Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas on Wednesday vowed to strike a downtown stadium deal with the Kansas City Royals during his annual State of the City address, a promise that would mark the culmination of a yearslong fight over the team.
Lucas’ State of the City speech came as he nears the final year of his term, which ends in 2027. The fight over the Royals has long roiled Kansas City politics, threatening to define both the city’s future and Lucas’ tenure as mayor.
“We will get a deal done in 2026 that’s fair and transparent for our taxpayers, our future and our team,” Lucas told the gathering of top local officials, law enforcement, media and members of the general public inside City Hall.
The Royals, Lucas said, are interested in building a stadium in downtown Kansas City, something that city leaders have promoted over the past several months.
“As part of our growth, our retention of the Kansas City Royals in the only home they’ve ever known, Kansas City, is a must,” Lucas said.
The speech came as momentum builds for a Royals stadium in Jackson County. Lucas and Jackson County Interim Executive Phil LeVota recently traveled to Jefferson City to discuss Royals plans with Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe. The team has pursued stadium locations in Kansas and Clay County, but those options have appeared to dwindle in recent weeks.
Missing from Lucas’ address, however, was any mention of a specific stadium location. The mayor signaled that it was likely by design, telling reporters after the speech that the decision over where, exactly, to house the Royals would be up to the team.
But Lucas also hinted strongly at his long-preferred spot: Washington Square Park near the Crown Center.
“Obviously, there’s been a lot of work done here in Washington Square Park. There’s been a lot of discussion,” Lucas told reporters. “You know, if there’s been that much study of the traffic ingress, egress and beyond, I imagine that’s a location that will be very heavily evaluated.”
LeVota was in attendance during Wednesday’s speech. In an interview with The Star after the speech, the top executive echoed Lucas’ argument that the Royals would choose their future stadium location.
“Once they pick that location, we have a proposal from the state, from the city and the county, that the Royals, I believe, will be comfortable with,” LeVota said. “And we’ll get the deal done.”
LeVota said he has been “very careful” not to endorse a specific stadium location, adding that the Royals have been looking at different spots and are narrowing down their list.
“I’ll tell you what it isn’t,” LeVota said. “It’s not in Kansas. It’s not in Clay County. So, there are locations in Jackson County.”
Lucas and LeVota both previously told The Star that they hoped to reach a stadium deal with the Royals by the end of spring training, which would be in late March. LeVota reiterated that timeline on Wednesday.
A Royals deal would mark the end of a protracted fight that has dominated local and state politics in Kansas and Missouri for months.
The Chiefs’ recently announced move to Kansas has raised the temperature along the state line, while the fight over both teams has threatened to renew a bitter economic border war between the two states.
Lucas, during his speech on Wednesday, offered a brief nod at the border war, referencing — but not directly mentioning — Missouri and Kansas City’s recent decisions to exit an economic truce with Kansas that limited cross-state business poaching.
“Selective truces with entire industry exceptions, historically large incentives in adjacent communities to develop empty fields and debasing tax revenues across the region for wins realized only by a few and rarely experienced by our schools, our taxpayers, or our public services will not form the basis of regional cooperation,” Lucas said.
Instead, he said Kansas City will “continue to work cooperatively as the heart of the region and the heart of America to show the best in American cities.”
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