Negro Leagues Baseball Museum reveals name, renderings for new hotel venture
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Museum unveils renderings for 30,000 sq ft expansion and adjacent hotel.
- Grayson Capital to develop The Pennant hotel, $53 million project.
- Complex has 150 apartments, Buck O’Neil Tribute Park, majority Black-owned hotel
It’s currently a bit cumbersome to peruse Kansas City’s 18th & Vine district. But city officials see that as a sign of progress.
Several multimillion dollar construction projects are underway in the area.
Since summertime, 18th Street from The Paseo to Woodland Avenue has been closed to traffic amid major construction. The Boone Theater, a century-old relic, is undergoing renovations. Several housing projects, like the Parade Park neighborhood, are underway or will begin later this year.
One of the most notable projects in the district is a new Negro Leagues Baseball Museum facility and hotel, a project introduced last year that has baseball legend Reggie Jackson as a partner and ambassador.
On Friday, at a news conference in the Paseo YMCA where the Negro National League was created in 1920, museum and city officials and local dignitaries unveiled renderings for the project. Placed on easels, the renderings showed the new museum, built next to the Buck O’Neil Education and Research Center. The YMCA building, at 1824 Paseo, is the future home of the research center, two blocks from the current museum.
The renderings also show the future home of the museum connected to the hotel, which will be a Marriott Tribute Portfolio property, at the corner of 18th and The Paseo. Local real estate firm Grayson Capital will be developing the project.
It will be the first hotel constructed in 18th & Vine since 1957, according to NLBM president Bob Kendrick.
Kendrick called Friday’s occasion poetic, because it was the 106th anniversary of when Andrew “Rube” Foster established the Negro National League.
“That league would go on to operate for 40 years. It would not only change the game of baseball, it would help change this country,” Kendrick said during Friday’s news conference. “We are counting on each and every one of you inside this room to help us get to this next phase.”
The museum has a $35 million capital campaign to raise money for the 30,000-square-foot expansion. The hotel, dubbed The Pennant to commemorate the Kansas City Monarchs’ first league title in the city, is an approximate $53 million expansion, according to Grayson Capital CEO Michael Collins.
Grayson Capital is also building on top of and around a city-owned garage at 1819 Lydia Avenue. The housing portion of the project includes 150 luxury apartments and retail, and its name will pay homage to the Negro Leagues.
Renderings show a planned Negro Leagues Baseball complex controlling a whole block from 18th and Paseo to 19th and Lydia, with Buck O’Neil Tribute Park at the corner of 19th and Paseo.
This development will be the first majority Black-owned hotel in Kansas City since the Street Hotel, which once stood at 18th and Paseo and served as a hub for Black travelers, performers and athletes. The project is also heavily supported by Black city officials, such as Mayor Quinton Lucas and council members Melissa Patterson Hazley and Darrell Curls.
The project has sentimental value with elected officials and private sector contributors alike, who hope to revitalize an area with rich history — an area that has altered and improved the world through art, music and sports. Those gathered Friday shared anecdotes expressing satisfaction that they’re aiding in the progress of a museum that started in an office in 1990.
At the news conference, Lucas quoted Foster, who said, “We are the ship; all else the sea,” when referring to the Negro National League.
“We are the ship in America, an America that represents and respects our differences, our cultures, what makes us special,” Lucas said. “We are the ship that is investing and truly rebuilding our Black communities in Kansas City and around the world.
“We are the ship that tells the positive stories of sports, the struggle and the triumphs, and more than anything, we are the ship that will build a future for the next 100 years when people are told.”
