Downtown Baseball Stadium

[Highlander]

Also anecdotal, it’s 3:30 on a Sunday and Casual Animal is full but not feeling busy. Every seat has a butt but no line at the bar. I should add I don’t think this is a comicon or basketball oriented crowd.

My concern: it’s not the stadium footprint itself. I think losing Oak would be a mistake but not a deal breaker. It is that places like Brick River, Casual Animal, The Brick, Nimble Brewing, iTAP, etc etc will go out of business in favor of “future” concepts, surface parking lots (oh shit another fire!), or even worse Applebees new concept.

Why would they go out business? They will thrive. They are just the kind of businesses that would benefit from a nearby baseball stadium. The stadium has 80 or so open days per year. It won't drive wholesale changes to the area.

[KCPowercat]

Also anecdotal, it’s 3:30 on a Sunday and Casual Animal is full but not feeling busy. Every seat has a butt but no line at the bar. I should add I don’t think this is a comicon or basketball oriented crowd.

My concern: it’s not the stadium footprint itself. I think losing Oak would be a mistake but not a deal breaker. It is that places like Brick River, Casual Animal, The Brick, Nimble Brewing, iTAP, etc etc will go out of business in favor of “future” concepts, surface parking lots (oh shit another fire!), or even worse Applebees new concept.

Why would they go out business? They will thrive. They are just the kind of businesses that would benefit from a nearby baseball stadium. The stadium has 80 or so open days per year. It won't drive wholesale changes to the area.

their rent skyrockets.

[KCPowercat]

I’m curious what makes you think it’s Cordish leading the idea of closing Walnut as part of the park design? It seems like a general consensus amongst those involved that closing at least one street to create two full blocks of uninterrupted park is ideal. I could go either way on it but would like to see a larger uninterrupted section of park somewhere in the design. Walnut just seems like the least disruptive option.

A robust event day traffic plan will be critical and all downtown stakeholders will need to work together on it. Thankfully this meeting already exists.

Imagine the crossroads neighborhood not even being part of this conversation. That tells you about everything you need to know

Probably because no one thinks of the area that borders Truman Rd as the crossroads. Like who even had a say in defining the boundaries of "The Crossroads Art District"? What were the original boundaries? Is there a map dated back to 2001? Did it include this area?

It's pretty easily and officially documented where the associations are
https://neighborhooddirect.kcmo.org/for ... earch.html

My point is this is a well organized neighborhood group (in addition to DNA) and it doesn't seem either are that involved in these discussions, stadium and cap. That's not right.

[KCPowercat]

It's a beautiful early spring day, with two major events happening downtown. I just walked from truman to 20th on "Grand Boulevard" and encountered single digit pedestrians. Think about that, just really insane, and quite typical for the neighborhood.

Good god, the freaking quote of the century. This should be plastered everywhere because I feel like I'm the only one that sees this. And every time I say it, I'm just some out of town asshole.

Who has ever said that? We all know this area isn't some hub of ped activity?

[DColeKC]

Also anecdotal, it’s 3:30 on a Sunday and Casual Animal is full but not feeling busy. Every seat has a butt but no line at the bar. I should add I don’t think this is a comicon or basketball oriented crowd.

My concern: it’s not the stadium footprint itself. I think losing Oak would be a mistake but not a deal breaker. It is that places like Brick River, Casual Animal, The Brick, Nimble Brewing, iTAP, etc etc will go out of business in favor of “future” concepts, surface parking lots (oh shit another fire!), or even worse Applebees new concept.

Why would they go out business? They will thrive. They are just the kind of businesses that would benefit from a nearby baseball stadium. The stadium has 80 or so open days per year. It won't drive wholesale changes to the area.

their rent skyrockets.

This is such a misconception. Landlords can’t raise rents until current terms are up and in many cases this will be a slow increase over a longer term. Record Bars lease isn’t going to go from say $8,000/month to $18,000/month on opening day. It may go to $10k.

Also, there’s not going to be businesses knocking down doors to open in the existing buildings. The landlords want to keep their properties full and they will look at percentage rent deal which make sense for both parties when you’re talking about game days Vs non-game days. Incredibly common near stadiums. A place like The Brick could have a $100,000 day easily on a Saturday home game day with a solid visiting team which is probably $90,000 more their all time sales record. Revenues fluctuate so much in entertainment and stadium type districts based on event schedules it’s hard to simply demand a higher monthly static rent.

[UMKCroo]

Imagine the crossroads neighborhood not even being part of this conversation. That tells you about everything you need to know

Probably because no one thinks of the area that borders Truman Rd as the crossroads. Like who even had a say in defining the boundaries of "The Crossroads Art District"? What were the original boundaries? Is there a map dated back to 2001? Did it include this area?

It's pretty easily and officially documented where the associations are
https://neighborhooddirect.kcmo.org/for ... earch.html

My point is this is a well organized neighborhood group (in addition to DNA) and it doesn't seem either are that involved in these discussions, stadium and cap. That's not right.

The CCA has been involved in ongoing and significant negotiations with the Royals. We hope to have the neighborhood specific CBA finalized this week or next. I think you will be surprised at how much the Royals have committed to, essentially everything we have asked for.

It's a beautiful early spring day, with two major events happening downtown. I just walked from truman to 20th on "Grand Boulevard" and encountered single digit pedestrians. Think about that, just really insane, and quite typical for the neighborhood.

Good god, the freaking quote of the century. This should be plastered everywhere because I feel like I'm the only one that sees this. And every time I say it, I'm just some out of town asshole.

Who has ever said that? We all know this area isn't some hub of ped activity?

I wasn't trying to cherry pick some especially desolate area, the same logic applies to any 6 block stretch of the neighborhood. As someone who walks the neighborhood every day, you just don't see people, anywhere.

[KCPowercat]

Dave tweeted the association wasn't informed of a thing until the day it went on the ballot. It's good they are engaged now but should have been earlier.

I totally agree with you. I too walk downtown daily, it's not a crossroads only situation either. I barely ever pass anybody and almost everytime if I do it's because they have a dog. It's sad.

[Cratedigger]

That’s good to hear the CCA is being heard and the Royals are supportive of their asks.

However, there will need to be a significant outreach effort to the businesses. In my bar crawl through the crossroads Friday and Saturday nights every single bar and brewery had vote no posters up.

[Highlander]

Why would they go out business? They will thrive. They are just the kind of businesses that would benefit from a nearby baseball stadium. The stadium has 80 or so open days per year. It won't drive wholesale changes to the area.

their rent skyrockets.

This is such a misconception. Landlords can’t raise rents until current terms are up and in many cases this will be a slow increase over a longer term. Record Bars lease isn’t going to go from say $8,000/month to $18,000/month on opening day. It may go to $10k.

Also, there’s not going to be businesses knocking down doors to open in the existing buildings. The landlords want to keep their properties full and they will look at percentage rent deal which make sense for both parties when you’re talking about game days Vs non-game days. Incredibly common near stadiums. A place like The Brick could have a $100,000 day easily on a Saturday home game day with a solid visiting team which is probably $90,000 more their all time sales record. Revenues fluctuate so much in entertainment and stadium type districts based on event schedules it’s hard to simply demand a higher monthly static rent.

A stadium is an incremental addition to critical mass. It's not going to foment wholesale change in the crossroads any more than the addition of a large apartment complex. It will remove a couple of blocks from the Crossroads future development area (1 such block is essentially already permanently removed by virtue of the Star's printing press) and it will bring crowds into the area 80 times per year so the impact will not be zero but I highly doubt that Casual Animal Brewery is going to be replaced by Rock Bottom Brewery. All this speculation when we have a case study just across the highway - how many businesses were lost in the years following the construction of Sprint Center? The Sprint Center is a busy arena that probably has average attendances larger than the average Royals Stadium crowd and we haven't seen what is feared in the Crossroads as an impact. In fact, the P&L district has struggled to keep all but a few of its longer term tenants. Danny Edwards was pushed out but that Copaken clearing land for another one of its never-to-be-built projects. And Danny landed on his feet.

[KCPowercat]

their rent skyrockets.

This is such a misconception. Landlords can’t raise rents until current terms are up and in many cases this will be a slow increase over a longer term. Record Bars lease isn’t going to go from say $8,000/month to $18,000/month on opening day. It may go to $10k.

Also, there’s not going to be businesses knocking down doors to open in the existing buildings. The landlords want to keep their properties full and they will look at percentage rent deal which make sense for both parties when you’re talking about game days Vs non-game days. Incredibly common near stadiums. A place like The Brick could have a $100,000 day easily on a Saturday home game day with a solid visiting team which is probably $90,000 more their all time sales record. Revenues fluctuate so much in entertainment and stadium type districts based on event schedules it’s hard to simply demand a higher monthly static rent.

A stadium is an incremental addition to critical mass. It's not going to foment wholesale change in the crossroads any more than the addition of a large apartment complex. It will remove a couple of blocks from the Crossroads future development area (1 such block is essentially already permanently removed by virtue of the Star's printing press) and it will bring crowds into the area 80 times per year so the impact will not be zero but I highly doubt that Casual Animal Brewery is going to be replaced by Rock Bottom Brewery. All this speculation when we have a case study just across the highway - how many businesses were lost in the years following the construction of Sprint Center? The Sprint Center is a busy arena that probably has average attendances larger than the average Royals Stadium crowd and we haven't seen what is feared in the Crossroads as an impact. In fact, the P&L district has struggled to keep all but a few of its longer term tenants. Danny Edwards was pushed out but that Copaken clearing land for another one of its never-to-be-built projects. And Danny landed on his feet.

I tend to agree with you but I was answering the question, that is the fear. I've said before the reason I'm voting yes is because the downside of not getting a downtown park outweighs the downsides of this not being in my preferred location. If I truly thought it was going to drive out the businesses that I enjoy now in the crossroad in big numbers, I'd be voting no.

[GRID]

It's a beautiful early spring day, with two major events happening downtown. I just walked from truman to 20th on "Grand Boulevard" and encountered single digit pedestrians. Think about that, just really insane, and quite typical for the neighborhood.

Good god, the freaking quote of the century. This should be plastered everywhere because I feel like I'm the only one that sees this. And every time I say it, I'm just some out of town asshole.

Who has ever said that? We all know this area isn't some hub of ped activity?

Not just ped activity, but any activity. I fully understand that there are pockets of activity, but people there have become totally delusional.

If somebody was just passing through town on I-70 and just drove around the crossroads, they will by far and large see a huge empty urban area with few cars, few people, few cyclists and a shit ton of empty lots and parking lots with crumbling curbs and sidewalks etc. If they are lucky, they might run into some of the cool restaurants in the area, but they would most likely need to google them first because it's not like the areas are vibrant and would be easily spotted.

Just tired of arguing this. If KC wants to stay the same, so be it. I really don't care anymore. It would be neat to come back to KC and see the city truly busy and vibrant and full of people on a regular day though. Shit, I have stayed in Crossroads hotels when the arena has sold out events and it barely does anything for the Crossroads. You can still park on the street within five blocks of the arena. I have always been able to park on the street in the crossroads within a block of whatever hotel I'm staying at for free. That's insane. There is just so much parking.

I don't know what to think of KC anymore honestly. I feel like it's full of small town people or just people that do not want the place to change ever. The place barely changes as it is. I wonder how in the world the P&L district and arena ever went in.

And yes, downtown KC has grown, but it has not changed any more than any other city. I think most cities have changed a lot more except a few like Memphis or Buffalo or something. Downtown KC needs development. It sill needs it badly.

The area where the star building is being replaced by a stadium and other development is a no brainer. It's not going to happen otherwise. It will take 20 plus years to develop those blocks if the stadium doesn't go there.

Sorry, KC is just a frustrating place if you want to see it grow and evolve.

[Highlander]

Good god, the freaking quote of the century. This should be plastered everywhere because I feel like I'm the only one that sees this. And every time I say it, I'm just some out of town asshole.

Who has ever said that? We all know this area isn't some hub of ped activity?

Not just ped activity, but any activity. I fully understand that there are pockets of activity, but people there have become totally delusional.

If somebody was just passing through town on I-70 and just drove around the crossroads, they will by far and large see a huge empty urban area with few cars, few people, few cyclists and a shit ton of empty lots and parking lots with crumbling curbs and sidewalks etc. If they are lucky, they might run into some of the cool restaurants in the area, but they would most likely need to google them first because it's not like the areas are vibrant and would be easily spotted.

Just tired of arguing this. If KC wants to stay the same, so be it. I really don't care anymore. It would be neat to come back to KC and see the city truly busy and vibrant and full of people on a regular day though. Shit, I have stayed in Crossroads hotels when the arena has sold out events and it barely does anything for the Crossroads. You can still park on the street within five blocks of the arena. There is just so much parking.

I don't know what to think of KC anymore honestly. I feel like it's full of small town people or just people that do not want the place to change ever. The place barely changes as it is. I wonder how in the world the P&L district and arena ever went in.

And yes, downtown KC has grown, but it has not changed any more than any other city. I think most cities have changed a lot more except a few like Memphis or Buffalo or something. Downtown KC needs development. It sill needs it badly.

The area where the star building is being replaced by a stadium and other development is a no brainer. It's not going to happen otherwise. It will take 20 plus years to develop those blocks if the stadium doesn't go there.

Sorry, KC is just a frustrating place if you want to see it grow and evolve.

Partially an outcome of the CBD becoming primarily a residential area. I hate to hammer the Crossroads, I do like and frequent the area, but the metro needs to decide what they want and expect the CBD to be. At the moment, it's no longer the white collar employment center of the metro but it's really not a thriving residential area either. We cannot even secure a downtown Target. My view is that baseball and other events that draw large numbers of people should absolutely be downtown and not in some peripheral corner of downtown. That's what most metros thrive to attain. The idea of a few businesses being displaced is unfortunate but that would happen on an even greater scale if KC had a growth rate of 3 or 4% instead of 0.81% and corporations with well paying jobs and large numbers of employees were interested in KC instead of Austin or Nashville or even if local corporations were interested in downtown rather than College Blvd.

[KCPowercat]

Grid nobody is arguing with you? What would there even be to argue about in your post?

[GRID]

Grid nobody is arguing with you? What would there even be to argue about in your post?

Nobody here really. These are arguments I have with people on social media along with family and friends that live in KC. And by the looks of the posts here, many here are doing the same. Seeing people say that every bar and restaurant in the crossroads is anti stadium confirms that a lot of people just don't get it. Including those that are likely to benefit the most from it.

[KCDowntown]

I am currently on vacation in San Diego, and yesterday my family and I went down to area around Petco Park. We were in the Gaslamp Quarter and there were shops and activity everywhere. This area is adjacent to Petco Park, and spanned multiple blocks in all directions. The stadium had some small structured parking on one side, and was being used for a convention that was in town. There was not a proliferation of surface parking around the stadium. We walked around, ate lunch, shopped, and hit Petco park, and there was not one block without some level of activity.

While it wasn’t baseball season, there was stadium related activity as the stadium was offering tours, I’d guess there were 40 people waiting outside for their time slot. Some of the restaurants were clearly catering to Padres related traffic, but it wasn’t just a bunch of sports bars.

Petco Park was not perfect. There was one side that was mostly blank, and the office part of the building was kind of foreboding. But you could see on the northern side how it dumped people into the active Gaslamp Quarter. The southern side abuts railroad tracks, and the cities light rail/streetcar.

The one thing that stood out was how consistently active the whole area was. We were there on a Sunday afternoon for about 4 hours and there were people everywhere, probably 1 in 8 was wearing a convention lanyard, but the rest just looked like regular traffic. Shops and restaurants everywhere.

It is really mind-boggling to me that we have downtown interests actively fighting against the stadium. We should be doing anything in our power to bring more people downtown. Our downtown doesn’t even compare to San Diego, its skyline is growing (and about twice the size of KC) with multiple skyscrapers going up currently. And here we are with downtown interests fighting against a project that will bring millions of people a year downtown. Yes there are some great buildings in footprint, yes there are a handful of active businesses - but the level of activity in this part of the Crossroads absolutely pales in comparison to what I’ve seen. We’ve genuinely lost the plot.

One block from Petco


I’ll try to post more pics later as we are heading out for dinner.
KCDowntown

[GRID]

^ this.......

The only problem is that this is an echo chamber of a very small group of people that are for this and know what downtown KC lacks and needs.

I feel like only 10% or less of the population of greater KC aligns with people here. I don't know if it's because people don't ever leave KC or they are just simply so stubborn that they don't care.

It's so confusing and so exhausting.

That Crossroads District actually could be one of the most amazing urban neighborhoods in the midwest or even country, if KC would just allow it to happen.

[beautyfromashes]

That Crossroads District actually could be one of the most amazing urban neighborhoods in the midwest or even country, if KC would just allow it to happen.

I think this might be where you and, for sure, the Royals are getting it wrong. You’re saying that with your ideas this could be a great place. That the Royals came in with the perceived attitude of fixing the Crossroads shows their arrogance. For people not from here or who forgot, this is the #1 most despised character trait of Kansas Citians. It’s where “the Show Me state” comes from.

If the Royals wanted to win this, they should have embraced the arts district. The language should have been, “We want to join this arts community.” “We are going to create an artistic stadium.” “We will find replacements for all displaced businesses.” Instead, it seems egotistical and strongman tactics. Won’t work with Kansas Citians. Humility is required.

[GRID]

That Crossroads District actually could be one of the most amazing urban neighborhoods in the midwest or even country, if KC would just allow it to happen.

I think this might be where you and, for sure, the Royals are getting it wrong. You’re saying that with your ideas this could be a great place. That the Royals came in with the perceived attitude of fixing the Crossroads shows their arrogance. For people not from here or who forgot, this is the #1 most despised character trait of Kansas Citians. It’s where “the Show Me state” comes from.

If the Royals wanted to win this, they should have embraced the arts district. The language should have been, “We want to join this arts community.” “We are going to create an artistic stadium.” “We will find replacements for all displaced businesses.” Instead, it seems egotistical and strongman tactics. Won’t work with Kansas Citians. Humility is required.

I don't think the Royals meant harm, they are probably just detached from the community. I get what you area saying, but hopefully the team and those against the stadium can come together and find common ground. That does not seem to be happening though?

[beautyfromashes]

I don't think the Royals meant harm, they are probably just detached from the community. I get what you area saying, but hopefully the team and those against the stadium can come together and find common ground. That does not seem to be happening though?

I don't either. They listened to some bad advice from people not from here and who didn't really understand the voting public.

[DColeKC]

I don't think the Royals meant harm, they are probably just detached from the community. I get what you area saying, but hopefully the team and those against the stadium can come together and find common ground. That does not seem to be happening though?

I don't either. They listened to some bad advice from people not from here and who didn't really understand the voting public.

They didn’t talk to anyone and tried to go at it all alone and finally did talk to people but it was too late to put together a strong message. So it was all just rushed.