Category: Kansas City Royals

For some reason, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas was up at 4 am local time this morning replying to my hours-old X posts about city and state officials’ plans for a new Royals stadium on the site of Hallmark’s headquarters building on the Crown Center campus. After checking that I wasn’t still asleep and dreaming this, I took the opportunity to ask the mayor some questions that weren’t covered in yesterday’s presentation:

Sadly, either Lucas went back to sleep after that or left for work, because he hasn’t responded. (Though he did find time to post this in the meantime.) If he gets back to me with answers, I’ll update this post.

Fortunately, we do have some independent reporting to address some of the many questions about yesterday’s Royals announcement. For starters, KMBC has reported that “the Royals will convey 15 acres of land to the city for the ballpark itself,” which would make it exempt from property taxes unless the team agreed to a payments in lieu of taxes deal. And according to University of Colorado Denver property tax guru Geoffrey Propheter, a full tax exemption for this project would come to between $678 million and $1.384 billion spread over 30 years — which comes to between $428 million and $873 million in present value in foregone tax payments.

KMBC also reported that the outlay of direct public cash for stadium construction would involve the previously discussed $600 million in city tax increment financing money — it’ll be interesting to see how that’ll work when much of the surrounding Crown Center area is already in either a TIF district or a separate “Chapter 353” property tax abatement district — plus “at least $350 million” from the state. The amount of state money, according to the Show-Me Sports Investment Act passed by the Missouri legislature last year, would be based on the annual payments being no more than the team and its players and employees paid in income, sales, and other taxes in 2025; no one has calculated that number yet.

So we have $1 billion-ish in state and city spending, plus at least $400 million and possibly as much as double that that Royals owner John Sherman would get from the city letting him build a stadium on tax-free land. Let’s call it “at least $1.4 billion,” that’ll do until we get some more precise numbers.

And this just in: The Missouri Workers Center has said it intends to try to force a public ballot measure on the Royals stadium plan, exploring “all legal and political options” for doing so. Not sure what’s possible there, but at least they have the advantage that the Royals funding still has a long ways to go before it’s finalized, so at least they won’t run into the St. Louis Cardinals‘ no backsies precedent.

 

We already knew that any downtown Kansas City Royals stadium was going to have to involve the Crown Center, the collection of shopping centers and retail, hotels, residences, office buildings, and an aquarium that sits adjacent to the proposed Washington Square Park stadium site — if only as the site of a tax increment financing district that Mayor Quinton Lucas has floated as a way to raise the city’s $600 million share of a $1.9 billion stadium construction cost.

But a press conference scheduled this morning with Royals owner John Sherman, Lucas, and Gov. Mike Kehoe is reportedly set to announce an even bigger role for Crown Center:

Sources told KMBC 9 that the new Royals ballpark site will move from Washington Square Park across the street to the Crown Center area.

The site will now offer the Royals 80 acres of land versus the anticipated 12 acres in the Washington Square Park location.

Buildings will be torn down, but the Crown Center retail space and hotels will remain with improvements planned.

That would indeed be a huge shift, and not just because Crown Center doesn’t have any obvious spaces big enough to fit a ballpark, so “buildings will be torn down” may be an understatement. Unlike the Washington Square Park property, the Crown Center is privately owned, by the Hall family of Hallmark fame — the “crown” in the name is the one in the Hallmark logo — so does that mean the Royals would lease it and it would continue to pay property tax? Or would the Royals or a government body buy the stadium land, and if so who would pay for it? And what of Sherman’s desire for a team-controlled ballpark district around the new stadium?

We will hopefully find out more at 10 a.m. Central. Tune back in to this post for further updates.

UPDATE 10:53 am ET: Still waiting for the press conference, but we have a press statement, which includes a smidge more detail:

A world-class ballpark, surrounding mixed-use development and reimagined headquarters for both iconic institutions at Crown Center would create more than 20,000 jobs in the construction phase alone. The 85-acre development surrounding a park-like central square with fountains…

The total project would be funded primarily by the Royals and other private investors and supplemented by public funding from the City of Kansas City and Missouri’s Show-Me Sports Investment Act.

“Total project” funded “primarily” by the Royals “and other private investors” likely means that there will be a lot of private development tacked on in the surrounding area, but the stadium itself will still mostly be paid for by taxpayers. Still nothing yet on how all the other moving parts, land costs, property taxes, etc., would work.

UPDATE 11:01 ET: Live broadcast of the press conference coming up here.

UPDATE 11:05 ET: “No new tax increases,” says Lucas, which is what elected officials say when they want to distract you from how it will siphon off existing tax money. (When they want to distract you from how it will increase taxes, they say “no impact to existing public funding.”)

UPDATE 11:18 ET: Sherman says “total investment of more than $3 billion,” no specifics on from who for what. Washington Square Park will be “part of” the “expanded” ballpark district, so sounds like the park will still be turned over to private development. Also says two-thirds private, one-third public, so that would make the total public cost either $1 billion or $1.5 billion depending on whether the $3 billion is the total cost or just the private cost. And, of course, this is before any land or tax breaks, which are still TBD.

UPDATE 11:35 ET: Hallmark chair Don Hall Jr. mostly said nothing at great length, though he did mention several times his grandfather jumping off a train. He also revealed that the Hallmark headquarters will be relocated to elsewhere in Crown Center to make way for the stadium, which would presumably put the stadium site south of E. 25th St.

UPDATE 11:39 ET: Ah, we have a map now. Looks like the stadium proper would take the place of the Hallmark HQ and the parking lot behind it, butting right up against Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church:

UPDATE 11:52 ET: Gov. Mike Kehoe: “If the Royals were not here, we’d have zero. So these tools are about keeping those income flows here. So that makes it a net positive to the state.” (That sound you just heard was a hundred economists banging their heads against their keyboards.)

UPDATE 12:06 ET: Mayor Lucas has finished his glurging without adding any actual information. Time for questions — nope, first time for a promotional video about the Royals’ inspirational history and future, skipping over their miserable present.

UPDATE 12:09 ET: Time for questions! No, wait, no time for questions, everyone’s leaving for refreshments! Who will pay what for construction, land, property taxes? Tune in next time to find out, or not!

One of the many, many remaining questions about the plan to build a new Kansas City Royals stadium atop a downtown public park and adjacent properties is how much exactly the state government would be putting in. (The city has declared it can kick in $600 million, though it hasn’t exactly figured out where that money is coming from yet beyond a stadium tax district of some kind.) And now we have an answer from House Speaker Jonathan Patterson, if by “an answer” you mean “some sentences with numbers in them”:

“I think with stadiums these days, you’re seeing public-private partnerships,” Patterson said. “So, 900 [million], I think, would be the highest amount that you could get.”

“Public-private partnership” doesn’t actually have to mean the public and private partners go halfsies, but it is what the state’s Show-Me Sports Investment Act sets as the maximum in state sales and income taxes that Missouri could use toward a Royals stadium. And with a stadium estimated to cost $1.9 billion, half of that is $950 million, which is … not the $900 million figure Patterson gave. Where did you come up with that number again, Mr. Speaker?

“I think if you look at the numbers, and there was an audit in 2023, the teams generate almost $60 million, and so if you take half of that, then it would be $30 million, then times 30 years, it could be that number. I think those are good estimates that you’re working with.”

That audit actually showed that the entire sports complex that currently hosts the Royals and Chiefs generated $55.8 million in 2023 in income, sales, and other taxes — for the state, county, and city combined. So not all of that money is flowing to the state, meaning if Missouri gave Sherman $30 million a year, it would be taking a significant loss. And that’s before accounting for any tax money that might go to the state regardless of a new stadium: Given that Royals owner John Sherman seems to have largely given up on moving across the border to Kansas, if the remaining options are all in different parts of Missouri, any Royals-related tax revenues would end up in the same state coffers regardless.

But that’s not the worst of Patterson’s math, because he’s not actually proposing giving the Royals owner $30 million a year for 30 years. Rather, he’s talking about spending $900 million now — which, if the state sold bonds, as it would likely do, would require additional interest payments. If Missouri were to get, say, a 4% bond rate, the annual cost of $900 million in bonds would be more like $50 million a year, to be paid off with whatever share of the roughly $28 million a year in state, county, and city taxes attributed to the stadium actually goes to the state, and is actually new money. And sure, the tax proceeds could go up over time as the Royals raise ticket prices and salaries, but it would have to go up a crazy amount to make the state treasury whole.

Maybe this is why K.C. Mayor Quinton Lucas said last week he believes the state will look at other state revenues as well to offer to Sherman. Or maybe nobody in state or city government knows or cares what the numbers will actually look like, so long as they can claim that it’ll totally pay for itself, if you don’t trouble yourself too much with how actual budgeting works. There are rumblings we may get more stadium plan details tomorrow — let’s hope that this time, someone actually thinks to bring a calculator.

The Kansas City city council’s finance committee and city Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners both yesterday approved Mayor Quinton Lucas’s plan to open talks with the Royals on a new downtown stadium, which would involve $600 million in city money and possibly $750 million or more from the state. The full council meets tomorrow to vote on the ordinance, and since a majority of councilmembers are sponsors of the bill, we can be pretty sure how that will go.

After that, though, the stadium plan still has tons of unanswered questions. Some of that is intentional: The ordinance doesn’t actually set a deal for a downtown Royals stadium, it just authorizes the city manager to negotiate one, at which point a whole bunch more approvals will be necessary. But Lucas and the council also appear to be trying to put forward a stadium plan that is both solid and ephemeral, promising that it will keep the Royals in town for decades while providing only the most nebulous of details about how it would do so, and who would pay for what.

Let’s run through some of the more pressing questions, and see what we can come up with for answers:

Where would the $600 million in city money come from?

While the ordinance itself is silent on this matter, Mayor Lucas has been anything but, vowing that “this isn’t money that’s coming from a general fund source somewhere else. Instead, this is money, largely in our contemplation, generated currently at Kauffman Stadium. … If I never go to the ballpark, I’m not paying for this team.”

Money generated currently at Kauffman Stadium goes into the general fund, so portraying taking an equal amount of money and instead giving it to the Royals as not costing non-baseball fans anything is quite the leap of obfuscation. But beyond that, Lucas has floated the idea of creating a tax increment financing district around not just the stadium but potentially the entire Crown Center area to funnel off that $600 million worth of tax revenues — and depending on how big that district is drawn, it could easily capture spending that isn’t by baseball fans, but just by Kansas Citians who happen to be going out to eat or even visiting the aquarium in the general vicinity of a baseball stadium.

What about the state money?

The Kansas City Star cites “preliminary documents” as saying the stadium itself would be 60% publicly funded and 40% privately funded, which for a $1.9 billion stadium would come to $1.14 billion from public sources, leaving the state to cover $540 million. Lucas, though, has said that the state’s Show-Me Sports Investment Act passed last June could cover 50% of the stadium costs, which would come to more like $950 million. That act, however, provides for siphoning off all state taxes collected on spending at the stadium and on income by team employees and using them to pay off stadium costs, so the actual state cost may depend on how much money officials calculate they can find in this pot — assuming, that is, they don’t choose to go the Kansas route and define “at the stadium” as anywhere in one entire corner of the state.

What do Kansas City residents think of the plan?

Yesterday’s council meeting was open to public testimony, and KCUR reports that many citizens “echoed similar concerns that city leaders are undermining their vote against a downtown stadium, and that taxpayers’ money could be better spent on city services like schools, transportation and affordable housing” while “many business leaders and union members spoke in support of the plan, saying it will create more jobs and bring more economic development to the area.” Samples:

• “When this council decides to put public dollars to tourist attractions and billionaires, they are making a strong and clear statement that the people’s needs do not matter.” —KC Tenants organizer Mellanie Gray
• “I’ve heard some talk about the risk associated with this, but there’s risk in everything, and sometimes there’s greater risk in doing nothing. When you do nothing, you risk losing a team. When you risk losing a team… I don’t even want to think about the jobs, the businesses that we could lose if we don’t do this today.” —Downtown Council of Kansas City board officer Gib Kerr (also a real estate investor with Cushman & Wakefield, something KCUR didn’t mention)

The Kansas City Star adds: “More than one speaker referenced economic studies that have shown stadiums are not major engines for economic development. Numerous opponents referenced the 2024 vote in which Jackson County residents soundly rejected a stadium tax that would have funded a new stadium in the Crossroads District, a vote that has long plagued city and team officials.” (Yes, “plagued” — the will of the voters can be such a headache, right?)

Will a stadium and surrounding Royals development district fit on the proposed site?

This is an excellent question, and one that neither the council nor the press coverage seems to be talking about. Washington Square Park itself is only five acres, not nearly big enough for a stadium; with the addition of some surrounding buildings and a nearby parking lot, a stadium might barely be squeezed in, though renderings show it as an extremely tight fit with the stadium overhanging an adjacent street. For a stadium district, meanwhile, Sherman would likely have to buy part of all of the surrounding Crown Center, and possibly redevelop part of it for any baseball-adjacent uses he’d seek.

Has Royals owner John Sherman committed to this?

“We look very much forward to the continued process,” Sherman told KCTV. “We’ll continue our work with [city manager] Mario [Vasquez] and his staff toward an agreement as was put forth in the ordinance today.” Translation: No, not really, but he’s happy to listen to offers.

What happens now?

The Star confirms that once the details of a deal are actually hashed out, they “would have to go back before the council at a future date,” according to city staff at yesterday’s council hearing. The city would also need state approval to set up a TIF district, plus the state presumably needs to sign off on Show-Me Sports Investment Act bonds. So even if the city council approves the initial stadium measure tomorrow, there is a lot of time left for elected officials and Kansas City residents alike to ask questions about the Royals plan — which is good, because there are still a ton of answers left to be found.

In the wake of Thursday’s passage of an ordinance by Mayor Quinton Lucas to give Royals owner John Sherman $600 million in city money toward a new downtown stadium, Kansas City councilmember Johnathan Duncan wants to force the city to let residents hold a public vote on the plan. The city’s charter allows voters to force a public referendum on city ordinances if opponents gather signatures equal to 10% of the number of votes in the most recent election for mayor within 40 days — something Duncan says “wouldn’t be a giant lift” — but there’s also a major catch:

The city’s charter bars citizens from forcing referendum votes on ordinances “with an accelerated effective date or emergency measures,” giving city leaders the ability to stave off a referendum by declaring the ordinance as an emergency or expediting the ordinance’s effective date.

The proposed ordinance introduced by Lucas on Thursday includes an accelerated effective date because it involves “appropriating funds and relating to the design, repair, maintenance or construction of a public improvement.” That language is likely to block any potential referendum push.

And here we are back at why public votes on sports subsidy deals are so much more common on the West Coast: It’s really hard to get a referendum on the ballot in the rest of the country, in part because of those states’ pre-Progressive Era constitutions that provide tons of loopholes for elected officials who don’t want to be subject to the whims of voters. “There’s more ways to finagle your ways around referenda laws [in] other parts of the country,” remarked University of Colorado Denver public affairs professor Geoffrey Propheter in 2022. In 1998, for example, New York city council speaker Peter Vallone tried to put a referendum on the November ballot to block then-mayor Rudy Giuliani’s push for a new Yankees stadium in Manhattan, but Giuliani successfully knocked it off the ballot by means of a law that allows the mayor to preempt any ballot measures that year by proposing one of his own on any issue he likes. (That Yankees plan ultimately fizzled, but Giuliani succeeded in laying the groundwork for his successor Michael Bloomberg to approve more than a billion dollars in public money for a new Yankees stadium in the Bronx eight years later.)

Whether you think direct democracy is a good thing or not — and there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical, from the legacy of California’s Prop 13 to that state’s public initiative industry that increasingly allows those with the deepest pockets to buy ballot measure wins — it’s definitely a stumbling block for sports subsidies, as Propheter has found that the general populace approves those about 58% of the time, vs. 96% of proposals that go to a vote in legislative bodies. An owner like Sherman could certainly pour money into fighting a Royals stadium ballot measure, but it’s historically a lot easier to win over a relative handful of local elected officials.

None of which is to say it’s going to be impossible to force a vote on some piece of the Royals plan, given that so much of it is only vaguely penciled in and could require future votes by city, county, and state legislators, some of which could be more susceptible to gathering signatures to block them. But Sherman appears to have gained momentum among lawmakers since the Chiefs‘ announced move across state lines to Kansas, with fears growing that the Royals could follow suit despite team officials saying three months ago that they had abandoned thoughts of moving to the one Kansas site that had been floated. The public at large may make some dumb decisions and be subject to the influence of big money, but they still have a ways to go to catch up with their elected representatives in those regards.

 

Kansas City officials are set to introduce a bill this afternoon to fund a new downtown stadium for the Royals, and while we don’t have the actual bill language, we do have a Kansas City Star report on whatever details sources close to the deal felt it was in their interest to leak, this oughta be good:

The plan is built around a specific location: Washington Square Park.

This is likely to be controversial, as Washington Square Park is a public park, and is also not really big enough to fit a modern stadium on, let alone the ballpark district Royals owner John Sherman is hoping for.

Kansas City would contribute roughly $600 million of the project, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by The Star.

So … $600 million in cash? Would the Royals pay anything for the public land they’d be using? Would they pay property taxes? Rent? A cut of stadium revenues? You’ve read the proposal (or at least a copy of it, what does that even mean in this era of digital documents?), K.C. Star, tell us the details!

Mayor Quinton Lucas is expected to unveil the plan as an ordinance during Thursday afternoon’s City Council meeting at City Hall, he confirmed to The Star. The ordinance authorizes City Manager Mario Vasquez to negotiate and execute a 30-year term sheet, lease, and development agreement with the team to build the new stadium.

This implies that the Kansas City council could be asked to pass the $600 million in public funding before the details of lease and development agreement are worked out, which would be … bad? I’m going with bad.

The planned reveal marks a key step in the drawn-out fight over the Royals, potentially the first domino in a process that, after years of twists and turns, could suddenly roll quickly.

DOMINOES DON’T ROLL

It’s not yet clear whether the Royals will jump at the deal, though Lucas said the proposal is the result of “hours and hours of extensive discussion” with the Royals.

So the ordinance would be passed before the Royals agreed to it? That also sounds bad!

Lucas told The Star that the proposal would also require a vote on Tuesday from Kansas City’s Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners in order to use the park. That board would continue to be the owner of the property, though operations “continues to be some level of discussions,” Lucas said.

Okay, that implies that the Royals would be paying neither for the land nor property taxes, though it’s certainly possible to roll those elements into any deal even on city-owned property, which would be the responsibility of Vasquez to figure out, sounds like.

That process would notably attempt to side-step a public vote on the stadium two years after Jackson County voters soundly defeated an April 2024 proposal for a separate site downtown.

It’s unclear where the $600 million would come from if not from a source that would trigger a public vote, but we’ll see.

How will the stadium project be funded? The ordinance will be introduced just two days after Kansas City officials successfully convinced voters to renew the city’s 1% earnings tax for another five years, a critical vote that loomed over ongoing Royals talks.

Ah, and that tax would be—

Lucas said Tuesday night that revenue from the earnings tax would not be used to cover any stadium costs.

Never mind.

The city will pursue a public-private partnership, with its $600 million contribution earmarked for a project that includes the stadium and team offices, acquisition and demolition of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City building that the company has vacated and a neighboring service road. That portion of the project would be split — with 60% of the funds coming from public entities, such as Kansas City and Missouri, and 40% in private funding, sources said.

So $600 million public (including state money?), $400 million private, except that the stadium would actually cost $1.9 million, plus there’s the surrounding development, “the bulk” of which would be paid for by Sherman (not counting land and tax breaks, obviously). The known unknowns are stacking up fast.

Kansas City, according to the ordinance, intends to pay for its portion of the stadium using a constellation of funds, including bonds, city appropriations and Tax Increment Financing (TIF). The city plans to reimburse itself using proceeds from the bonds, but the ordinance does not include specifics about how that would play out.

BONDS ARE NOT A FUND! Also you can’t reimburse yourself from bonds, you make payments on bonds, they don’t pay you. Come on, guys!

At the state level, the stadium would rely on a sweeping funding package Missouri lawmakers approved last summer in an attempt to keep both the Royals and Chiefs inside state lines. The law allows Missouri to pay for up to 50% of a new stadium for the team, but it’s unclear how much money the state or Jackson County will actually contribute.

This is a breaking news story. Check back for further updates once it is completely broken.