Royals are exploring downtown Kansas City baseball stadium idea. It would require work
Kansas City is changing. The Royals are changing. The Chiefs will, too. The future can be whatever we want.
This is some generational stuff we’re going through right now, and not just with the raspy-voiced unicorn quarterback/minority Royals owner/minority Sporting KC owner/burger franchisee.
Kansas City and specifically Kansas City sports will be drastically different very soon. That’s a possibility, anyway, as Royals chairman John Sherman publicly announced what’s been largely assumed since the day his group of investors bought the team:
The Royals are actively exploring options to construct and play in a downtown stadium funded by public-private partnership.
“It’s frankly hard to not go public with this,” Sherman said. “I get asked this literally everywhere I go. Even more than when Bobby Witt is going to come up to the major-league team.”
This was a big day for the Royals, and potentially for Kansas City. The club also announced that Dayton Moore is becoming president of baseball operations, with longtime front office assistant J.J. Picollo taking over as the seventh general manager in franchise history.
Picollo has been the club’s minor-league director as the Royals’ farm system shot up industry rankings with an innovative restructuring, and will now take on more day-to-day responsibilities for the big-league club, though Moore will retain final decision-making say.
Picollo should have been a GM years ago and gets the promotion as the Royals take on an elevated executive structure that’s similar to most other MLB franchises. The Royals spent about 45 minutes announcing and taking questions on Picollo’s promotion.
Sherman’s part about the potential of a downtown ballpark took just 5 minutes, and included only two questions from reporters before the session was ended. But it’s that part most fans are focused on now.
Sherman said the process of deciding where the club will play will be driven by measurable community impact, measurable economic growth and a positive impact on the quality of life for Kansas Citians — “with a particular focus on those under-represented parts of our community.”
Taking this public is a significant step, and not one Sherman would take if he didn’t think this process could lead to change.
“I would just tell you that we’re a little beyond (only) listening to others’ ideas,” Sherman said. “We are conducting an internal process to help us evaluate our options for where we play. And one of those options is to play downtown baseball.”
Sherman insinuated that if this process indeed leads to a downtown stadium, it would happen before the expiration of the current lease at Truman Sports Complex in 2031. Sherman said the Royals are working with the Chiefs and Jackson County.
“We want to be more transparent on how we’re thinking about it,” Sherman said. “Begin that discussion and start to get feedback from various groups in the community as to how they feel about the concept and then the criteria I gave — community impact, economic growth, and quality of life for people in this region — if we can make that work, and the math works, then it’s certainly a possibility for the future.”
The reaction to this was swift, ongoing, passionate … and split.
Many of you are against this. You love Kauffman Stadium. Many of you have memories you’ll cherish forever there, and appreciate the aesthetic and feel and fountains and scoreboard and convenience. You like being able to fire up the grill before a game, and play bags, or catch. Doing that in a parking garage can’t be the same. You like a big, open parking lot and easy in-and-out.
Many of you love the idea of downtown baseball. You appreciate all the things about The K, except the location. You know that downtown has a lot of energy now. You think a baseball team should be entwined with the city it represents, and there’s no better way to do that than to play in the heart of it all. Is Kansas City about all we have downtown, or is it about the intersection of two interstates?
For the record: I don’t like this idea.
I love it.
I adore it. I want to take it out to my favorite restaurants. I want to dress it up in a nice outfit and get professional pictures taken of it. I want to find the best schools for it and watch it grow up.
But I also understand why many of you disagree. Baseball is personal. The act of going to a game is personal — we remember our first time, our best time, and think about our next time. Those emotional investments can make change hard.
But more to the point, Sherman understands all of this. And because of that, he knows that the Royals’ challenges go well beyond the typically daunting tasks of finding the right location, securing funding and even negotiating the complexities of the lease.
There was a push from some to build anew downtown instead of undertaking the renovations unveiled in the team’s 2009 season. Many in Kansas City wanted a downtown stadium then, but it was never a serious possibility because the owner at the time, David Glass, didn’t want it.
But the owner is different now, and Sherman wants to see if it can happen. He knows the most influential determining factor will be whether people here believe it’s best for the Royals and, more importantly, Kansas City. If that happens, then everything else is more likely to follow.
The funding will be critical. Sherman and his investment group will have to put a significant amount of their own money into this. They have sold themselves as Kansas City-centric — everyone in the group either lives here or has deep and longstanding ties here — and now is their time to literally put their money where those words are.
That would help, but it goes deeper.
They must respectfully address the legitimate hesitations many fans will have. Those hesitations include, but are not limited to, tradition, comfort, convenience and cost. They will have to convince the public that downtown is navigable — they will perhaps have to do their own part to make downtown navigable.
Sherman presented the move as mere potential, and the announcement as a solicitation for feedback. The Royals know they must make this more about what Kansas City could build, and less about what would be left. There are ways to incorporate and honor the team’s history in a new stadium and in a new location.
The case will need to be made that a downtown ballpark could be the sort of force multiplier that other cities have created. A downtown ballpark would be closer to more people, and to more options for fans before and after games. Baseball in general faces a challenge in the age and size of its fan base — this is a chance to reverse some trends in Kansas City.
The best stadium architecture firms in the world are based here. There is no chance the men and women who work there would build anything other than a glorious building in their hometown.
We have plenty of time for those details. This will be a long process, but it’s worth noting that we’re already years into it. Today it picked up speed.
This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 4:52 PM.