The Central Avenue Bridge, a major artery connecting Wyandotte County to the West Bottoms, has been severed for five years. And in its absence, delayed construction and local struggles to acquire funding have created travel woes for commuters and cut off Kansas City, Kansas, businesses and neighborhoods from needed foot traffic.

A recent decision by state lawmakers, if approved by the full legislature in the coming weeks, may further delay the inconvenience and other annoyances created by KCK’s numerous shuttered bridges.

Despite the fact that Gov. Laura Kelly late last month announced a $135 million project to repair the long-defunct connection point, legislators voted Thursday to delay millions in infrastructure plans in urban northeast Kansas and to redistribute those funds elsewhere in the state.

And although the legislator who proposed the funding change to the 2026-27 budget said the item was not specifically designed to target Wyandotte County, he pointed to the Kansas City Chiefs’ plans to build a stadium in KCK as a contributing factor.

This means it’s possible that repairs to the Central Avenue Bridge and others in KCK could be delayed and lose earmarked funds, even after Kelly’s project announcement — and after local officials have said they’ve been trying to leverage negotiations with the Chiefs and the state to secure the bridge funding.

The proposed funding change came during Thursday’s meeting of the Kansas House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee. During that meeting, committee members voted to allocate between $130 million and $150 million in infrastructure funding that was already set aside for 2028 projects in the metro, likely including Wyandotte, to roadway repairs in some of the state’s rural districts.

Bridge funding part of Chiefs negotiations

Just last week, Wyandotte County leadership said projects to repair the Central Avenue bridge, and two others, were part of ongoing negotiations between Kansas officials and the Kansas City Chiefs as the team prepares to cross state lines into Kansas.

Todd LaSala, an attorney representing the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and KCK, told county commissioners that contributions up for discussion included $135 million for the Central Avenue Bridge; $1.2 million for the Kansas Avenue Bridge; $2 million for the Union Pacific Bridge; and $1.5 million for east-to-west bus line improvements.

Officials for the state, the Chiefs and municipal officials in December revealed plans for a nearly $4 billion project that would include a domed stadium in west KCK and a training facility and new team headquarters in Olathe. Both the Olathe and KCK projects would be surrounded by entertainment districts, Gov. Laura Kelly said during that announcement.

Although the state said it would pitch in more than $2 billion to pay off the sales tax and revenue (STAR) bond debt used to finance the project — using a yet-to-be-formalized state bond district — it also asked the municipalities to pitch in.

Both cities agreed to use a portion of their local sales tax dollars generated near and around those future developments toward paying off that bond debt.

Wyandotte has conditions for Chiefs & state

Wyandotte’s vote approving its allocation of local sales tax revenues toward the Chiefs came with stipulations for the state and team.

The county wants a say in whether its western KCK bond district’s size can change; final approval on specific documentation — including a stipulation that infrastructure for the stadium must be paid for with STAR bonds; a local government-appointed local representative on a planned community impact committee; and a bond issuance happening before the end of 2030.

The conditions are meant to protect a financially struggling county from losing its state and local sales tax revenues county-wide, rather than in the immediate project area, Christal Watson, Mayor/CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and KCK said in a recent statement.

“That concern is exactly why the ordinance includes conditions, not as window dressing, but as guardrails,” Watson said. “A core purpose of those conditions is to protect Wyandotte County families from unintended tax increases, especially property taxes, while keeping the County financially whole,” Watson said in that statement.

As of publication time, the Kansas Department of Commerce had not responded to questions about its reaction to the Wyandotte County conditions, whether they came as a surprise to officials, or whether the state would be able to meet the county’s terms.

The department also didn’t respond to a question on whether its proposed state bond district, from which state sales taxes would be diverted toward the project, will span Wyandotte County as earlier documents suggest, or if it will fit the parameters of the project area in west KCK, as local officials want it to.

Rep. Sean Tarwater, a Stilwell Republican who helped craft the underlying STAR bond incentive package, said he’s been too busy to closely examine the terms of Wyandotte County’s local stadium-funding agreement.

“I heard something that it may not match the deal that we drafted with the Chiefs. But I don’t know any of the details,” Tarwater said in an interview Friday.

He said it’s reasonable for the local government to have a say in the ultimate boundaries for the STAR bond district.

“We work with the locals on that kind of thing on all STAR bond districts, so that will happen either way,” Tarwater said, adding that he doesn’t know anything about a pressure campaign to change the terms of Wyandotte County’s stadium agreement.

Why delay plans?

State Rep. Shannon Francis, a Republican who represents parts of Seward and Meade counties in southwest Kansas, pitched the change.

He told the committee that he was concerned by the anticipated millions in infrastructure spending that the Kansas City Chiefs’ move into KCK would bring the state, and said it would be unfair to other counties that don’t spend as much on infrastructure projects.

Francis said during Thursday’s meeting that he didn’t pitch the change with a specific project that he wanted to delay in mind, and that the decision of which projects would be affected would ultimately be up to KDOT. He wasn’t specifically targeting Wyandotte County with that change, and KDOT might also consider projects in Johnson County to delay, he added.

And, Francis’ budget proviso had nothing to do with Wyandotte’s local sales tax appointment for the Chiefs project, or its conditions, he told The Star on Friday. He declined to confirm whether the Central Avenue Bridge would be affected, despite his change mirroring that project’s description.

Rep. Pam Curtis, a Democrat whose district includes downtown KCK, said during Thursday’s meeting that she hoped KDOT’s decision would consider the fact that Wyandotte County’s infrastructure is facing higher demands to upkeep its infrastructure given it’s home to numerous tourist attractions.

She later told The Star that she’s disheartened that long-needed infrastructure on the county’s easternmost could be stalled due to a Chiefs stadium far out west.

“We don’t know all the details yet, but the stadium discussion really needs to be separate,” Curtis said.

As of publication time, Curtis said she hadn’t heard any information indicating that the Unified Government’s terms on the Chiefs deal contributed to this decision.

Although projects in the Kansas City metro do see more infrastructure funding, and Curtis said she understands rural communities are accustomed to infrastructure delays, eastern Wyandotte County, particularly KCK’s northeast, is also a neglected part of the state.

“I have made the case numerous times that we should not divide our most economically disadvantaged urban areas, that they have so much in common with our rural areas,” Curtis said. “We should not continue to divide them and that we should be offering them comparable incentives so that they can both grow.”

Curtis wants to see a more holistic conversation on how to address delays in rural communities, rather than a proviso that diverts funding from projects long in the works. She said she and a coalition of businesses have been working to get funding for the Central Avenue Bridge for four years. Watson’s office said it believes they’ll be able to figure out how to access bridge funding despite the proposal. “I’m confident that because of our new partnership with the state and team this will get worked out,” the office said in a Friday evening statement.

What’s next?

State legislators still have to take several steps before that infrastructure funding is distributed elsewhere. Thursday’s vote marked the funding delay being added to the House’s version of the state budget bill.

That budget bill passed out of committee Friday morning and will be considered by the entire House next week. That review will allow representatives to debate the bill on the floor and potentially discuss any stipulations.

From there, the bill will make its way to the Senate for consideration. Afterward, the Senate and House will work out any differences in opinion over that state budget.

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