Kansas City OKs $43M Northland soccer park despite possible budget fallout from COVID
Despite objections from some City Council members concerned about the economic uncertainty created the novel coronavirus, Kansas City is moving forward with a $43 million youth soccer complex in the Northland.
The City Council voted 9-3 on Thursday to approve a plan to pay for the 12-field soccer park, which will be operated by Sporting KC. The Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department is negotiating an agreement with the soccer club, which also operates the city’s Swope Soccer Village.
Supporters have said that the Northland lacks enough youth soccer fields and that families have to drive long distances to Swope or Johnson County. And building the fields — at North Platte Purchase Drive and Missouri Highway 152 — will help spark further development in the area, they say.
Councilman Dan Fowler, 2nd District, who represents the area, said the new park would relieve congestion at crowded soccer complexes.
“And also to more significantly keep our Kansas City people with their kids playing sports in Kansas City,” Fowler said, adding that he believed the city would have sufficient funds to pursue the project even with any budget “hiccup” caused by the spread of COVID-19.
But several council members were concerned about taking on a project given the budget uncertainty brought on by the virus.
“To call a pandemic, which has the highest unemployment numbers since the Great Depression, a hiccup — gosh, I hope it’s a hiccup,” said Councilwoman Katheryn Shields, 4th District at-large, “but I think that is beyond wishful thinking to believe that is what we are facing.”
The 12-field complex would cost $43 million, with $1 million coming from public improvement sales taxes designated for the 2nd City Council district. A Northland tax increment financing area would be extended to provide $17 million. The remaining $25 million would from capital improvement funds and parks sales taxes.
Councilman Eric Bunch said the arrangement “undermines the idea of TIF” by extending the tax incentives to fund more projects rather than letting them expire and create a “windfall” for the city.
Fowler argued the arrangement had precedent.
The vote comes at an uncertain time in the city’s financial picture. City staffers are still analyzing the full extent of the budget situation, but in a memo to City Council members in late March, they predicted even a “light recession” would force the city to cut about $155 million from its budget over the next five years.
With that concern in mind, the Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee last week amended the legislation to require a new funding plan that shows possible losses in city revenue before the full council signs off on the project.
That analysis, provided to members on Tuesday, shows that if the city saw a 9% drop in sales tax revenues, it could still cover the portions of the project expected to be repaid by the parks sales tax. The capital improvements sales tax, however, wouldn’t generate enough money in the first two years after the park is built to cover the debt payments — let alone build a reserve fund to help replace the fields and perform other maintenance.
Finance Director Tammy Queen told council members in an email that the city might have to extend the repayment period by one year to offset the difficulty.
“However natural growth in this revenue source could be sufficient to fund the reserve,” Queen said.
By the city’s 2024 fiscal year — which starts May 1, 2023 — the capital improvements sales tax would offset the debt service costs, officials estimate. The department, however, is still developing more precise models to anticipate the effect of the virus on the city’s coffers.
Voting for the measure were council members Kevin O’Neill, Heather Hall, Teresa Loar, Dan Fowler, Brandon Ellington, Melissa Robinson, Andrea Bough, Kevin McManus and Mayor Quinton Lucas. Council members Katheryn Shields, Eric Bunch and Ryana Parks-Shaw voted against the project. Councilman Lee Barnes was absent.
This story was originally published April 30, 2020 at 5:01 PM.
