Downtown Baseball Stadium

Discussion about new sports facilities in Kansas City
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Cratedigger
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by Cratedigger »

^ this

Put it in east village so we see some activity instead of seas of parking lots. It’s going to be a 10/15 minute walk either way.

And for the love of God don’t cap 670 just for a parking lot
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AlkaliAxel
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by AlkaliAxel »

Fang's absolutely right. This is a bullshit idea when we have SO MANY open lots just sitting around downtown.

Plus i have a feeling no surface lot in the crossroads will ever get developed because they'll need it "for Royals parking"
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DColeKC
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by DColeKC »

The single most important factor that should be considered regarding this stadiums location is the long term success of the stadium and its impact on downtown businesses.

The 2nd or 3rd best location shouldn’t be picked simply to eat up surface parking lots or save insignificant buildings simply because they’re not near end of life.

This stadium will require massive financial and environmental resources and we have to get it right. It also has to instantly interact with existing downtown developments more than it needs to ignite new development.

I like the EV location a lot but these newly revealed (publicly) sites are better options in almost all ways when considering long term factors. If EV doesn’t end up being the stadium location it will be developed anyway. The current owners have invested and held out with the idea of a big pay day all at once.
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AlkaliAxel
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by AlkaliAxel »

I never cared about the stadium. I cared about the spinoff development we were gonna get from it. Plowing down buildings so that the stadium can feel better means nothing to me.

If this is the location then we basically aren't getting any good spinoff development like we could've in EV or Jail site. Maybe some bars like "the Battery" in Atlanta but that's not impressive. You can find that in STL or any place.

No new spinoff. No towers we can build around it. Parking lot on the south loop cap. Cut off from downtown from another fucking highway. Even if they wanted to build a tower here it would just be an awkward spot in Crossroads. We're getting nothing from this.
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FangKC
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by FangKC »

DColeKC wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:40 am The single most important factor that should be considered regarding this stadiums location is the long term success of the stadium and its impact on downtown businesses.

The 2nd or 3rd best location shouldn’t be picked simply to eat up surface parking lots or save insignificant buildings simply because they’re not near end of life.

This stadium will require massive financial and environmental resources and we have to get it right. It also has to instantly interact with existing downtown developments more than it needs to ignite new development.

I like the EV location a lot but these newly revealed (publicly) sites are better options in almost all ways when considering long term factors. If EV doesn’t end up being the stadium location it will be developed anyway. The current owners have invested and held out with the idea of a big pay day all at once.
Why does it always appear that you are just pimping for Cordish. There is no way to really predict long-term factors. The P&L District was sold to the taxpayers of Kansas City touting financials that were overly-optimistic and didn't actually come true. This is why to this day the City is responsible for covering the shortfalls paying off its debt. This is why people are now so skeptical of people touting long-term factors for any major projects. One can make predictions about the outcome all day long, but that doesn't make it true.
The 2nd or 3rd best location shouldn’t be picked simply to eat up surface parking lots or save insignificant buildings simply because they’re not near end of life.
Similar rationales were used by the Kemper banking family branches as they bought up many downtown buildings and demolished them, and the parcels sat vacant for years, and still do. The buildings were "at the end of their life" or no longer "economically viable." Yet, buildings adjacent to them that were of a similar vintage remained and were remodeled by others for loft apartments and office space. You appear to have this mindset that anything old is bad. Those older building remodels are what ignited the downtown living we see now, btw. If you truly knew the history of Downtown you would know it was those loft developers
that really started it.

Diverse cities need a mix of building types and rents. Not every business can afford to pay the rents that corporate chains can. Nor should local businesses (other restaurants and bars) have to move out of their space just so Cordish tenants can have more customers.

What excuse are you going to give if a stadium there doesn't end up helping P&L's bottom line anyway? What other block of buildings will you advocate needs demolishing to help the P&L District become more successful?

Maybe the plan is simply to demolish all the other competing rental spaces? That's like the Kempers buying up all the other former bank buildings downtown and demolishing them so no competing banks could occupy them. lol.
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DColeKC
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by DColeKC »

Once again I get painted as a representative of Cordish or someone who is only looking out for PNL. If you’re going to judge everything I say though that lens than you’ll always find a complaint about my opinions. I don’t benefit from Cordish doing well and my preferred landing spot for the stadium is 100% based on where I think it will be the most successful. We don’t need it to create more development because it will regardless of location. The land bankers can move on once a decision has been made and if downtown continues to grow from within all these vacant parking lots will evaporate.

The over prediction of tax revenue from PNL story is nearing 2 decades old. That wasn’t the fault of Cordish and the regime responsible is long gone from public politics. But to beat a dead horse, while the tax revenue has fallen short the overall impact and stimulus PNL has caused downtown is worth every penny. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation about a downtown baseball stadium had it not been for the Cordish family actually executing what others before them couldn’t. So yeah, I have far more respect for them than most on here who just want to talk about the over prediction of tax revenue by a firm hired by the city 20 years ago. Despite the epic transformation downtown has gone though over the last 15 years, people want to always go back to the one initial failure. They predicted the PNL district would spur development and transform downtown, that long term prediction was accurate.

I’m not always in favor of demolishing older buildings for new development but there’s not a single historical building worth saving on these sites. I’d suspect it would be a big payday for many of the existing building owners as well. These latest locations would be massively beneficial to the crossroads.

The developers who flipped older buildings into lofts did that for two reasons. Major tax incentives tied to income restricted apartments and and the fact they new a major development was coming that would instantly increase their property values. Banks were literally loaning out money based on future factors like PNL. You’ll even get some old school crossroads business owners to admit they got loans because of PNL back in day like Ryan Maybee who has said as much.

Once again this isn’t about PNL. It’s about the best option for downtown. Focusing on a location that will eat up surface lots and create new development in a specific area is a losing strategy. Downtown will always have a great mix of types of buildings and different commercial rental ranges. PNL operators don’t want only national chains paying national chain rent. They work with local owners and almost 90% of new leads are local or regional. Almost all of the newer tenants over the last 5+ years have been locally owned. I don’t know if you know anything about leasing it there’s this beautiful concept of lower monthly rent and profit sharing which incentives the landlord to ensure the business is success while removing a burden of high rent.

And the parking on the cap thing is one person opening their mouth. Not an actual concept that’s out there.

I win personally no matter where the stadium goes. Even if it gets built 500 yards from where it currently sits. So my opinions on location are from a high level perspective, not just what’s best for PNL.
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AlkaliAxel
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by AlkaliAxel »

DCole, are you saying no surrounding towers would be built around this Crossroads stadium?
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alejandro46
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by alejandro46 »

I don't see how these two proposed locations are any way better for the stadium than EV EXCEPT for one thing - they have a partial skyline view with homeplate facing NE. However, the 'view' is mostly the old jail and the ATT LL building (the ugliest high rise downtown).
Quicker to assemble land - East Village.
Cheaper to assemble land -East Village
More real estate for stadium/development? - East Village
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DColeKC
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by DColeKC »

AlkaliAxel wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 11:05 am DCole, are you saying no surrounding towers would be built around this Crossroads stadium?
I think you’ll see some residential built around it regardless of location. The royals will want to explore all potential revenue streams.
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AlkaliAxel
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by AlkaliAxel »

If the Royals actually are going with this site- they also need to pay for having the highway capped on that end down for walkability purpose. City should demand that’s part of their plans if they’re getting tax dollars.
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Critical_Mass
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by Critical_Mass »

These sites are TERRIBLE. They'd require massive amounts of demolition of occupied historic building stock. Properties owned by dozens of parties not necessarily in 'friendly' hands. I mean, if Abbott Properties isn't interested in selling, you can forget about the East Crossroads on the east side of the former printing press. They own a majority of that and have put in a lot of time and investment renovating buildings and getting tenants inside them.
If you want to include the incredible cost to purchase and demolish the printing press building, you absolutely would need to close either Grand or Oak or both to build on. I can't imagine the city on board with that when we have multiple viable sites (North Loop, EV, 18th & Vine, Jail site)

If there are those who think it's acceptable to demolish the downtown fabric to locate a ballpark with a 20 to 30 year shelf life, can I suggest a vast swath of architecturally insignificant empty retail spaces along 14th between Main and Grand? Great spot for a stadium.
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beautyfromashes
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by beautyfromashes »

I’d much prefer EV. The only positives I see from this location is: this should greatly boost P&L traffic, perhaps to the point where the city doesn’t have to subsidize it and can spend that money on other development, and reuse of the Star Print building would be pretty cool and unique. If we are in the process of changing incentives we should make it so only empty lots get them and make it very, very difficult to tear down. The goal should be getting buildings on every plot with valid walkability on all streets before tearing down ones that already have it.
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AlkaliAxel
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by AlkaliAxel »

I wonder if this site would make all the surface lots in Crossroads easier or harder to develop in the future. On one hand they might be wanted for parking, but also they could probably build alot of pricey apartments too.
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by KCPowercat »

If we're still debating sites this thing is not going to be done in 24.
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AlkaliAxel
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by AlkaliAxel »

KCPowercat wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:49 pm If we're still debating sites this thing is not going to be done in 24.
I think once the Royals season is completed they’re going to announce East Village & put it on ballot for April 2023 elections
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by dukuboy1 »

I thought they wanted to go mostly privately funded to build the stadium to avoid having to put it to a vote?

I think their are enough negative nancies out there that if you required a public vote in order to build the new stadium it will not pass. Hoping that is not the case but there are so many people out there that are very attached to the current stadium and the fact it still looks good and functions at a very high level as a MLB stadium people will ask "why do we need to change?" and "If it changes it won't be with my tax dollars".

I really think that if they want to go downtown they need to do so that will engage the public but not require them to vote on it
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by KCPowercat »

Lot of really nice buildings east of the Star building. Not a fan of this site.
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AlkaliAxel
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by AlkaliAxel »

dukuboy1 wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 1:03 pm the fact it still looks good and functions at a very high level as a MLB stadium
This is the problem. They designed it too well in the 70's and now we can't get out of it. Wish it was like Oakland's.
Last edited by AlkaliAxel on Fri Aug 12, 2022 1:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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beautyfromashes
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by beautyfromashes »

I have a feeling this is coming from the Star wanting to dump their print building so bad that they'll sell it cheap. City wants to make sure it doesn't sit there for decades mothballed and connecting it to a stadium was thrown out as an option. I don't think it's viable and might be a smokescreen for land sale negotiations at another site.
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Re: Downtown Baseball Stadium

Post by DColeKC »

Critical_Mass wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 11:39 am
If there are those who think it's acceptable to demolish the downtown fabric to locate a ballpark with a 20 to 30 year shelf life, can I suggest a vast swath of architecturally insignificant empty retail spaces along 14th between Main and Grand? Great spot for a stadium.
Backhanded, neat. Something like 11 of 14 spaces along that section are leased. But this was just a dig so moving on.

What downtown fabric? You think Abbott has been buying up properties just to continue to flip them into event spaces? He’s no dummy and his existing event spaces would stand to see a massive benefit from a stadium.

And this is a 35-50 year stadium build.
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