Private funds will pay for a ‘bulk’ of Royals’ new stadium downtown, Sherman says
Private capital will fund a “bulk” of the Kansas City Royals’ quest to move downtown, the team’s majority owner said Tuesday.
At a Midtown Kansas City forum, club officials, architects and consultants provided the most detailed explanation yet of the Royals’ desire to relocate from the Truman Sports Complex to the downtown area.
Team leaders said their vision includes a $1 billion stadium that would hold 38,000 fans. The team also envisions a surrounding $1 billion district that would include housing, hotels, offices, retail and restaurants.
While they’ve explored 14 individual sites, team officials still wouldn’t say where they plan to locate the stadium — or exactly how much taxpayers will be asked to subsidize the project.
“The bulk will be private,” Royals Chairman and CEO John Sherman said of the financing. “We would expect that private capital would take care of a major part of the ballpark and that private capital would develop all of the ballpark district around the ballpark.”
In a theater at Westport Plexpod, Sherman said the team remains committed to remaining in Kansas City, Missouri. But he said a new stadium with modern amenities would be crucial to keeping the team successful over the next 50 years.
“Our job is to ensure that major league baseball and the Kansas City Royals thrive in this community for decades to come,” he said.
The event was the first in a Royals “listening tour” announced by Sherman in a November three-page letter to the community officially announcing plans to relocate. At the event, held in the former Westport Junior High School, team mascot Sluggerrr greeted fans, who were treated to snacks, beverages and free Royals shirts. The team did more talking than listening on Tuesday, but did answer about 45 minutes’ worth of pre-screened questions from the public.
One question centered on the potential for a community benefits agreement, commonly used contracts signed between community groups and developers that lay out the ways new development will aid community interests. The agreements can include public benefits like the creation of affordable housing, childcare access or new public spaces and parks.
Team leaders noted such agreements are becoming more commonplace with major developments across the country.
“The Royals are committed to a community benefits agreement,” said Sarah Tourville, a senior vice president for the team. “And that community benefits agreement is something that needs to be done in collaboration with our local residents, local public and community officials and organizations. Those are not answers the Royals have. Those are answers the Royals need to work and collaborate on together, but the commitment is there, absolutely.”
Stand Up KC, an advocacy group comprised of fast-food and other low-wage workers, had urged the team to adopt such an agreement earlier in the day Tuesday.
Any plan to move the team downtown, the organization said in a press release, “needs to include the voices of low-wage workers and commitments from leaders to provide good jobs and improve the standard of living for residents who might be asked to foot the bill.”
After the event, Independence Burger King cook Bill Thompson, a member of Stand Up KC, said he remained open minded about the project, but wanted to know more. Local organizations typically negotiate the details of community benefits agreements and so far it’s unclear who will have a seat at the table for the Royals’ deal.
“They mentioned the community benefits agreement several times. But I mean, this is the Show Me State,” Thompson said. “We want to see what’s in that community agreement, and we want to make sure that low-wage workers like me across Jackson County are included in that.”
Thompson, 52, said it’s people like him who will work in and around the stadium and they should have a voice in the process. A lifelong Royals fan, he said he still has postcards from the 1973 opening of Kauffman Stadium. But he hasn’t been to a game at the K since outfielder Willie Wilson played for the team more than three decades ago.
“I haven’t been able to afford it,” he said.
KC Tenants, the vocal organization known for protesting and influencing City Hall, also brought a contingent to the Royals’ presentation Tuesday.
Leader Wilson Vance said the team said many of the right things, but offered little in the way of specifics. For instance, the team said it’s committed to bringing new affordable housing to the city, but didn’t say how or what it means by affordable housing, she said.
“We don’t need a flashy downtown stadium. We don’t need a playground for the wealthy and for tourists. As landlords raise rents across the city and as our people struggle to find decent homes, the proposed downtown stadium would usher in a new wave of gentrification, like it has in so many other cities with similar recent projects,” KC Tenants said in a statement Tuesday.
Team officials said they were committed to avoiding displacement of residents and businesses.
“We will be protecting against that,” said Adam Sachs, the team’s senior vice president and chief legal officer. “It will factor in as we continue this ongoing conversation about sites…We are not wanting to be in the business of displacing businesses and residents and we don’t envision that to be a part of this project.”
The Royals currently lease Kauffman Stadium from Jackson County under an agreement that runs through the end of the 2030 season. Sherman said the team would not ask any more from Jackson County taxpayers, who currently are paying a three-eights-of-a-cent sales tax as part of a 2006 ballot initiative to fund renovations of both Kauffman and Arrowhead stadiums.
A Royals official said the earliest the issue of extending the tax would come before voters would be in August of next year.
Sherman said the current ownership group is investing much more of its own money into the new stadium than previous owners did into Kauffman’s renovations.
“But we are asking that we do this together,” he told the crowd of 350. “And we ask you to hold us accountable to deliver benefits on your behalf as a result of making that investment with us. And we will be beside you with a very significant investment.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2022 at 10:08 PM with the headline "Private funds will pay for a ‘bulk’ of Royals’ new stadium downtown, Sherman says."
