Chiefs lawyer defends stadium deal to Kansas lawmakers: ‘Tried, true and tested’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Legislature must approve stadium authority and STAR bond renewal; local deals pending.
- State plans $1.8B stadium STAR bonds and near $1B for surrounding development
- Officials question projected tax growth and district boundaries that back debt.
Kansas lawmakers spent an hour Wednesday afternoon questioning an attorney for the Kansas City Chiefs about the logistics of how the team plans to build its next home — a $3 billion domed stadium — in the Sunflower State.
Rep. Sean Tarwater, a Stilwell Republican, said he called the joint meeting of House and Senate commerce committees to clear up misconceptions about the stadium deal that have been circulating in the month since the Chiefs announced their intent to leave behind Arrowhead Stadium.
“We, as a legislative body, have to make some decisions this year on a few things,” Tarwater said. “And the decisions need to be based on the real facts, and there’s a lot of facts out there. So we need to clean up the rumors and make sure that we make our decisions based on real facts.”
Kansas plans to issue $1.8 billion in sales tax and revenue (STAR) bonds to fund construction costs on the stadium in Wyandotte County, and another nearly $1 billion in bonds to support construction of a new practice facility and team headquarters in Olathe, as well as mixed-use developments around both sites.
Key details of the financing agreement, including the exact boundaries of the vast new incentive district and the local governments’ financial commitments to the project, have yet to be finalized.
During his remarks, Korb Maxwell, the attorney representing the Chiefs, repeatedly asserted that the team’s move is all upside for Kansas taxpayers — a claim that experts have cast doubt on.
“It’s a great day to be a Kansas taxpayer because we pulled . . . all of this off without raising taxes on Kansas taxpayers, without using any base revenues from the State General Fund, and without pleading the full faith and credit of our state to the bonds,” said Maxwell, who called Kansas’ STAR bonds “tried, true and tested.”
The planned Chiefs’ STAR bond issuance would be more than double the commitment of public money that went into Kansas’ other 23 STAR bond projects combined.
Here are three key takeaways from Wednesday’s commerce committee meeting.
Legislative action required
The underlying incentive package behind the stadium deal was enacted by the Legislature during a June 2024 special session. The deal itself was negotiated directly between Commerce Secretary David Toland and the team, with only a small group of top lawmakers signing off on the STAR bond term sheet.
However, Maxwell said the stadium project will only be able to proceed if lawmakers in the full Legislature vote favorably on several key action items this year.
One of those items is the establishment of a Kansas stadium authority — a public corporate body that would own the stadium and rent it out to the Chiefs. Maxwell said that if the stadium were privately owned, the $1.8 billion in STAR bond funds would be subject to federal income taxes and 45% of the public incentive money would end up in Washington D.C.
“That would blow a huge hole in the budget for this project, and frankly would not allow it to move forward,” Maxwell said. “The fix to that is having a public authority.”
The Legislature is expected to take up legislation establishing a stadium authority this year, but so far, no such bill has been introduced.
Lawmakers will also vote on a bill to extend the STAR bond program through 2030. Without legislative action, the incentive tool is set to expire at the end of June. The Department of Commerce has said the first stadium-related STAR bond issuance is still 10 months to a year away, meaning the project will only be viable if the underlying STAR bond statute is renewed.
Existing sales tax revenue
Typically, STAR bond districts only capture and divert sales tax revenue generated by anchor developments and other establishments in their immediate vicinity to pay off the debt associated with construction.
The official boundaries of the new stadium incentive district have not yet been finalized. But a preliminary map published by the Department of Commerce shows the district will include all of Wyandotte County and a broad swath of western Johnson County.
It will be up to Toland, the commerce secretary, to establish the baseline for sales tax revenue within the incentive district — in other words, the threshold above which all sales tax growth will be siphoned off to pay down debt.
For the first time on Wednesday, Maxwell offered an estimate of how much economic activity the district already produces without a stadium: roughly $10 billion annually.
Rep. Rui Xu, a Westwood Democrat, questioned the accuracy of assuming that any sales tax revenue growth across the mammoth district in the coming years will be a direct result of the Chiefs’ development. Capping the dollar amount that Kansas can tap for priorities other than supporting the stadium should be approached cautiously, he said.
“It’s been repeatedly said, and I think the governor has said it as well, that there will be no shifting of priorities in government as a result of this deal,” Xu said. “But even if we just have inflation — let’s say 3% over 30 years — that means prices in 30 years will be 150% what they are today, just with compounding. And if we’re not allowed to capture that full growth . . . I don’t see how it’s possible that the priorities can’t shift as a result of just that.”
Maxwell said the team’s mission is to spur growth that will allow the bond debt to be paid down quickly. He acknowledged that doing so means capturing tax revenue from transactions that would be taking place with or without the Chiefs’ Kansas development.
“I think what this is going to create is more revenue for the state, in the short run and the long run,” Maxwell said. “So there doesn’t need to be any shrinking of the pie or splitting of the pie. This is really about growing the pie for our state, not just arguing over the current pie out there.”
The incentive deal authorizes Kansas to issue 30-year bonds. But Maxwell said that based on revenue projections that have not been made public, he believes the bonds could be paid off in 15 to 20 years at most.
Community Improvement Districts
Maxwell also provided some insight into the team’s approach to negotiating further financial commitments from the local governments involved in the project beyond the state portion of sales tax revenue growth.
The stadium incentive law allows public money to fund no more than 70% of the overall project.
“(Gov. Laura Kelly’s) administration was very focused on making sure as well that the state wasn’t carrying all the load,” Maxwell said. “They wanted that local commitment, and that’s the part we’re working on with the Unified Government and the city of Olathe over the next several weeks.”
He said the local subsidy will likely come in the form of Community Improvement Districts, or CID, surrounding the stadium site, team facilities and ancillary development in both counties. Within those smaller incentive districts, the local governments would be asked to contribute some or all of their portion of the sales tax collected to the debt service.
Under Kansas law, an additional sales tax levy of up to 2% can be placed on transactions within a CID district.
Rep. Stephanie Clayton, an Overland Park Democrat, said she was glad to hear that local governments wouldn’t be asked to contribute their portion of sales tax revenue on transactions unrelated to the team’s development.
“I don’t like CIDs in general when they include places where people have to shop. We have to get gas. We have to go to the grocery store,” Clayton said. “I don’t mind economic development incentives when choice is involved.”
Maxwell noted that under NFL rules, no special tax can be placed on tickets. However, all other food, beverage and merchandise purchased at the stadium or the surrounding mixed-use development would qualify for the CID tax.
Maxwell said the team is in the early stages of vetting potential business partners for the entertainment districts it plans to construct.
“Our phone has been ringing off the hook since the moment that we announced in Kansas on December 22,” Maxwell said. “We are considering all of those possibilities, and looking at is that right to go in Olathe? Is that right to go in Wyandotte County? Or is that something right to go in other parts of the state, in other districts out there?
“Because we know we have to put little arrowheads out all throughout the state as we try to expand the kingdom,” he said.
This story was originally published January 21, 2026 at 7:14 PM.
