We have the Royals’ stadium renderings, but other key details will determine support
Royals baseball is about to look a lot different.
Or at least their home ballpark will look different.
Wherever they move.
Actually, for now, let’s still say if they move.
The Royals released some renderings of what a new stadium might entail — whether that’s in the East Village downtown or in North Kansas City and Clay County. And while some outfield fountains could offer a flavor of Kauffman Stadium, the new venue and a proposed ballpark district represent a vast departure from the environment they’ve enjoyed for the past half-century. They want to change a lot more than the literal location.
But let’s look past the pictures and videos — because in this case, the pages between the spine carry far more weight than the cover.
There was an unusual element to the team’s presentation Tuesday: The Royals publicized not one stadium rendering but instead two, because they have not yet determined where they want to play baseball starting in 2028. Which is all because they have not yet finalized the plan’s crucial details.
About one month shy of their self-imposed quasi-deadline to announce a site selection, Brooks Sherman, the team’s president of business operations, said it was accurate to characterize the two locations as on equal footing. So from a long question-and-answer session with some of the team’s top brass Tuesday, including Sherman, we ought to focus on the penultimate question:
After two years of exploration for a new stadium, how will the Royals move the race from a dead heat to a runaway winner in a month’s time?
“There’s a number of factors in there,” said Sherman, of no relation to team majority owner John Sherman. “That brings in agreements with the elected leaders. When you think of that public-private partnership, that brings into play the public funding to go along with the private funding to know that we can finance it appropriately. The lease agreement plays right into that as well.
“... Site evaluation to be done. There’s still working going on, from due diligence perspective of environmental, soil boring, those kinds of things. We have to get those complete. And then we’ve got other partners and other constituents that we’re dealing with today, from the developers, from the Chiefs.”
That, uh, is a lot. But there’s something notably absent from those requirements for determining a site.
The look of it.
So while what we saw Tuesday afternoon had some cool features — and we should be glad to receive a deeper peek into the process, even if it is just a peek — we didn’t learn much about the most important aspects in the project:
Where will this thing go? And therefore by extension, who will pay for it? If the Royals want to move up north, how will they negotiate out of a lease that requires them to play most home games in Jackson County? If they want to stay in Jackson County, have they secured enough support there yet?
What is the specific total cost? How much of that falls to the public at the city, state and county level?
And most notable of all: What will be the community benefits?
Really, this is a reminder that in the world of eye-on-the-prize, we saw the potential prize Tuesday — well, one of two potential prizes — but we saw too that the path to secure it still needs to hit a lot of checkpoints along the way. And some of them will need to come before selecting a site, with their target still the close of September. That timeline hasn’t changed, they said Tuesday.
The Royals have refreshed the news cycle frequently over the past couple of months, though remaining each time are the major questions. And it’s those major questions, much more so than pictures and videos, that will determine the support for the project — and therefore determine the success of the project. That’s the essence of what Brooks Sherman said.
Let me offer you one example here, and while it’s just one example, it’s among the biggest. A downtown Kansas City ballpark would seem to have the potential to better match some of the original merits of the plan more than one in Clay County — providing a benefit for neglected parts of the community. The Royals have been consistent, even adamant, that they will supply such benefits, asking us to hold them accountable there.
But they have been just as consistently absent the how. Even in their online pamphlet handed to media members Tuesday, they ask themselves about their commitment to community benefits, which they answer with, “It’s too early to discuss specifics until a site is decided upon.”
My inbox fills up every time the Royals have any comment on the stadium — this time with statements from Manny Abarca, a Jackson County legislator; Scott Wagner, the Clay County Western Commissioner; and representatives of low-wage workers and advocates for affordable housing — with different ways of saying the same thing.
We want specifics.
The Royals are acknowledging they owe them. So all parties know that conversation is coming. No party can be certain how it will unfold. And the larger point here is that’s just one hurdle that remains outstanding — even after they just crossed one item off the to-do list.
We now have a clearer picture of the appearance of the project that they will eventually ask you, the voter, to support. But what’s just as obvious is the length of that to-do list.
And we wait to have a clearer picture on that, too.
This story was originally published August 23, 2023 at 6:30 AM.