Downtown Baseball Stadium

KCN · Post by **KCN** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 12:22 am

Most of the talk is conditional that BSII gets voted down.

aknowledgeableperson · Mon Apr 19, 2004 6:02 pm

revolver8080 wrote:AKP-

I think your estimate of 350 mill for a new stadium is probably a bit inflated, assuming the land can be had for a reasonable sum. I have read of some of the new ballparks that have run in the 350-400 million dollar range, but all of those had retractable roofs- an unnecessary perk that can add as much as 100 million to the pricetag.

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-Mark

Don't be surprised that the KC cost would be that high, especially given the Crown Center talked about location. At minimum you would have an office building to buy and tear down. Since the building is occupied tenants would have to be bought out of leases and moved (not cheap). With regards to the railroad tracks that are being heavily used there would be two options. Secure air rights that wont be cheap and build the stadium like a bridge over ithe tracks (not cheap also) or take the land for the railroads and that is not cheap.
There are certain aspects of Kansas City that could make it even more expensive than $350,000,000. Look at it this way, if they are talking about $170,000,000 to upgrade the current stadium then it must be quite a bit more than that to build new. Otherwise I think the talk with the Royals would be about something new instead of upgrade.

And don't forget to include the costs of buying out the current Royals lease and the cost of demolition of the current stadium.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Mon Apr 19, 2004 7:33 pm

akp might be right about one thing. It would be tough fitting a 35-40k seat stadium in Columbus park...not saying architects COULDN'T do it but it would depend on how the owners of the Blue Cross building felt about it. Here are a couple visuals....first one is from the same zoom level of both Columbus square and Kauffman. Now I did cut out the black asphalt around the stadium and the circular ramps which could easily be designed in the footprint left. I faded Kauffman so you could see below it....it is rotated the incorrect direction for a baseball park but it's all about getting the idea that it can be done....not dropping a mirror of Kauffman into the space.

and here is the same pic but I colored Kauffman so you could see where it lays...

As you can see, the current Kauffman would overlay Grand and obviously wouldn't work. Now once again I'm not saying it can't be done....if you do the same with fenway from Boston it fits fine when rotated the proper direction....

Under none of these situations doe sit come close to the railroad tracks to the north.

phxcat · Post by **phxcat** » Mon Apr 19, 2004 7:42 pm

It is amazing what can fit into small spaces. I know there will be some overlap, but have you seen the area the new Cardinals stadium is being built in? It is tiny!

GRID · Post by **GRID** » Mon Apr 19, 2004 11:10 pm

We should at least be honest with ourselves and admit that a downtown stadium in KC will cost at least 350 million.

Most stadiums that cost under 300 million were built in a parking lot of the old stadium.

That blue cross building alone would cost 100 million to buy, tear down, buy out the leases, relocate tenants etc.

LyRiCaL GanGsTa · Post by **LyRiCaL GanGsTa** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 12:39 am

Is it possible to build the stadium around the Blue Cross building? The downtown stadium should be built below street level anyway, shouldn't it? If the stadium faced north-northeast, is it possible to incorporate around the building?

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 1:05 am

Is it possible to build the stadium around the Blue Cross building?

Yeah this was kind of my point....it can be built around the blue cross building pretty easily if the owners were good with it.

aknowledgeableperson · Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:00 am

GRID wrote:We should at least be honest with ourselves and admit that a downtown stadium in KC will cost at least 350 million.

Most stadiums that cost under 300 million were built in a parking lot of the old stadium.

That blue cross building alone would cost 100 million to buy, tear down, buy out the leases, relocate tenants etc.

At least now someone else is honest about the potential cost of this dream. And looking at the pictures of how it fits in Washington Park I have these questions.
One, is the scale of the pictures the same?
Two, How does the stadium fit if it is moved north? Currently too close to Pershing. A safety barrier is needed to protect those going into and out of stadium on the south corner and possibly on the east and west also. Can't build right next to the street.
What will a stadium look like so that Main and Grand streets will not be in the way?

StL_Dan · Post by **StL_Dan** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:13 am

[/quote]

EXACTLY the way I have been envisioning it!

If this doesn't get KC Royals Fan all hot and bothered......well.....nothing ever will.

phxcat · Post by **phxcat** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:46 am

Not knowing what that building looks like, I would think that what you would want to do is back the stadium up into the SE corner, get the Blue Cross building into the outfield (or close to it) and put a restaurant or suites in it. If you have seen PetCo on TV, they have the same sort of thing going. Looking at that picture, (it hadn't loaded last time I wrote) the size of the space wouldn;t be a problem at all. The footprint would just change. We wouldn;t want a replica of Kaufman downtown anyway. A true retro design would shape itself to fit the contours of the streetscape, and to include the BlueCross building could be an awesome addition.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:56 am

At least now someone else is honest about the potential cost of this dream. And looking at the pictures of how it fits in Washington Park I have these questions.
One, is the scale of the pictures the same?
Two, How does the stadium fit if it is moved north? Currently too close to Pershing. A safety barrier is needed to protect those going into and out of stadium on the south corner and possibly on the east and west also. Can't build right next to the street.
What will a stadium look like so that Main and Grand streets will not be in the way?

akp....I don't think anybody on here is try to fool anybody with numbers...these are all just guesses of what can happen. If it costs $350M so be it, let's plan for that.

1) Yes the park and Kauffman were taken from the same zoom level off terraserver.

2) You CAN build right next to the street....been to Fenway? Wrigley? In reality it would probably be moved a bit further north but there is still plenty of room before getting to the railroad tracks.

StL_Dan · Post by **StL_Dan** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:11 am

phxcat wrote:We wouldn;t want a replica of Kaufman downtown anyway. A true retro design would shape itself to fit the contours of the streetscape, and to include the BlueCross building could be an awesome addition.

I'm not so sure that a 'retro stadium' would necessarily be the way to go either, phxcat. Sure, the new stadium should not be the exact same look as Kauffman, but, I think KC should stay as far away from conforming to the now vogue total retro look. Why? EVERYONE is doing it.

In a weird way, I wish the new Cardinals stadium wasn't so much a retro stadium and incorporated more of the old Busch 'feel' with the arches and all. Busch, all of the sudden, is now 'one of a kind'.

The K is still one of a kind. I'd hate to see the new KC stadium look like all the rest of the new 'retro' stadiums. In 10 years, noone is going to be happy with that look....sorta like noone was happy with the 'cookie cutters' 10 to 15 years ago.

I'd like to see a happy medium of retro and modern attributes in a new stadium, keeping KC on the cutting edge yet remaining loyal to it's unique past.

aknowledgeableperson · Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:13 am

Fenway, Wrigley, and Yankee Stadiums are older stadiums. What about the newer stadiums that are built in urban areas. How close are they to the street? The one in St. Louis for example.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:14 am

I wish the new Cardinals stadium wasn't so much a retro stadium and incorporated more of the old Busch 'feel' with the arches and all.

I said the same thing Dan....the retro thing is overdone now.

StL_Dan · Post by **StL_Dan** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:15 am

KCPowercat wrote:
I wish the new Cardinals stadium wasn't so much a retro stadium and incorporated more of the old Busch 'feel' with the arches and all.
I said the same thing Dan....the retro thing is overdone now.

sorry...didn't mean to be reduntant. just put me in the group of folks that have the same opinion as you about retros.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:16 am

no, not in here, I've just said that about the new Busch...not redudant at all.

StL_Dan · Post by **StL_Dan** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:21 am

I'm sure I'll still enjoy everything about the new STL stadium anyway. Just wish it had more of a unique look.

StL_Dan · Post by **StL_Dan** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:20 am

Check this out: I fwded GRID's picture of the downtown stadium to a friend here at work that is a lifetime KCMO resident (who doesn't participate on this forum). Here are his comments:

Um, one problem. This is KC and the only thing we want downtown are nice shinny office buildings that are half occupied because the local gentry didn't have enough foresight to build the damn things downtown to begin with. When the major anchor shopping stores (e.g. Macy's and Jones) wanted abatements as an incentive to stay downtown, the good ol folks in KC didn't see the big picture and thus, they didn't do the right thing. In the end, the stores shut down and the mad exodus began out south into JO! On top of that, KC is a very segregated city, so that's why the stadiums were built were they were so "paying" fans could get away from urban environments. Believe it or not Dan, white folks didn't like parking their cars around the Brooklyn St. area and walking to the old stadium. I know...shocker isn't it? Additionally, if you ever look a highway map of KC, it's "ironic" that "all" the highways go around the urban core and not thru it. Again, this was done to prevent people from having to deal with the urban core. Long story short, whether this comes to a vote via bi-state or some other means, something like this will never be built downtown. Most KS folks aren't too gung-ho about supporting anything in MO even though their existence is due large in part to the growth of KCMO, and secondly, the Royals and the Griefs are fine with the status quo. They have no incentive to relocate the teams downtown, so they won't push for it either. It would be different if the sports complex was a dump, but it's not. Camarohead just needs to be maintained properly and Kauffman just recently went through a minor remodeling. Besides, if the Chiefs moved downtown, Carl would lose revenue because he couldn't charge $20 bucs a head to park. Can charge people $20 bucs to park downtown if you don't own the lots where people park.

LyRiCaL GanGsTa · Post by **LyRiCaL GanGsTa** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:38 am

You CAN build right next to the street....been to Fenway? Wrigley? In reality it would probably be moved a bit further north but there is still plenty of room before getting to the railroad tracks.

KC, is it possible to get a bigger photo off the terraserver and move the stadium a bit further north, just as a reference. There will definitely need to be a bigger 'buffer' entrance off of pershing, as has been pointed out. I think this will allow for the Blue Cross building to stay and be incorporated also. The idea of using the sat pics as a tools is tremendous foresight, the naysayers need education and the more visualization that we can come up with will help immensely.

StL_Dan, your friend is right, KC was and is still very segregated. The Stadium on Brooklyn had NO PARKING... I remember tales about parking in people's yards and neighbors setting up makeshift parking in thier front driveways with signs. It was a mess and parking was the main concern, no wonder they built the stadiums where they did at the time.

I personally would love to see a KC RETRO design, one that mixes the distinguished Union Station design across the street, KC's famed art-deco buildings and the H2O-fountained Kaufman. Now that is undeniably KC!

StL_Dan · Post by **StL_Dan** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:42 am

[quote=""LyRiCaL GanGsTa"]I personally would love to see a KC RETRO design, one that mixes the distinguished Union Station design across the street, KC's famed art-deco buildings and the H2O-fountained Kaufman. Now that is undeniably KC![/quote]

That's a great idea. I like it. The design should have 'KC' written all over it.