If the new Kansas City Royals stadium isn’t downtown, what’s the point of moving? | Opinion
The Star’s editorial board has never pushed for downtown baseball — not, that is, if the tab for a new Royals stadium had to be picked up by taxpayers, many of whom, given today’s MLB ticket prices, can no longer afford to see a game.
But to build a new stadium for the Kansas City Royals anywhere but downtown makes no sense at all.
The whole point of the move was supposed to be that the city as well as the team would reap the benefit of attracting people downtown.
Anyone who’s been to a Cardinals game in St. Louis can see the allure, and see, too, what downtown baseball can do for a city, though Busch Stadium was mostly privately financed and the ballpark village surrounding it came several years later.
Though stadiums are not always the economic drivers they’re made out to be, a $1 billion stadium and a privately funded $1 billion surrounding ballpark village in Kansas City’s East Village would at least revitalize a neglected area, and could pay off for both the city and the team.
So the bait and switch of even talking about building a Potemkin Wrigleyville in North Kansas City instead is a joke that isn’t funny. Wrigley Field has more than a century of history behind it, and the surrounding neighborhood is the noisy, beloved draw that it is because the Cubs have called Chicago’s North Side home since 1920.
The Star has reported that Kansas City leaders are prepared to contribute as much as $200 million to infrastructure improvements ahead of a new stadium.
We doubt that the “progressive and creative vision” of North Kansas City’s proposal is even financially viable, given that Clay County doesn’t have the tax base that Jackson County does.
It also sounds like a nightmare inconvenience for fans, since all of those south of the river would have to cross a crowded bridge twice to attend a game. Does that sound like fun?
The involvement of the Merriman family in putting together the plan for North Kansas City also deserves further scrutiny if taxpayers are to be on the hook for the stadium.
Right now, Kansas City and Jackson County pay $5.5 million a year for maintenance to the Truman Sports Complex. Half of that benefits the Chiefs, but the Royals’ share would obviously disappear if the team left the county.
The current lease requires the Royals to play at Truman through 2030, so they’d have to be let out of their lease, or pay to break it, if they wanted to leave sooner.
If this whole discussion of moving the team to North Kansas City is just a bargaining gambit, it’s a poor one.
Maybe we were right all along that downtown baseball shouldn’t be a top priority; so deep into this discussion, it’s bizarre that so many questions about the project haven’t even begun to be answered.
As a mayoral candidate, Quinton Lucas said, “We need a new downtown baseball stadium like I need a new Maserati. It’d be cool to have, but I don’t have the money.”
The second part has always been true. And unless the new park were downtown, it wouldn’t even be cool to have.
