The Kansas City Royals will team up with hometown company Hallmark Cards to build a new ballpark at Crown Center, with a promised $3 billion downtown campus of mixed-use development in the surrounding 85 acres.
In an email sent to fans early Wednesday, Royals owner John Sherman announced a “transformative project” that will create “reimagined headquarters” for the Royals and Hallmark. The project will be built on a strong, community-shared history that honors the Royals’ past and looks to the future, he said.
During a 10 a.m. news conference at the American Restaurant in Crown Center, Sherman said it was a day to be marked in history, when baseball was being brought to the city’s center. Mayor Quinton Lucas and Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe joined Sherman and Don Hall, Hallmark’s chairman of the board.
Quoting President Harry Truman (“Make no little plans”), Sherman said the development will ultimately be a $3 billion project with an innovative partnership with Hallmark.
“There’s no script for what we’re sharing with you today, no playbook, no blueprint,” Sherman said.
“The Kansas City Royals are staying in the state of Missouri, and we’re staying in the city of Kansas City, Missouri,” he said to applause. “We’re bringing baseball downtown. We’re bringing a second crown downtown,” Sherman said in a reference to Hallmark’s crown logo.
Hall looked out at nearby Liberty Hall and Union Station, where his grandfather, J.C. Hall, the company’s founder, first arrived in Kansas City 115 years ago, brought by what he had heard of the “Kansas City spirit.” Hall compared Sherman to his grandfather, saying they both had the “heart, resources and long-term vision.”
“Separated by generations and in histories yet united by a shared belief in Kansas City’s promise,” Hall said. “Today, those visions come together.”
“Standing at this spot I can’t help but reflect on the fact that my grandfather hopped off that train when he was 18 years old to build a business here only because he had heard people talking about the Kansas City spirit.”
Lucas said the project is structured as a public-private partnership that will rely on revenues generated by the team along with nearby development. The project will be built with no new taxes, no large special taxing districts, and will generate 20,000 construction jobs, he said.
“The Royals are staying home, and they are building a new home at the center of our region’s culture, arts, vibrance and entrepreneurial success,” Lucas said. “We are the visionaries of today, and we are changing Kansas City for the better.”
But not everyone is on board with the project. The Missouri Workers, a nonprofit that advocates for low-wage workers, announced it would look at all legal and political options to force a public vote on the publicly financed project.
Pointing to the failed 2024 vote on the downtown ballpark, the group said Sherman’s “vanity project” comes on the heels of state lawmakers’ approval of a vote this week on ending income tax and a move to sales taxes. That move would mean taxes for the richest 20% would be cut while while it would significantly raise taxes for the bottom 80% of income earners, the group said.
“Our communities are still waiting for investment in affordable housing, underfunded schools, public transit, and healthcare,” the group said in a statement. “A billion dollars in public subsidies to a billionaire-owned sports team is not economic development. It’s corruption. Just like the last time, the people still have a chance to stop it.”
Sherman is realizing his dream of a downtown ballpark nearly three years after the Royals announced a vision to leave Kauffman Stadium and build a multibillion-dollar stadium and ballpark district.
The announcement for the $1.9 billion stadium comes a week after Kansas City passed the beginnings of a financing package for a Washington Square Park location, adjacent to Crown Center. The $600 million plan would use new sales and earnings tax revenue in a stadium district to pay off the city-backed bonds for the project.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.iolaregister.com ’
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