Downtown Baseball Stadium

[aknowledgeableperson]

WOW, what a discussion. If it was in person and not online there might have been punches thrown (just kidding).
Anyway wherever the stadium is built downtown, if one is actually built downtown, it will be determined by money followed by downtown interests and if public funds are needed a possible vote by the voters. Many decisions made by the city and others are mostly made with the thought of what can be made for the cheapest cost. And that is one thing I do not see people discussing.

[Critical_Mass]

The County might not 'play ball' for the jail site and/or with that location they could potentially insert themselves and have too much leverage on the process. I agree it is the best site.

[normalthings]

If your perfect site isn’t being considered by experts something about it must not be perfect.

East answers:

It’s an active jail with a replacement years away
There isn’t enough space despite your claims
County and State own land
Mission critical communications equipment is next door

[AlkaliAxel]

Potentially with the Crossroads site it could be one of the few downtown MLB stadiums that is truly walkable and dense from all sides of the stadium. 360.

Target Field is a bungled mess behind that stadium. Coors Field is only active behind home plate. Busch & Safeco have highway bridge next to it. Etc. etc.

This stadium in Xroads could be active around itself 360 with urban life. Sure, 670 would be there but I assume they'd cap it. I've only seen a fully urban stadium correctly at Wrigley Field...one of the all-time greats. I think this could be something with alot of potential.

[KCtoBrooklyn]

I have yet to see an accurate depiction of what the view from behind home plate (and for most of the stadium seating) would look like and I'm tired of the misleading skyline views, so here's an ACTUAL image of what the view from behind home plate, facing NE, would ACTUALLY look like. Stadiums have structure, and you can't magically look through seats and steel structure to view downtown to the West. If you think you'd somehow have a magical view of DT to the West from this NE corner of the crossroads proposal.. you are being oversold and lied to. THIS is what your view would be from the NE looking NE. There's also virtually no chance of high-rise development anywhere that the interstate loop is situated, and the East loop isn't changing anytime in the next 20+ years. So this view is THE view you would have for the entire lifespan of the stadium. Keep that in mind.

There rule that stadiums face northeast is not set in stone and there are some that face due north. The image I posted facing north is a real possibility (and I think more likely than NE from that location.)

[AlkaliAxel]

Seems like a N/NW facing stadium would mostly be seeing the Cordish wall, which is fine.

[Critical_Mass]

A northwest orientation would be a big outlier within the MLB. the red arrows in that graph are indoor stadiums where orientation isn't an issue. There are a lot more oriented southeast. If north loop is still in play you could do that and have killer views plus be right on the streetcar stop.

[FlippantCitizen]

There is too much potential for fine grained infill to mix with existing buildings for me to support an east crossroads location. If we are going to hand over swaths of valuable urban land for a stadium and a massive spinoff master development, it needs to go somewhere that it will be completely additive. Not in a place where we are trading off the potential for a fully functional neighborhood with the addition of just a few residential projects to fill in the gaps. The east village has my vote amongst currently viable sites in the discussion.

[GRID]

I just have a bad feeling about the EV site.

Look at google maps at the area around the Kauffman Center. It's nearly all either empty land, parking lots or shitty old industrial buildings. The Webster House is about all there is around it. The PAC opened in 2011 and the only thing that has happened in that area is teardowns.

Same with the T-Mobile. Very little new construction has happened, but there is more empty lots now than there were before the arena went in. Other than the P&L District, the arena has caused almost no real investment in the area. Traders on Grand is probably the biggest thing and that would have happened regardless of Sprint Center opening.

Land directly near stadiums is very hard to develop. It's too valuable as parking lots and people think the land is worth more than it really is, so it never develops or takes forever. Look at any downtown stadium and and this is the case. Even here in DC, nearly the entire Navy Yard was built up before they really started hitting the blocks near the stadium. Baltimore, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Seattle, etc all same deal. Denver, same deal. LoDo was 90% built out before development finally started happening near Coors and there is still parking lots for mile north of Coors field.

So KC is expected to see intense development in the few blocks that will be left over after a stadium goes into EV? I'm just not buying it. You want a vibrant stadium district, it has to go in or right next to an existing vibrant district. That's why the crossroads is the only real place it would work (or maybe on top of the north loop). If there is no place other than EV to put a stadium than I really think KC might just make a really big mistake and get a huge "I told you so" from all these fans that hate the idea of a downtown stadium.

What makes people think that a new stadium is going to be surrounded by new development? It will be parking lots, gov buildings, a 1950's freeway and maybe an apartment building beyond the outfield that won't really do much of anything besides provide another garage and make the view less horrible.

That's why it just might be worth taking out some buildings. I HATE destroying buildings, especially in a city like KC that has so much under developed urban land. But it just might be a better alternative to forcing a stadium in such as bad location as the EV.

[KCPowercat]

So why would we plop a stadium where development can and is happening in the crossroads. It's like you are making a great case for EV but don't realize it. It's got better infrastructure around it for supporting a building used 20% of the year without having to add more.

Everybody saying they hate tearing down buildings but advocating for the only site tearing down dozens of buildings is just lying to themselves.

[horizons82]

The County might not 'play ball' for the jail site and/or with that location they could potentially insert themselves and have too much leverage on the process. I agree it is the best site.

The county will already be involved given that the team is vacating Truman. Absolutely nothing indicates to me that they wouldn’t want to insert themselves no matter where things are going.

If your perfect site isn’t being considered by experts something about it must not be perfect.

East answers:

It’s an active jail with a replacement years away
There isn’t enough space despite your claims
County and State own land
Mission critical communications equipment is next door

A stadium is years away. That’s a moot point on the replacement front

There is enough land factoring in the jail, DMV, and surface lots. Yes it cannot be as large as the current K, but that was never in the cards

“Mission critical” communications is still close with a xroads site.

There is no perfect site. No argument there.

[normalthings]

Can someone draw me this proposed site? All I am conjuring is the 2 blocks containing the jail and state offices?

[KCPowercat]

It's very tight if you take the current stadium footprint.



the K is a pretty expansive footprint. Could do something like Target Field there easier.

[AlkaliAxel]

Super quick and rough photoshop just to see how things could look. The stadium would likely be oriented more to the north? If you can also imagine the 670 park going all the way from Bartle to the stadium.

GRID had this as a rough idea for the Jail Site^

[horizons82]

The area in red is slightly under 12 acres, the same as Target Field. Truist Park is between 12 & 13 acres.

You could get another acre or two for an eastern entry/ticketing plaza if you built over 670 along the west side of Holmes.

[im2kull]

So this view is THE view you would have for the entire lifespan of the stadium. Keep that in mind.


upload your photo

*Unless they decide to build a couple towers behind this new stadium site…

You can't build a couple of towers behind this new stadium site. It's all freeway and interstate interchange. Not exactly buildable.

[TheLastGentleman]

The emptiness around big projects in KC might be the landbankers thinking their property is suddenly going to become some of the most valuable in the world from proximity to these projects, and are very patiently waiting for some magic number to appear. Since there’s no way to make anyone do anything to their property anywhere downtown (unless it’s bulldozing for more freeways, of course) these jokers will just leave their land fallow for the foreseeable future.

Anywhere else in the world, multiple neighboring city block-sized quantities of land in the absolute dead center of the downtown of a 2 million-person major metropolitan area wouldn’t be tolerated for more than a decade, but this is middle America

[AlkaliAxel]

So this view is THE view you would have for the entire lifespan of the stadium. Keep that in mind.


upload your photo

*Unless they decide to build a couple towers behind this new stadium site…

You can't build a couple of towers behind this new stadium site. It's all freeway and interstate interchange. Not exactly buildable.

You can in the crossroads, over there on the side. There’s tons and tons of surface lot. I’m willing to be they orient the stadium facing north.

[beautyfromashes]

You have to mix different uses and types of development to have constant activity making an area feel alive all the time. This site, having the stadium right next to T-Mobile with a highway or park next to it, just feels like it would be a "sports district" and not alive. The scale would be so big with little streetfront activity. My favorite was always North Loop. I know that there is one building that was just built that killed having enough space for a stadium, but that doesn't seem to be stopping discussion about Crossroads tearing down many, many. EV would be my second favorite, but it'd have to be designed well.

[KCDowntown]

I've spent some time tonight researching various stadium sizes along with parking requirements for an MLB stadium. I took some google earth screenshots for cities that share a similar transit capability as us (streetcar only, that would have a nearby stop) to see what we might be able to expect.

These are in order from worst to best, and I added Cleveland at the end because that's where our owner came from - although their situation is different as parking is shared between baseball and basketball & I imagine has to be able to handle simultaneous events.

Comerica Park- Detroit
This is the nightmare scenario, if this happened anywhere in our downtown because of the new ballpark I'd be horrified. If this happened in the NE Crossroads I'd sign off and never return, if a moderator hadn't already booted me.


Great American Ballpark - Cincy
Does a good job in a tight spot, obviously most city pedestrian traffic is routed to the stadium from the street to the west. Parking is well-hidden.


Petco Park - San Diego
The dream scenario - does a admirable but not perfect job of integrating with the city, few parking structures, streetcar stops right outside.


Progressive Field - Cleveland
Street-level was dire next to the garage BTW.


As far as the number of parking spaces needed to support a ballpark I did some internet research (so take it with a grain of salt) and the formula is roughly 2.25 people a car for MLB - it was 3.5 for football. So if the stadium was off in no-man lands and seated the same as the K, it's roughly 17,000 parking stalls total for a capacity crowd. With the stadium located downtown some traffic will arrive from hotels/residences on foot, and some people will take the streetcar, so I'd say the new stadium will require 15,000 parking spaces nearby. If it's close to core it will compete with the T-Mobile Center on some nights, so I have a feeling any downtown stadium is going to include a structured garage somewhere even with DT's parking oversupply.

As for stadium sizes, they actually vary a lot more than I was expecting. I looked at about half the MLB stadiums and the average stadium size is approximately a 750ft x 750ft rectangle. Target Field is 750x650. Fenway is 750x550. Petco is 730x730. I think a stadium could fit in the jail site even with the LongLines building remaining. If you really squeezed it in there and removed the College Basketball experience, I even think it's possible to fit one in north of the T-Mobile Center.

Finally, as I've mentioned before I've been tracking the KCMO parcel viewer on these sites since 2019 and we finally had a change of ownership on a parcel. In the Jail site, 1403 Holmes parcel changed hands to an entity called VJ Enterprises. I did some research on 'VJ Enterprises' but didn't find much - their incorporation documents lead back to lawyers instead of the owners which seems like standard practice. I'm trying to see if I can tie any land ownership downtown back to someone associated with the Royals large ownership group or if the city started banking land, but so far its been a 3-year dead end. One other note, there's a couple of parcels in the NE Crossroads that have baseball-related names - it's probably a coincidence as their ownership predates Sherman's take over in 2019 but I thought it was interesting (i.e. Centerfield Asset Properties, the Squeeze Box, the Royal Building).

I'll try to organize all of this into a cogent thought tomorrow night sometime.

KCDowntown