If the KC Royals copy this city’s example, count me in on a new downtown-area stadium | Opinion

I’m no fan of a proposed baseball stadium adjacent to downtown Kansas City. At least not yet. Until a plan is laid out so that the community can benefit directly from taxpayers handing over hundreds of millions of dollars over decades, count me out.

I cannot in good faith support the Royals or their billionaire owner John Sherman’s request for public subsidies to build a new $1 billion-plus playground — errrr, ballpark and entertainment district in the Crossroads Arts District.

However, if the Royals follow the model set by Milwaukee’s $524 million Deer District entertainment venue, I could be swayed. And public sentiment could swing the organization’s way.

Before a new basketball arena was built in that city using close to $250 million in public subsidies, a binding community benefits agreement, or CBA, was in place.

Today, weeks before Jackson County voters decide on a 3/8-cent sales tax to help fund a new ballpark and renovate the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium, no such deal exists. And way too many questions on how the billion-dollar-plus project would be fully funded still remain unanswered.

The Royals have said the organization will spend $1 billion of its own money. If the sales tax question passes on April 2, taxpayers will provide between $600 and $700 million. Without a detailed community benefits package, I don’t see how voters could support this measure.

Opposition from housing, business advocates

At the beginning of the week, negotiations with the Royals and a coalition of community stakeholders were ongoing, according to Gina Chiala, senior attorney and executive director of Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom.

The organization is one of five that comprise the Good Jobs and Affordable Housing For All Coalition. The group is working with the Royals on a CBA package and has presented proposals to lawyers representing the team. As of this week, the coalition was waiting for the organization’s response, Chiala said.

“We’re focused on both the unionization and wages of service workers who will operate the stadium and entertainment district and affordable housing,” she said.

To its credit, the Royals organization has made a good faith effort to come to an agreement, according to Chiala. But time is of the essence, and this slow walk we’re seeing could derail public support of the new stadium.

Affordable housing advocates are against using taxpayer dollars to build the proposed district. Just this week, an organized group formed a committee to oppose the new stadium. And some Crossroads business owners have promised to fight the Royals’ move to the district across Truman Road from downtown.

Fears of gentrification and displacement for small businesses in the area are real.

In 2016, Milwaukee-based community coalition Alliance for Good Jobs and the Milwaukee Bucks negotiated a CBA that is viewed as a nationwide model. Could Kansas City replicate this thriving sports and entertainment district? It should.

Three major components of the Deer District CBA stand out and must be considered here:

• A hiring agreement that guarantees at least 50% of employees in the district and arena are from targeted ZIP codes hit hardest by unemployment or underemployment.

• A fair process for service and hospitality workers to organize into a union without employer interference.

• A wage floor in the stadium and surrounding development that is reflective of the local cost of living.

Benefits for minority communities in Milwaukee

In a study titled Playing with Public Money in Milwaukee, economic development researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s High Road Strategy Center found massive public investments in sports stadiums did little to strengthen communities without binding commitments to true community benefits.

“A strong Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) is the most certain and robust way for communities to obtain real and lasting returns from large-scale private developments,” researchers wrote. “A well-structured CBA is an enforceable private agreement that is legally binding. The community shapes the project through its demands, and in exchange for the coalition’s public support of the project in the approval process, the developer commits to uphold those demands.

“This structure allows a private agreement to enforce public benefits.”

Milwaukee, much like Kansas City, is a Midwestern city plagued by racialized socioeconomic inequality. Returns on the CBA there were immediate, according to High Road.

Because of the agreement with the Bucks, MASH — the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Organization union — was established, according to High Road’s 2022 report. MASH monitors and enforces wage standards and helps develop the workforce at the Fiserv Forum multipurpose arena, home of the NBA’s Bucks and the surrounding Deer District.

A strong community benefits agreement with the Royals that guarantees living-wage union jobs and truly affordable housing could transform service and hospitality work for thousands of workers — and in turn, advance racial and economic justice in Kansas City.

“In short, the Bucks agreement ensured that the jobs generated by the stadium were good jobs that uplifted the community, rather than trapping service workers in poverty, a phenomenon that has sadly become the norm,” Chiala said.

Impact on First Fridays, Crossroads businesses?

Last week, the Royals finally announced its favored location in the Crossroads. Soon after, I reached out to the Crossroads Community Association, which represents the interests of property owners, tenants and residents in the district.

In an email, board liaison Julie Johnson declined to comment. The CCA met in private on Feb. 20 but has yet to take an official stance on the stadium proposal.

The new 34,000-seat stadium would take over the place of The Kansas City Star Press Pavilion once owned by McClatchy, this publication’s parent company. Several small businesses in the area would be razed — a key detail that should not be overlooked.

Locally-owned, independent businesses deserve support. Pushing them out to develop a new stadium would take away part of what gives the Crossroads area its charm, opponents of the proposed site have said.

They’re not wrong. We attend First Fridays in the Crossroads for art walks, food trucks and other vendors. Would that continue with a new baseball stadium?

I’m all for progress — a downtown baseball stadium and entertainment district would be cool. But Jackson County taxpayers should not be billed hundreds of millions of dollars without a direct benefit to the people and low-wage workers of Kansas City.

If the Royals are counting on public money to subsidize this project, then they must secure and advance the public’s interest.