It’s been two months since Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas announced plans for a new Kansas City Royals stadium development in the downtown Crown Center, using $600 million in city property tax kickbacks, $350 million or more in state money, and $400 million or more in additional tax exemptions, and we still don’t know much about how that all would work. In fact, it turns out Lucas hasn’t even formally asked the state for money from its Show-Me Sports Investment Act tax slush fund established last year.
It’s okay, though, says Mayor Lucas, because he has his reasons:
“This is not an absence of engagement,” said Lucas, who said stadium construction would need to begin this year. “I think it’s instead — how does everybody make sure that they’re in a real cohesive approach to how the deal is delivered?”
Okay, so city and state (and team?) officials are engaged, they just aren’t cohesive — that’s another way of saying they haven’t been able to come to an agreement, right? “We look forward to the continued partnership with the State and the Kansas City Royals,” added spokesperson Lane Johnson in a statement to the Kansas City Star, which is very much the sort of thing one says when one is still at the negotiating table with no idea if talks will end up going anywhere.
According to the Star, qualifying for the Show-Me money shouldn’t be hard: The Royals deal is a sports project that will seat at least 30,000 people and will cost at least $500 million, the state is being asked for less than 50% of the total cost, and the city will be putting in money. How much the city can ask for could be an issue, though — the state will have to estimate exactly how much in sales, income, and other taxes Royals employees paid last year, and that’s likely only around $15-17 million, which would only be enough to cover about $250 million, less than Lucas is asking Missouri to kick in.
Once all the financial details are worked out, the whole deal still needs to go back to the city council for final signoff. And it could require a vote of the public as well, if the labor activist group the Missouri Workers Center has its way: An affiliate of the group submitted more than 4,500 petition signatures on Friday to force a public ballot on the Royals plan. Lucas pooh-poohed any notion of resorting to democracy, saying, “the deal is likely to be done before you would actually have a public vote on the deal itself,” which would either be in November or April of next year. Lucas says he hopes to have all the stadium paperwork signed off by the end of the summer — he may have to, if he wants to avoid giving voters a say in how their tax money is spent.
I believe the delay is with the Hall properties. I have no idea what entities are involved but I can imagine they will try to structure the deal so that there is no sale of property, only exchanges and partnership interests in new entities. If so Sherman is negotiating with Halls as well as the city, county and state.
Sherman didn’t think to figure out the details with the Halls *before* the announcement that he was buildlng a stadium where their headquarters currently stands? That would be pretty dumb, though I guess not impossibly so.
Sherman has another dozen or so partners in the Royals. Now he wants to to develop real estate. Will all the minority partners be involved and will they have to anty up? And how much will the Halls get for contributing land. Lots of moving parts, lots of egos, lots of high priced lawyers and accountants.
I know everyone says this…but I was at The K again yesterday (first time since 2018). I get why they want to move but it is such bs because The K is a great place to watch a ballgame.
It will be a sad day when they leave for the same prefab complex that everyone else already plays in.