Downtown Baseball Stadium

[phuqueue]

Sorry, but this is bad. This is not coming back to a county vote. No way.

At the very best case, the state will have to put in a bunch of money to try and do a hail mary, but it will be for a much more watered down project. This grand project south of the Sprint Center is dead.

My guess it KC is going to be the next Oakland for several more years. KC is going to be THE team everybody will talk about moving. I don't think it will be possible for KCMO to hang on to both teams now. I just don't.

You might get a chance to vote on Arrowhead again, but the Royals are in serios limbo. And sadly it really seems like most of KC doesn't care about the Royals.

The only thing bad here was the plan and campaign by the chiefs and royals. They thought they could just roll out a half assed idea and everybidy would vote yes like they always have. They simply need to fully explain their vision and be consistent.

This is exactly right. People in this thread need to put away the embarrassing conspiracy theories that the teams secretly wanted this to fail so the Chiefs could go to Kansas or the Royals could go to Nashville or whatever. The yes campaign was not utterly incompetent because of some secret scheme to engineer a counterintuitive outcome, it was just the unbridled hubris of the teams to think taxpayers would write them whatever check they asked for without a second thought. I won't speculate on whether there is a version of this plan that taxpayers will approve, especially after having already been so poorly presented with this one, but I think that both the zero-effort rollout on the teams' part and the ultimate result are easily explicable. And whatever your feelings on what this particular project would have meant, and what its failure now means, for the city, I think it's ultimately a good thing that voters have demonstrated that they aren't just going to automatically approve ten-figure projects that have been cobbled together with all the thoughtfulness of a high school senior sleepwalking to graduation.

[KCPowercat]

What happened with Sly James? His "Magic" has seemed to run out the last 5 years or so from the Justice endorsement to this. The guy came across as a grumpy asshole throughout this process.

I mean in his prime he oozed that just in a grumpy grandpa angle

[beautyfromashes]

I can disagree that the teams did a terrible job here.

But they objectively did do a terrible job here, by basically any metric you could evaluate and measure the effort.

They blew their own arbitrary deadlines, they provided half baked information that raised more question than answered, they let opposition hijack the narrative, they never addressed or responded to opposition misinformation. To pretend the teams did anything other than an atrocious job on this effort is wild.

To also pretend that the teams deserve all the blame is an equally as ignorant take, and there are some vested interests in the city it seems that quite literally want no more forward progress of KC, downtown or otherwise, and they should be held accountable as well.

The Royals had no plan. They got thrown a life preserver from Cordish to get something on the ballot but it wouldn't float. They need to hire a big national firm to run their new plan and campaign.

[KCPowercat]

That vote shows what happens when a fleshed out plan isn't presented to voters. S clear message and full plan wins that vote easily.

Many things brought up here were left half ass answered and voters don't like that. This isn't the doing of some group like KC tenants but of course they will try and take the glory.

I predict a similar plan for the royals comes out in same location and back to the voting booth within a year. It will give them time to bake their plan and present a clear message to voters. Chiefs need a better idea too

Agreed. This is the Royals loss, not KCT’s victory and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a new plan at the same site as you said.

It will be interesting how a new funding approach comes together and do the royals and chiefs continue down this path together. I don't know if they will come back to jaxco together again. The chiefs may. The royals I don't know how they produce the funding. A new kcmo tax wouldn't be an easy yes unless they can mix in like a hotel tax/fee or some other tax you can sell as outsiders paying it

[Highlander]

Sorry, but this is bad. This is not coming back to a county vote. No way.

At the very best case, the state will have to put in a bunch of money to try and do a hail mary, but it will be for a much more watered down project. This grand project south of the Sprint Center is dead.

My guess it KC is going to be the next Oakland for several more years. KC is going to be THE team everybody will talk about moving. I don't think it will be possible for KCMO to hang on to both teams now. I just don't.

You might get a chance to vote on Arrowhead again, but the Royals are in serios limbo. And sadly it really seems like most of KC doesn't care about the Royals.

The only thing bad here was the plan and campaign by the chiefs and royals. They thought they could just roll out a half assed idea and everybidy would vote yes like they always have. They simply need to fully explain their vision and be consistent.

This is exactly right. People in this thread need to put away the embarrassing conspiracy theories that the teams secretly wanted this to fail so the Chiefs could go to Kansas or the Royals could go to Nashville or whatever. The yes campaign was not utterly incompetent because of some secret scheme to engineer a counterintuitive outcome, it was just the unbridled hubris of the teams to think taxpayers would write them whatever check they asked for without a second thought. I won't speculate on whether there is a version of this plan that taxpayers will approve, especially after having already been so poorly presented with this one, but I think that both the zero-effort rollout on the teams' part and the ultimate result are easily explicable. And whatever your feelings on what this particular project would have meant, and what its failure now means, for the city, I think it's ultimately a good thing that voters have demonstrated that they aren't just going to automatically approve ten-figure projects that have been cobbled together with all the thoughtfulness of a high school senior sleepwalking to graduation.

You guys give too much credit to the average voter. It came down to some very basic things like the irrational concerns about parking, traffic and crime downtown, anti-tax sentiment and subsidizing billionaires, concerns about people being displaced and the eastern part of the county protecting their interest. I've heard social media means nothing but the election fell right along the margins most of us were observing on social media. For every concern about the details of the plan I saw on social media (there weren't many) there were hundreds of posts regarding what I just listed. The Royals did an extremely poor job of even addressing those concerns as well but relatively few would have been swayed by a more complete plan that addressed the issues most forumers would have liked to have seen addressed. It's a far more fundamental problem and it's very definitely not ultimately a good thing.

[DColeKC]

I can disagree that the teams did a terrible job here.

But they objectively did do a terrible job here, by basically any metric you could evaluate and measure the effort.

They blew their own arbitrary deadlines, they provided half baked information that raised more question than answered, they let opposition hijack the narrative, they never addressed or responded to opposition misinformation. To pretend the teams did anything other than an atrocious job on this effort is wild.

To also pretend that the teams deserve all the blame is an equally as ignorant take, and there are some vested interests in the city it seems that quite literally want no more forward progress of KC, downtown or otherwise, and they should be held accountable as well.

God damn it. That was a typo. I meant to say I CAN NOT disagree they did a terrible job. They did. It was bad. World class awful.

[KC_JAYHAWK]

Even on the Waldo FB page, it was mostly about "destroying" a neighborhood and an arts center. A lot of people seemed fine with the Royals at EV and believed that was a better option. I still do. I mean a stadium in and of itself will bring in development. When Coor's Field was first built, it wasn't surrounded by anything, maybe a few bars. 30 years later (believe it opened in 1995), it is pretty well built out and is awesome. What I am getting at is everything doesn't have to happen or be promised in a few years time. Get the stadium built. Next, see what "outside" developers, besides Cordish, are interest in developing. We don't need another "entertainment" district. The PnL district is not a long walk to the EV and there would be bars/restaurants outside of the PnL district that people could patron as well.

[Metro]

What happened with Sly James? His "Magic" has seemed to run out the last 5 years or so from the Justice endorsement to this. The guy came across as a grumpy asshole throughout this process.

You can tell when someone fully believes in a project and sells it with passion and when they're getting paid for an endorsement because the current mayor took a pass.

Don't get me started on the current mayor and his chicken shit approach. Waiting to endorse the weekend of vote is coward stuff.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

I'm not going to make the claim that East Village or another downtown site would have won because I think the three biggest sins by the teams were the late decision, horrible campaign and the Chiefs embarrassing plan, and none of that would have changed with a different site, but...

It's clear in hindsight the East Crossroads site added to the winds of the no vote in a number of ways. First, there's not a single yes vote that would've been a no had East Village been the site, whereas there were a significant number of voters that were a no simply because of the site selection. East Crossroads added to and coalesced all of the arguments to vote no. If it would've been EV, you'd have the Save the K people, who would've been perfectly content to vote to extend the tax for a Kauffman renovation and the KC Tenants/billionaire hater types that would've voted no for every possible plan that would've gone to voters. Those are two completely different arguments for two completely different voters. But, the East Crossroads site selection brought those arguments and added more to create a clear narrative for voting no for mainstream voters: "this billionaire wants you to pay to tear down our beloved baseball stadium, tear down our beloved Crossroads, throw out small local businesses, all to make him more money. He's not building any parking for people to get to games, it's just about destroying things we love to line his pocket book." Add on that 90% of the Arrowhead improvements were for people in suites and the Royals basically did nothing to combat that narrative and the teams gifted the no vote an easy argument and victory.

The fact of the matter is that the Royals chose the site with the hardest path to victory and they chose too late and completely bungled the campaign. I mean...they didn't sign the agreement with the Crossroads until after I had voted and I voted yesterday. What a colossal joke. Give it a year, divorce this from the Chiefs (as it makes no sense to have the teams to be joined together if they're not at TSC), make it explicitly clear that the Royals will not be playing at TSC when the lease is up, work through all of the issues and put out a fleshed out finance and site plan that's up front about what's being built in phases and what all money is needed and where it's going, obtain Crossroads support, find a landing spot for every business that's being displaced, keep every building east of Oak that's worth keeping, buy up some of the land, and hire a political consultant that knows how to win campaigns and this thing can pass, assuming they need/want to go the same Jackson County route. Or, find a better downtown site that doesn't require so much effort and buy-in, because there are multiple. The only argument for a no vote, at that point, is whether or not someone supports a tax for a professional sports organization.

I still believe that the Royals want to be downtown and the Chiefs want to be at Arrowhead. They're not going to throw out their desires because of one failed vote, they'll throw them out only once it's clear that they won't be able to get what they want and we're not at that point yet. Put your doomerism away.

[Cratedigger]

I feel so disconnected from the comments I'm reading here. The general consensus among people in my life was that this was a disastrous campaign.

It was late and felt rushed on the royals side. They didn't get community buy in ahead of time, and the behind the scene machinations left questions.

It was a mix of vapor renderings and unclear investment, along with the lack of details on the surrounding crossroads and the concern for the long term neighborhood.

Somehow the chiefs did worse and just kinda said give us the money and we'll kinda do nothing with it.

It was a historically bad campaign. My KC group tends to lean heavily towards the vote for anything group, and they broke overwhelmingly no.

Entitled voting campaigns don't work, especially forrich billionaire owners people are already skeptical of.

I think the royals got some very bad advice, especially later on, and this went down in predictable flames. Be careful of people trying to throw blame now.

Yup this was my experience as well.

I had so many friends that were a Yes about downtown baseball and looking forward to it. Then it was in the crossroads and every business they went to on the weekends were ambassadors for the No vote.

I think the Royals started to do more community outreach, working with the neighborhood and positive steps in the last month. But by then the narrative was all about destroying the Crossroads and the team didn't do enough publicly to counter that.

The team should have done more communication with businesses earlier. Rolling out the plan as early voting is starting was an idiotic move and they should not be surprised people had questions.

[Midtownkid]

Most people I know in Midtown voted NO. We all want a stadium downtown, we just don't want it in the Crossroads.

The East Village still makes the most sense.

Like KC_Jawhawk said, that area may be desolate now, but the stadium could change that. We don't always have to locate new things inside areas that are already doing well. Spread the prosperity to new places.

[chingon]

What happened with Sly James? His "Magic" has seemed to run out the last 5 years or so from the Justice endorsement to this. The guy came across as a grumpy asshole throughout this process.

People are just finally getting to see who the man is, an arrogant, smug bully. The meeting I was at with him, back-room Sly was on full display. When he didn't like the questions he got asked, he became combative, talked down to people, and finally resulted to what he has always fallen back on...lying and fearmongering. It didn't play at the meeting, and given his hubris, and how thin-skinned he is, I've always been surprised at how many people buy into his bow-tie and soft-shoe act.

[Highlander]

I still believe that the Royals want to be downtown and the Chiefs want to be at Arrowhead. They're not going to throw out their desires because of one failed vote, they'll throw them out only once it's clear that they won't be able to get what they want and we're not at that point yet. Put your doomerism away.

I agree with this. The Royals see their only path to being profitable enough to deliver a compelling product in KC is being downtown and I don't think they will give up that easily. And the East Crossroads site is still by far the better site. I suspect Sherman and the ownership group have a lot of misgivings about East Village. If I was in their position, I certainly would. While it's an easier sell, it's an incredibly risky location for a stadium. I would not be surprised to see some alternative way forward on the East Crossroads site and East Village being a last resort. I don't see Clay County working out because a sales tax there just wouldn't generate enough funds.

They are going to have to do a better job at convincing Kansas Citians that downtown works and only downtown works and staying at TSC is not an option. I was extremely disappointed by rolling out Mahomes and a few other athletes to make brief sound bites about a downtown stadium. Lay out the plan, explain how it works for KC and the Royals and address the misinformation that's being spewed out by the opposition.

[chingon]

I think this was a show-pony vote and that the Royals wanted it to fail so they can explore leaving. I have thought that for months, and I am not the only one, including some very savvy political operators in town. I suspect that the Royals time in KC is coming to an end. I doubt they go to Nashville, cause it would make much sense to leave the 2nd smallest market in the MLB for what would be the new second smallest market in the MLB, especially while there are larger cities/markets with no MLB team on the table, but who knows. I'm sure it depends on how much money they can extract from taxpayers wherever they go, and how much new market share they can create/skim from current MLB franchises wherever they wind up.

If we are lucky, I think the Chiefs will stay, at least in the metro, but I don't think any reboot of the downtown stadium idea is going to be viable here for the foreseeable future. KCMO should make a play to move the Royals downtown (to a better site, like many of you, I always thought the Crossroads site was a poor choice, but unlike most of you, I remain convinced that 18th and Paseo is a better option than the "east village") and the Chiefs to the Northland. And the proposal should include some kind of parking plan. That probably passable at the ballot box, but short of that, I'd think the odds are we lose one and possibly both teams.

[DColeKC]

I don't know how to be more clear about this but I've seen the internal information where thousands of people across the metro were polled. The site and how it impacted the arts and small business wasn't a major concern for the majority of the voters who responded. It's brash to say but these people simply don't care about the fear mongering being pushed about "destruction" of a "vibrant" neighborhood. Many did not want it downtown period due to the constantly perpetuated misconceptions about traffic, parking and crime.

East Village isn't coming back on the table. The Royals are all in on this site. The city will have to get more involved and the city leaders want this in East Crossroads, not EV.

[WoodDraw]

If anyone wants to laugh, ask the royals what their $1 billion investment outside the stadium will be in that they promised.

[Sani]

John Sherman needs to explain what happened to the East Village site and why it's not on the table. And I'm saying that as someone who thinks the Crossroads site is leagues better than EV. But the last-minute (in relative terms) switch rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and he needs to be clear about why EV is not going to happen.

[Metro]

I don't know how to be more clear about this but I've seen the internal information where thousands of people across the metro were polled. The site and how it impacted the arts and small business wasn't a major concern for the majority of the voters who responded. It's brash to say but these people simply don't care about the fear mongering being pushed about "destruction" of a "vibrant" neighborhood. Many did not want it downtown period due to the constantly perpetuated misconceptions about traffic, parking and crime.

East Village isn't coming back on the table. The Royals are all in on this site. The city will have to get more involved and the city leaders want this in East Crossroads, not EV.

That will be entertaining to watch. After getting voted down by a decisive majority the city will then try to force the stadium in the EC and people like Eric Bunch will have to explain this to voters. I can't wait to see that happen!

[beautyfromashes]

East Village isn't coming back on the table. The Royals are all in on this site. The city will have to get more involved and the city leaders want this in East Crossroads, not EV.

Things change, just like “we have two sites selected” and “we will be removing Oak St” and “we will eminent domain east of Oak”. The Royals will get what MayorQ and the council, Frank White and the county legislators and neighborhood groups and the voters want. That should be the main takeaway here. You can’t just pick whatever site and design you want. If you’re not collaborating, you will lose.

[WoodDraw]

John Sherman needs to explain what happened to the East Village site and why it's not on the table. And I'm saying that as someone who thinks the Crossroads site is leagues better than EV. But the last-minute (in relative terms) switch rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and he needs to be clear about why EV is not going to happen.

It's an open secret. Cordish didn't want them in the EV and went to the city and said it would be bad for the general fund. Q did shit. Switched to the crossroads to get out of the fucked up star building business issues too, just incestuous all the way down.

But it's no secret.