New Royals Stadium (Kansas City, Oakland, Center: condos, hotels, house)

[VietInKC]

I'm all for a more urban location for sports venues. KC major league sports venues look very nice but on the outside it's just big ass concrete parking lot wasteland. I haven't looked into the proposed projects much but both locations have its merits. North Kansas City seems to have a bunch of unused industrial land that would make it easy to start from scratch and is not far at all from downtown.

However, I would really like the ballpark to be downtown. I just love when downtown KC which is known for being kind of "meh" to see some boost. Public transit is more robust and if you don't want to use it, parking in general is pretty easy in KC even downtown. The project has to be done right though. We have to remember that the KC mindset is pretty averse to change as we saw with the new airport.

[Okey Dokie]

Originally Posted by VietInKC

North Kansas City seems to have a bunch of unused industrial land that would make it easy to start from scratch and is not far at all from downtown.

“Unused industrial land” - isn’t that the current beef with Truman Sports Complex?

[KC_Retiree]

Originally Posted by Okey Dokie

“Unused industrial land” - isn’t that the current beef with Truman Sports Complex?

I very much favor a downtown stadium over NKC. However, I believe the NKC site is immediately adjacent to NKC's downtown so it would be more than simply a stadium surrounded by industrial buildings. It has been billed as something akin to Wrigley Field which has a lot of life around it despite not being in downtown - at least it's still an urban setting. At least that's the sales pitch for NKC.

Royals stadium is in an area that's not going to be turned around anytime soon by plopping down an entertainment district. It's absolutely the last thing KC needs.

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by VietInKC

I'm all for a more urban location for sports venues. KC major league sports venues look very nice but on the outside it's just big ass concrete parking lot wasteland. I haven't looked into the proposed projects much but both locations have its merits. North Kansas City seems to have a bunch of unused industrial land that would make it easy to start from scratch and is not far at all from downtown.

However, I would really like the ballpark to be downtown. I just love when downtown KC which is known for being kind of "meh" to see some boost. Public transit is more robust and if you don't want to use it, parking in general is pretty easy in KC even downtown. The project has to be done right though. We have to remember that the KC mindset is pretty averse to change as we saw with the new airport.

A baseball park or a multi-sport arena is best located in the urban core near the central business district. A football stadium is best located on the urban/suburban threshold. A race track is best located on the exurban/rural threshold.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by KC_Retiree

I very much favor a downtown stadium over NKC. However, I believe the NKC site is immediately adjacent to NKC's downtown so it would be more than simply a stadium surrounded by industrial buildings. It has been billed as something akin to Wrigley Field which has a lot of life around it despite not being in downtown - at least it's still an urban setting. At least that's the sales pitch for NKC.

Royals stadium is in an area that's not going to be turned around anytime soon by plopping down an entertainment district. It's absolutely the last thing KC needs.

The interesting thing about NKC is that its main shopping street, Armour Road, neatly separates the city's industrial district from its residential one. The plans on the new stadium website look to me like the NKC stadium would be built in the industrial zone and surrounded by new residential construction. (The video on the site shows the new ballpark one block south of Armour Road and one block east of Swift Street, which would plade it right at the hinge of the business and industrial districts and within walking distance of most of NKC's residential district, which would be expanded by the new buildings around the stadium itself.) Since I did see some apartment buildings rising in the industrial part of town close to I-29/35, it looks as if the City of North Kansas City itself is betting on a less industrial future, and siting the new ballpark in the industrial zone would simply hasten that future's arrival. And given the quality of the new restaurants I've eaten in in NKC on my two most recent return trips, I'd also bet that those apartments might fill with younger and maybe even more affluent residents. (NKC's housing stock is mainly airplane bungalows — it's definitely a blue-collar community, and one of the nicest industrial, blue-collar communities I've ever run across.)

I'd still favor a downtown site, but it seems to me like putting it in NKC won't be a bad move if the Royals choose to make it.

[VietInKC]

Originally Posted by Okey Dokie

“Unused industrial land” - isn’t that the current beef with Truman Sports Complex?

Yeah but like KCRetiree said, the surroundings and proximity is much better IMO.

[VietInKC]

Originally Posted by Craziaskowboi

A baseball park or a multi-sport arena is best located in the urban core near the central business district. A football stadium is best located on the urban/suburban threshold. A race track is best located on the exurban/rural threshold.

I would say I agree with this even though I haven't really thought about it.

[KC_Retiree]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

I'd still favor a downtown site, but it seems to me like putting it in NKC won't be a bad move if the Royals choose to make it.

The NKC site checks a lot of the requirement boxes and would be a workable location. Where it falls far short, for me at least, is Opportunity Costs.

KC is not going to get many opportunities to fill in the huge empty area now known as East Village. This is a once in a generation (or multi-generation) opportunity. Considering land has been banked for this very purpose in East Village, the opportunity should not be lost.

The organic growth in downtown inside the loop has not been fast outside of Quality Hill and the area immediately adjacent to the P&L District (which is hardly organic). I could take a few more decades to get much going in East Village without a baseball stadium which is too bad because the eventual possibility of a baseball stadium there is one of the reasons it lags far behind the rest of downtown.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by KC_Retiree

The NKC site checks a lot of the requirement boxes and would be a workable location. Where it falls far short, for me at least, is Opportunity Costs.

KC is not going to get many opportunities to fill in the huge empty area now known as East Village. This is a once in a generation (or multi-generation) opportunity. Considering land has been banked for this very purpose in East Village, the opportunity should not be lost.

The organic growth in downtown inside the loop has not been fast outside of Quality Hill and the area immediately adjacent to the P&L District (which is hardly organic). I could take a few more decades to get much going in East Village without a baseball stadium which is too bad because the eventual possibility of a baseball stadium there is one of the reasons it lags far behind the rest of downtown.

No s**t, Sherlock. (This was the main article of a three-article series I wrote about the P&L District and KC redevelopment for Next City. I also wrote a sidebar on the streetcar and a personal reflection on what the future might or might not bring to my beloved forever hometown.)

On my most recent trip Back Home, this past June, bf and I stayed in a luxury apartment building I recognized the moment I saw it as the vintage-1960 headquarters of the long-gone Traders National Bank. What surprised me more was that the former Mercantile Bank tower, completed in 1975, while I was in high school, had also been converted into an apartment building called, oddly enough, Wall Street Tower.

What surprised (and disturbed) me even more, though, was that the streets of Downtown KC'S business district were virtually empty during the day. There was activity at night around the P&L District, and some on the edge of Quality Hill, but otherwise, nada, or almost nada (there was a daiquiri bar across the street from our bujilding that came alive at night — with a mostly Black clientele; I discovered on this trip that frozen daiquiri bars appeared to be a Thing with Black Kansas Citians. We also went to this place's sibling in Overland Park and another one with a different owner in the Jazz District whose name recalled a popular ice cream chain when I was a lad).

So it appears that Downtown KC's boosters have come to the point where they believe they need artificial fertilizer to stimulate growth and life within the freeway loop (which maybe should not have been built, as it seems to have proven to be a noose around downtown rather than a tool for access to it). And if that's the case, I'd say East Village needs the fertilizer more than North Kansas City does.

[mandavaran]

So do people think if a brand spankin' new stadium is built, it will increase interest in the team, create buzz and draw fans? Psst, the Royals are terrible and have been terrible for a long time. They haven't been drawing flies and the reason is not because of their stadium, it's because the team has been terrible. It's hard to believe the glory years of 2014-15 are so long ago. Nobody was yappin' about a new stadium at that time. Attendance was great and the Royals were drawing from a wide area outside KC. This is like when a marriage is on the rocks and the couple think the solution is buying a new house or car. A temporary buzz but it soon fades. Put a good team there and fans and interest will be there, regardless of where they're playing.