The Kansas City Chiefs are planning for life without the Royals as next-door neighbors
With the Royals planning to be in a new stadium by 2028, the Chiefs have begun to consider what the Truman Sports Complex could look like without Kauffman Stadium.
New development? More parking?
“All the sudden you’ve got time to plan on what you’re going to do with that space,” Chiefs president Mark Donovan said Thursday, noting that the Royals have been “great partners.”
“It’s also really complicated,” Donvan continued. “What happens to The K? Is that part of the lease negotiation? It factors into what we do and how we do it.”
Although the Chiefs have said they would explore other possibilities when their lease at the Truman Sports Complex expires in 2031, chairman and CEO Clark Hunt has stated their preference is to upgrade and renovate GEHA Field at Arrowhead.
Earlier this week, the Royals shared renderings of a potential new ballpark in either the East Village area downtown or in Clay County. When the move happens, the baseball and football teams will exist in separate locations for the first time.
Before Truman Sports Complex opened in 1972, the Royals and Chiefs shared Municipal Stadium.
The Royals’ plan, to leave before the lease expires, “has been a positive for us, made us even more prepared, even more in advance,” said Donovan, who didn’t share specifics about the Chiefs’ options at Truman.
Royals owner John Sherman said the team would try to have a measure placed on Jackson County ballots in April 2024 to seek an extension of the current 3/8th-cent sales tax.
As the Chiefs plan for the Royals’ relocation, they must deal with a separate task involving their own stadium: preparing it to play host to FIFA World Cup games in 2026. The Chiefs will begin to address seating and playing-surface issues in the upcoming offseason.
“We’re going to have to do stuff this offseason and every offseason up through 2026,” Donovan explained. “Then we’re going to have to do construction right after the World Cup, getting ready for the NFL season.”
A reduced concert schedule at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium is likely for the next few summers.
“It’s going to be a little squeezed (in 2024) because of the construction,” Donovan said. “Then it’s going to get a little worse as we get closer to that 2026 date.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2023 at 2:31 PM.