One thing missing from Kansas City Royals’ latest stadium displays? A final price tag
Nearly two years since the Royals announced they were exploring the possibility of leaving Kauffman Stadium, they provided tangible form to the idea Tuesday: renderings of the two sites they are considering for a new stadium and a surrounding ballpark district — in the East Village area of downtown and in North Kansas City.
The tentative concepts certainly were striking and appealing. Just as glittering were the economic impact projections furnished by the Royals. And they tied it all together by reiterating that part of their mission is to stimulate social impact, connect people and businesses and integrate neighborhoods — a point at least nicely symbolized in the downtown model with the depiction of a pedestrian bridge that would extend east across Interstate 35 to the Paseo West Neighborhood.
We could go on about the proposed aesthetics and key supporting elements such as entertainment districts and hotels and office towers.
From here, we could engage the debate about which site seems more appropriate. And set about scrutinizing the economic impact figures. And probe for a clearer grasp of how the franchise can actualize their stated commitment to make Kansas City a better place through this.
But even as I appreciated seeing some substance and shape to what had been largely left to the imagination, I found myself distracted by what we still don’t see:
The ultimate public price tag for a project, a mystery bill-in-waiting we need to understand before we can feel one way or another about a monumental enterprise that the Royals initially estimated at $2 billion and now are calling $2 billion-plus.
The difference reflects rising costs and additional ideas the Royals might hope to inject into the development, said Brooks Sherman, their president of business operations.
Understandable enough, but it adds a further layer of vagueness to what the Royals will seek to make this work.
Majority owner John Sherman has stated that the Royals would pay for cost overruns and that private investment will fund the $1 billion for the district and a major part of the stadium itself.
But that still makes for a vast sum open to interpretation.
Especially if you consider what John Sherman told my colleague Sam McDowell and me in an interview last week, when Sam asked if the infrastructure costs are factored into the stadium total of $1 billion … or, now, perhaps $1 billion-plus.
“That’s probably additional to…” he said. “Some of it’s in there, but then there’s some of it on top of that depending on the egress and ingress, freeway, highway, interchange modifications, things like that. You know, there could be other things too — street, sidewalks, utilities. There’s lots of stuff in all those categories.”
So months of presentations and interviews and, now, renderings later, the matter of hundreds of millions of dollars remains ambiguous.
Yes, John Sherman has said all along that the Royals will seek merely to extend the current 3/8-cent sales tax in Jackson County if the Royals should choose the downtown location.
If it goes to North Kansas City and Clay County, the Royals are expected to seek a one-cent tax.
But that doesn’t answer the question of those infrastructure costs and what the city and state will be asked to deliver — essential to the would-be projects.
Look, we were glad to see what we saw on Tuesday. I’m intrigued by what this could be.
But the burden of proof remains on the Royals to divulge what they really are asking for when they announce their choice, which they’ve projected to do in late September.
Now, it bears mention that the real work of selling this to the public is between then and when they try to put it on a ballot — which John Sherman still hopes to do in April.
Just the same, a number of people I hear from who are disillusioned by this are becoming entrenched while they wait.
More than a few times related to this, Sherman has made reference to this all being a negotiation.
But what’s that old saying?
If you have to ask how much it is, you can’t afford it.
In this case, plenty, from politicians to fans to the broader community, still are asking.
And wondering if they can afford it — no matter how enticing it might all look or sound.