Downtown Baseball Stadium

[DColeKC]

The overlooked point in all this is that southern JoCo would actually be a phenomenal place to put Chiefs stadium but for some reason we’re only allowed to have the Royals go there or something.

Losing the sole remaining NFL team in Missouri to Kansas would be a catastrophe. The Chiefs have a 50 year history in KCMO and a history of success, not to mention dynasty status as we speak.

They’re staying at Arrowhead and Missouri should chip in to help them out.

As for the Royals, where are all the liberal activists at? They’re ok with demolishing buildings that were tax subsidized and aren’t even 30 years old? You want to talk about a picture perfect adaptive reuse project! The sprint campus is begging to be converted into mixed use residential. It has hiking trails, biking trails, athletic fields, a small amphitheater and tons of green space. This is a developers dream and it would be a pathetic waste for a baseball stadium to takes it place.

All that said, that location for the Royals goes against the entire philosophy of wanting to get out of TSC. They literally might as well build a new K next to the existing one if they can’t improve on location.

[Highlander]

Moving to old Sprint/T-Mobile campus site would be a terrible idea. This also assumes the owner of the campus would be willing to sell it, probably in excess of $200M, then the cost to tear all those buildings down would be astronomical. And just the waste of resources that end up in a landfill. The campus itself is nice, and the buildings are what, 20+ years old? I worked on the campus when it first opened from 2000-2006. I know that's been over 20 years, but the buildings weren't built cheap, meaning they are all brick and stone. I just don't see it happening there, much prefer the WSP area or even the East Village if that is even on the table.

This is a point I think far too many people, both on this forum and outside, are glossing over.

The purchase price alone will be a huge hurdle to that site working, as well as onerous demolition costs, for a questionable return on investment. Yeah sure, star bonds and gambling revenue help, but only so much.

Long term viability is going to remain lower in the burbs, it achieves none of the stated goals of the ownership sans keeping the team in the region, and actively ostracizes a huge portion of the fan base that has been rather vocal about their disdain for the “border war” politics and their reluctance to follow the team over state lines.

Do I think that all those factors mean it’s a completely unworkable site? Not in the slightest.

We have to recognize it for what it is though, a piece of leverage to achieve what the team ownership ACTUALLY wants.

I have a significant level of hope about this, sure, but I’m willing to bet that cooler head prevail, and the only way a JOCO site happens is if every door is closed on Downtown by either elected officials or massive public pressure and backlash. Neither seem too likely an impediment IMO.

I have read that the site in consideration is not the Aspiria Campus but the undeveloped land on the SE corner of the campus on the corner of 119th and Nall. As you drive by, it looks terribly small. But a comparison with Royals Stadium on Google Maps shows that the stadium would easily fit on the undeveloped land with a lot of room left for parking. The Royals would probably only need to acquire the sand volleyball facility a little to the west of the undeveloped land. Here is a google image that shows the site I am referring to:

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9154272 ... FQAw%3D%3D