the stadium is going bankrupt.

I see SM posts every game day of Royals fans friends in the nosebleeds because tickets were $5. Stadiums are too far from downtown to attract a lot of tourist and convention traffic. Even amongst locals who aren’t dedicated friends it’s seen as too much of hassle to get all the way out there to Alkali’s point.

$5 tickets do not pay for the structure they were built on. Either need to charge more in a downtown stadium or more likely just not build them. Especially if this is going to be done without a public subsidy.

dedicated fans*

[normalthings]

Yeah, my assumption is that the effectively free tickets would go away in a new stadium that's better sized.

If they build some GA bars where people can sit table style I think those would be popular.

But games are expensive over you factor in drinks and food.

wonder if a partial sales redirections could be used instead of a stadium tax.

[AlkaliAxel]

People tend to undersell these types of things in the KC market IMO, I think we'll do better with turning out people to a downtown stadium that some might think. It reminds me of the same kind of thinking of "people won't use a streetcar downtown" when not only did people use it, they blew the projections out the roof. People want to use downtown more than we think. I think there are alot of loud suburban voices that make it seem like there's more a suburban demand than we think.

[WoodDraw]

I don’t disagree with you, but I do lol. I love urban sports, but kc has never experienced before. The east village is largely dead and unknown to most. The whole area needs to be developed.

I can’t remember what thread we discussed in before, but they need to rethink what a baseball stadium can be so the place is always active. I really worry a stadium could kill the area and it’ll be parking, a stadium, and nothing.

[taxi]

The East Village has been nothing for over 20 years.

[shinatoo]

There are something like 8 games a season you can get 5$ tickets.

[GRID]

I don’t disagree with you, but I do lol. I love urban sports, but kc has never experienced before. The east village is largely dead and unknown to most. The whole area needs to be developed.

I can’t remember what thread we discussed in before, but they need to rethink what a baseball stadium can be so the place is always active. I really worry a stadium could kill the area and it’ll be parking, a stadium, and nothing.

Having been to games at almost every ballpark and living between two of the most urban ballparks in the league (DC and Baltimore), I honestly don't think KC really needs a downtown stadium anymore.

Downtown stadiums are nice but they are not some utopia of economic development. They just aren't. And I think in a slow growth city like KC, a downtown stadium will spur more parking lots than high rise hotels and apartments.

There are only a few cities where growth around a downtown ballpark has reached a point of creating critical mass vs a massive dead zone most of the time. San Diego comes to mind, but they put the stadium in the middle of an already booming area. Denver comes to mind, but even Denver's stadium area took decades to develop and it's still pretty barren compared to the rest of their downtown. LoDo is close but the stadium area itself has been a dead zone till only recently. And Denver has had dozens of towers cranes up every year for decades.

Hardly anything has developed near Camden Yards and they have terrible attendance now. Same with Cleveland. Pittsburgh has a few suburban style hotels near the stadium and lots of parking lots. It's taken decades to fill in the area around Houston's park and it's still over half parking lots.

DC's stadium is in a super fast growing area that would be developing with or without the ballpark.

Nothing has gone up near Sprint Center in KC in ten years. Why would anything go up near a stadium other than parking?

And KC has zero real transit to get to the stadium. The streetcar would bog down and get caught up in traffic frustrating the few people it could move.

Downtown KCMO just does not have the infrastructure. Too many narrow freeways choking everything etc. And there are no longer any good locations for stadium. I still think the east village site is silly. The views will be stupid, there are way too many highways in the area etc. You will have major traffic and parking problems there and parking lots will pop up everywhere, especially east of the the loop.

Reserve a spot in east village for a soccer stadium and let the rest develop. Concentrate on making the sports complex better and build light rail out to it. Everybody that wants to do something downtown after the game can simply take a ten minute train ride.

I think a downtown stadium would be awesome in KC if it were built in the crossroads and KC had a light rail system. But neither are going to happen.

[AlkaliAxel]

The East Village has been nothing for over 20 years.

This^ is the biggest point I’ve been making with it too. People always keep saying “Ughhh we’re gonna have to turn East Village into parking lots and a stadium that’s only used 81 days a year”

But guess what. You know how many days a year East Village is used right now? Zero days. You know how far away we from putting in development that will be used more than a stadium? Decades longer than just filling it with a Royals stadium.

[normalthings]

The area around STL’s stadium is a dead zone outside of the very recent BPV (a copy and paste P&L). Very similar location to east village. They have a sea of parking lots there in STL.

We need downtown soccer not baseball or football. Baseball is a dying sport

[AlkaliAxel]

By all means, bring in downtown soccer or NBA. I’ve no clue why they decided to build in the middle of nowhere.

Eh. St. Louis made the mistake of relying on the Cardinals to anchor their downtown. KC to its credit atleast isn’t doing that so I think the Royals would fill in nicely.

[GRID]

The area around STL’s stadium is a dead zone outside of the very recent BPV (a copy and paste P&L). Very similar location to east village. They have a sea of parking lots there in STL.

We need downtown soccer not baseball or football. Baseball is a dying sport

Baseball is far from dying. That's silly.

But a baseball stadium just does not scale properly with downtown KC. Most of the time it will be half empty and a massive dead footprint. And on days when 30k plus do show up, downtown KC will be a total traffic and parking disaster. Downtown KC barely has any major streets (it really doesn't have any high volume surface streets to get people in and out of the area like most downtown parks do), let alone transit to move people to and from a ballpark before and after games. Downtown KC is nothing but a mess of freeways and very dated and poorly designed ramps to access downtown.

Put a soccer stadium down there. Much smaller footprint. Much smaller maximum capacity. It would be like having another Sprint Center. It would work fine.

[AlkaliAxel]

East Village is already empty all the time anyway and will continue to be so for a very long time. So I don't think that's valid.

[WoodDraw]

East Village is already empty all the time anyway and will continue to be so for a very long time. So I don't think that's valid.

Because everyone is banking the land for a hypothetical stadium. Bit of a catch 22.

Grid is right too. Building a stadium does not mean development. It can actually kill areas if not done properly.

[flyingember]

East Village is already empty all the time anyway and will continue to be so for a very long time. So I don't think that's valid.

Overland Park was empty all and time and continued to be so until someone decided to build homes, office buildings and the like. That city induced demand though development

It should come as no surprise that giant empty lots are empty all the time

[alejandro46]

East Village is already empty all the time anyway and will continue to be so for a very long time. So I don't think that's valid.

Overland Park was empty all and time and continued to be so until someone decided to build homes, office buildings and the like. That city induced demand though development

It should come as no surprise that giant empty lots are empty all the time

Swope Builders was granted development rights but failed miserably. Now the land is being banked for hopeful stadium development instead of being developed.