Kansas City OKs deal to build Northland soccer park for Sporting KC — with conditions
Kansas City will build a youth soccer complex with Sporting Kansas City in the Northland — despite objections from officials and residents who said the city shouldn’t spend money on a luxury park while it slashes the budget amid the pandemic.
Critics said the project shouldn’t be a priority at a time when many are suffering. But proponents see it as a tool to boost economic development.
The City Council voted 8-4 on Thursday in favor of a contract with Sporting to bring a 10-field $36 million competitive soccer complex to the Northland and add parking to the city’s existing complex at Swope Park.
But the deal now requires the city and Sporting to renegotiate the terms of Sporting’s existing contract to run Swope Soccer Village, which currently leaves the city on the hook for financial losses.
Proponents say the complex would drive development in the area — North Platte Purchase Drive and Missouri Highway 152 — and keep families from having to trek to Johnson County or Swope to play competitive soccer.
“This remains a vital project,” said Councilman Dan Fowler, who represents the Northland. “It remains an economic stimulus, a catalyst.”
Critics, in addition to saying the undertaking is inappropriate amid an economic crisis, say the deal heavily favors Sporting. They also questioned the need for City Hall to invest in tournament-quality fields in the Northland when parks in the urban core desperately need maintenance.
Under the terms of the deal, Sporting KC would operate the park but Kansas City would pay for it by issuing bonds. Those bonds will be repaid by some of the sales taxes that would flow back to City Hall when several tax incentive projects in the Northland expire. Public improvement funds earmarked for the Northland and some active tax-increment financing, or TIF, funding will also pay for the project.
Initially, Sporting was expected to assume any losses from the park and keep any profits. It will negotiate with City Hall over an agreement to share potential profits, which executives said they don’t expect for the first few years. But the city would also have to contribute to a maintenance fund to replace the turf fields years down the road.
Councilman Brandon Ellington, 3rd District at-large, and Councilwoman Katheryn Shields, 4th District at-large, spoke at length, saying the deal was too favorable to the soccer club. Ellington said he couldn’t justify it when he has “friends that are sleeping in the snow.”
“It is 100% to the benefit of Sporting KC and does not protect the rights and interest of the city of Kansas City,” Shields said.
Shields sought to remove a provision that allows the ordinance to go into effect immediately. Ordinances that don’t have an “accelerated effective date” typically take effect 10 days after council passage.
But Fowler opposed it, saying it might give residents time to collect signatures and put an issue on the ballot opposing the project.
“I can see somebody trying to start that petition, delays us for up to 90 days while that happens, so this could put the whole thing on hold, and I don’t think that is what we want to do,” Fowler said.
According to the city code, if an ordinance doesn’t take effect immediately, residents have 40 days after it passes to collect signatures for a referendum petition, which requires signatures equal to 10% of the number of votes cast in the last regular mayoral election.
Gabrielle Stanley, who lives downtown and opposes the project, said it was concerning that Fowler spoke openly about trying to keep residents from starting such a petition. Economic development is important, she said, but the city shouldn’t be pursuing the project during an economic crisis.
“For us to foot the bill to build that structure while people are literally dying every day, it’s insulting to the people who are struggling,” she said.
A Change.org petition opposing the project had about 1,300 signatures as of Thursday night.
Fowler noted those signatures wouldn’t necessarily be valid for a referendum. He said such petitions emerge all the time.
“I understand the idea of having people vote on things, but this is a representative democracy, it’s not a complete democracy,” Fowler said. “We can’t have people voting on everything.”
The legislation struggled to make it out of the council’s Transportation Infrastructure and Operations Committee where members voted 4-2 Wednesday to pass it on to the council “without recommendation.”
Committee members first, however, amended the deal to add $1 million in parking to the city’s Swope Soccer Village, also run by Sporting. They also included a provision directing staffers to negotiate an arrangement to provide the city a share of any profits from the Northland park and to renegotiate the contract at Swope, which requires the city to assume losses.
Previously, the project was larger — $43 million and 12 fields — and involved the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, where it encountered some concerns among members of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners. Terry Rynard, the department director, said she was pushing toward a better deal for the city, including renegotiating the city’s contract with the soccer club to run Swope and for less financial risk to the city budget.
Rynard said she thought there was a belief she wasn’t giving enough credit to the potential economic benefit of the project. The department, she said, didn’t walk away from the project.
But Sporting said the department wouldn’t commit to the deal.
“So we were at a crossroads of the project’s either dead or we’ve got to figure out a different direction to go,” said Jake Reid, president and CEO of Sporting.
Chris Goode, a member of the parks board, has been a vocal opponent of the project, noting the severe economic distress the city has faced since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. He and other opponents also questioned the idea of building new fields to attract tournament teams to the Northland while other city parks aren’t well maintained.
“If it’s such an amazing project, has such high promise and hopes for great revenue, then they should pay for it,” Goode said this week.
He noted the city struggles with repairing crumbling infrastructure, preventing and solving homicides and serving its homeless population.
“It’s probably going to be a beautiful thing for the Northland and maybe even for Kansas City in general, but it’s not the right time to spend that kind of money because we have so many pressing causes for taxpayer funds.”
In November, the Sporting team cut off negotiations, and a week later, a new ordinance emerged without involvement from Parks. Rather than sending the legislation to the council’s Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee where the previous legislation was introduced, Mayor Quinton Lucas sent it to the transportation committee, which he co-chairs.
Lucas told The Star he did so because it’s an infrastructure project, not as an effort to bypass that committee.
Sporting declined to comment on Thursday.
Ellington, Shields, Councilman Eric Bunch and Councilwoman Ryana Parks-Shaw voted against the project. Councilman Lee Barnes was absent. Mayor Quinton Lucas and the rest of the members voted for it.
