The prospect of downtown baseball is a significant step closer to reality.

Top Kansas City officials are poised to introduce a funding plan Thursday for a downtown Kansas City Royals stadium, sources told The Star, a remarkable sign that the team’s half-decade stadium search could be nearing a conclusion.

The plan is built around a specific location: Washington Square Park.

The proposal calls for a $1.9 billion stadium and surrounding district at the downtown site near Crown Center and Union Station. Kansas City would contribute roughly $600 million of the project, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by The Star.

Mayor Quinton Lucas is expected to unveil the plan as an ordinance during Thursday afternoon’s City Council meeting at City Hall, he confirmed to The Star. The ordinance authorizes City Manager Mario Vasquez to negotiate and execute a 30-year term sheet, lease, and development agreement with the team to build the new stadium.

It includes an aggressive timeline to open by Opening Day of 2030, a year before the Royals’ lease expires at Kauffman Stadium.

“What I would say to folks is that today is a very material step in the delivery of a downtown baseball stadium that the Royals and the city are interested in opening by Opening Day of 2030,” Lucas said in an exclusive interview with The Star.

The planned reveal marks a key step in the drawn-out fight over the Royals, potentially the first domino in a process that, after years of twists and turns, could suddenly roll quickly.

Well, if the Royals are on board.

It’s not yet clear whether the Royals will jump at the deal, though Lucas said the proposal is the result of “hours and hours of extensive discussion” with the Royals.

“This doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” he said.

A Royals spokesperson, in a statement to The Star, touted the ordinance but did not indicate whether the team would accept a deal with the city.

“The Kansas City Royals appreciate the work of our City’s leadership — the Mayor, City Manager, and City Council — as they take important steps toward continued economic development for our city,” the statement said. “We are grateful for their engagement in this process, as well as for the critical work of the State of Missouri, and look forward to more detailed conversations as we consider solutions that are best for our team, our fans, and our community.”

The Royals have explored sites in Kansas and Clay County in recent months, but team owner John Sherman said earlier this year his preference remained to land in the “heart” of the city, the original vision when he announced plans to leave Kauffman Stadium.

A move downtown, Sherman said last week, would be predicated on having “site control and certainly the public financing in place before we announce it.”

The attempt to execute that vision has been defined by its complications and eventually its fatigue. The protracted conversation has exhausted political leadership, developers and fans alike. But the City Council meeting on Thursday provides a path to bringing downtown baseball to fruition.

The ordinance is exclusive to the Washington Square Park site and intends to prohibit the Royals from soliciting proposals from other states, counties or municipalities.

City officials have long touted Washington Square Park, situated near the city’s streetcar line and bus route, as the ideal home for the Royals. They hope that the addition of a baseball stadium, which would host at least 81 home games per season, would connect the tourism-heavy Union Station and the Crown Center district with the Crossroads, a key tie between two popular but distinct destinations.

The site emerged as a favorite among city officials in August 2024, gaining momentum after downtown locations at East Village and then the Crossroads District previously occupied the team’s focus.

Lucas said the city’s estimate is that 19,000 parking spots would be within a 10-minute walk of the stadium, which would sit between Grand Boulevard and Main Street. There are ongoing discussions about whether streets would be closed pre- or post-game, though Lucas said otherwise, “we intend to still have every part of the street grid still operational.”

At the city level, the ordinance will still need to wind through the city’s legislative process, with a follow-up committee hearing on Tuesday, before city council members vote on it.

Lucas told The Star that the proposal would also require a vote on Tuesday from Kansas City’s Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners in order to use the park. That board would continue to be the owner of the property, though operations “continues to be some level of discussions,” Lucas said.

That process would notably attempt to side-step a public vote on the stadium two years after Jackson County voters soundly defeated an April 2024 proposal for a separate site downtown. Approval is not a certainty and council members could voice some level of opposition to the plan, particularly about the lack of a public vote.

Decades of research have consistently shown that stadiums are not major engines for economic growth and that subsidies typically outweigh the economic benefits. A proposal without a public vote is therefore virtually certain to run into some kind of resistance from the general public and financial experts, if not other politicians.

Asked why the project would not be subjected to a public vote, Lucas said, “It’s a different project than what was evaluated in both 2024 and a different project than what we’ve done for the Chiefs and Royals in the past. This is something that is a lot more akin to the type of economic development deal that we have done in Kansas City (and) downtown in particular over the last 30 years.

He continued, “This is a downtown project that will be funded by proceeds from the project, proceeds from the ancillary development and perhaps, of course, state infrastructure funding. But on the whole, that’s what the project is about.”

How will the stadium project be funded?

The ordinance will be introduced just two days after Kansas City officials successfully convinced voters to renew the city’s 1% earnings tax for another five years, a critical vote that loomed over ongoing Royals talks. Lucas said Tuesday night that revenue from the earnings tax would not be used to cover any stadium costs.

The city will pursue a public-private partnership, with its $600 million contribution earmarked for a project that includes the stadium and team offices, acquisition and demolition of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City building that the company has vacated and a neighboring service road. That portion of the project would be split — with 60% of the funds coming from public entities, such as Kansas City and Missouri, and 40% in private funding, sources said. The Royals would fund the bulk of the ancillary development.

“I’m heartened by the fact we see no destruction of existing businesses,” Lucas said. “... I think you see a space that first surprisingly well — as if we’re trying to fill in the piece of a puzzle.”

Kansas City, according to the ordinance, intends to pay for its portion of the stadium using a constellation of funds, including bonds, city appropriations and Tax Increment Financing (TIF). The city plans to reimburse itself using proceeds from the bonds, but the ordinance does not include specifics about how that would play out.

The ordinance also references a “public engagement plan” with surrounding businesses and a “commitment to community benefits to the Kansas City Parks and Boulevard system and public engagement,” though it does not outline the specifics of what those plans would entail.

In their pursuit of public financing, the Royals have also maintained talks with the state of Missouri and Jackson County.

At the state level, the stadium would rely on a sweeping funding package Missouri lawmakers approved last summer in an attempt to keep both the Royals and Chiefs inside state lines. The law allows Missouri to pay for up to 50% of a new stadium for the team, but it’s unclear how much money the state or Jackson County will actually contribute.

In addition to state funds from Missouri’s incentives package, Kansas City’s ordinance authorizes Vasquez to apply for up to $50 million in state tax credits from the Missouri Development Finance Board.

The project would also include ancillary development — an entertainment district surrounding the stadium — which the Royals have considered key to the project. The Royals have previously mentioned restaurants, retail, hotel and offices as part of a ballpark district, though if they embrace the proposal, that would require them to acquire surrounding properties. Washington Square Park itself is nearly five acres, notably smaller than other sites the team has studied, though Lucas said the park and BCBS building is big enough for the stadium footprint.”

There have been a lot of site explorations along the way.

After their April 2024 vote failed — a combined measure with the Chiefs that would have led to funding for a downtown ballpark in the Crossroads — the Royals cast a wider net.

They engaged in serious discussions for a site across the state line at the Aspiria Campus near 119th Street and Nall Avenue in Overland Park. But in January, the Royals announced they would not be moving there, and Sherman said last week that fans ranked suburban Kansas last in a survey among their preferences.

Sherman said the top preferred option among fans was that the Royals stay at Kauffman Stadium in the Truman Sports Complex, where they’ve called home since 1973. The fans surveyed next ranked downtown Kansas City, and then a North Kansas City option that surfaced before the vote, before the suburban Kansas possibility, Sherman said.

The Chiefs in late December announced plans to move to Kansas, bolstered by that state’s sweeping incentives package.

Afterward, the Royals’ focus eventually returned to their origin: downtown.

Now, the city will take a step toward bringing that vision to life.

Stadium Border War

KC’s stadium plans include Crown Center. What that means is less clear

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