October 11, 2005
Forget all your troubles, forget all your cares, and go...
Backers of a downtown stadium for the Kansas City Royals haven't given up, issuing a new plan today to propose a $357 million stadium plan. Also part of the package: A 47-page Powerpoint presentation (PDF file here) that finally, on page 43, gets around to describing its "conceptual financing plan": $315 million in public funding for a Royals stadium (including general city funds, a sales-tax hike, and tax increment financing), and upwards of $258 million - the actual figure is given as "To Be Determined" - for renovations to the Chiefs' Arrowhead stadium. Dan Barrett of Barrett Sports Group LLC, the outfit behind the press conference (and consulting-speak writers extraordinaire), projected $21.5 million in annual added profits for the Royals under the plan - which is hardly surprising, given they'd be paying only 11% of the costs.
Barrett Sports Group either doesn't do their homework or they think I won't do mine. They prominently suggest we can do what Pittsburg has done with its downtown, though Pittsburg's new stadium drew less than Kauffman in '03 and '04.
Also, there have been 2-3 years before this year that no team in the AL Central drew more than 2.0 Million despite 3 cities with "modern" stadiums (and why shouldn't I include Minnesota as the 4th, even though they want a new one). And I don't think that the Rockies' experience of falling from the 3.0 Million range to below 2.0 Million is one to replicate. Denver's downtown resurgence would have happened in the 1990's largely the same way without the stadium, as Denver provided the perfect environment for a return to urban living because of the abundance of older loft buildings near the downtown employment center.
Right now most Kansas Citians seem more concerned with the solution to the rise in violent crime (and other social issues that aren't getting the money they need) than they are with either building a new stadium or with refurbishing Kauffman.
