beautyfromashes wrote: ↑Wed Aug 03, 2022 1:02 pm
shinatoo wrote: ↑Wed Aug 03, 2022 12:13 pm
Same reason you don't want NASCAR in the urban core. To much dead space required for the 350 days a year it's not in use.
The only place I would put it in the urban core is Harlem.
Unless it's domed and part of a convention center. Then the story changes.
Most European stadiums are directly surrounded by neighborhoods, some bigger cities here in America too. The reason it doesn't happen in places like KC is the dependence on car transportation. TSC doesn't provide some magical location for Arrowhead, old or new. There's no real reason for it to be where it is. Put it in the Northland to spur a light rail line to the airport. Put it in the West Bottoms to get Kansas to pay part of the tab and get it closer to the core. We should think more pragmatically about using the stadium to best benefit the city. Besides some guys on a message board who grew up in Raytown or Blue Springs who want to keep their childhood memories, TSC means nothing.
I don't know if you are referring to me, but I did not grow up in Blue Springs or Raytown. I grew up in KCMO. South Plaza, Midtown and East KC. I only mention the Jackson County suburbs because we did move there and my kids started school there and people seem to be clueless about metro KC east of the stadiums and you just did it again. Saying to put the stadium by KCI for transit reasons. If you know anything about transit, you would know that the I-70 corridor is a FAR better option for transit than the I-29 corridor. The Jackson County suburbs have a lot of people and most commute. KCI ridership on rail would be so low it would be one of the most wasteful LRT routes in the country if built. You might get some commuters, but you will get almost no ridership all the way to KCI. On the other hand, you would get pretty decent ridership on a LRT line from downtown to Blue Springs or Lee's Summit.
I don't think there are any big nfl stadiums that are surrounded by neighborhoods (even if they are in urban areas) and most urban MLB stadiums are not either, not like what you are talking about with European soccer stadiums. Fenway and Wrigley are about as close as it gets to that. Nationals Park is probably becoming the most embedded into the neighborhood as you will see for a modern stadium and it still has two large parking garages next to it. KC's stadiums will always have 80-90% of the fans drive and park near the stadium even if downtown. Why would you move the NFL stadium anywhere near downtown? It will be hard enough to build a MLB park down there without seeing mass destruction (or land banking) for parking lots.
I have zero care or memories for Blue Springs and the rest of the MO suburbs, but I do know the size of the area and how many people live there and how many are fans of the teams. It's a lot. And there is money. Half the shoppers that support JoCo retail are from Jackson County. We used to drive clear to JoCo all the time. And I just don't think it makes sense to vacate the TSC when all the infrastructure for an NFL stadium is there. The parking lots, the access roads, the interstate access and it is relatively close to the city. The stadium area could easily support a development like Village West or something. Again, most people in the Jackson County suburbs drive clear to places in KS because retail is limited in that area mainly because there has not been any incentive to build there like you have in KS with STAR bonds etc. But a destination place would probably do great. Make the area a destination. Open new hotels and redo the old ones. If KCK can do it in on the edge of county of 160,000 truly in the middle of nowhere, you can do it in the "center" of a county of 720,000 people. It just takes people that want to make it happen.
It makes so much more sense to build LRT to the stadium and further into Jackson County. Then you are a ten minute train ride into the city (and Royals stadium) or out to the NFL stadium. That way the people that want to go downtown before and after the game can easily go, but the other 95% who will go straight to their cars regardless of where the stadium is won't have to find a place to park their cars downtown ruining downtown for people that actually want to enjoy it. Then the LRT can be used by Jackson County people to get to the downtown baseball stadium, arena, plaza, river market, crown center etc and again can leave the cars outside of the city. Even if the first phase of LRT is only built to the TSC, a lot of Royals fans could park there take the train to a downtown stadium.
So while moving the NFL stadium downtown is a terrible idea, moving the stadium to some far flung location in KS is just as bad as transit will NEVER happen to it and fans will interact even less with the center city than they do now. The TSC is only 6 miles from the center city.