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NORTH KANSAS CITY, Mo. \u2014 Clay County believes it still has a shot at landing a new Kansas City Royals baseball stadium. That\u2019s the view of Presiding Commissioner Jerry Nolte.<\/p>\n
A site in the city at 18th<\/sup>\u00a0Avenue and Fayette Street was one of two finalists for the team two years ago before they ultimately picked a site in the East Crossroads to try to build their new ballpark in February of 2024.<\/p>\n Local firm updates proposed Arrowhead renovation plans following fan feedback <\/a><\/p>\n The Royals, along with the Chiefs, lost the Jackson County sales tax election by 16% in April of 2024, causing fans to wonder where they\u2019ll be playing in the next decade.<\/p>\n If a stadium\u2019s going to go near 18th Avenue and Fayette Street, the voters of Clay County would have to say yes to a sales tax just like the voters of Jackson County did in 2006.<\/p>\n The leases for the Kansas City Chiefs and the Royals end in January of 2031 in Jackson County.<\/p>\n The deadline to be on a November ballot in Clay or Jackson County has come and gone. That means the next possible time the Royals or Chiefs could ask voters for county sales tax money to help pay for their stadium, would be in April of 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that we are making progress, but the part of it that has to happen is we have to get to a point where we have kind of closure on that,\u201d Presiding Commissioner Jerry Nolte said in an interview with FOX4 Tuesday. \u201cSo, those discussions are ongoing, but like a lot of things in life, when they start rolling, they roll a little faster than you\u2019d anticipate, so it might take a while for us to get there, but I think as we get closer to a point to where we may come up with a solution, I think that solution might be rather quickly arrived at.\u201d<\/p>\n Old bowling alley declared unsafe and dangerous by city of Overland Park <\/a><\/p>\n On the other side though, may be a resident like Mindy Hart, who moved her business at Fayette Street and Armour Road away from the once proposed ballpark site after hearing about the Royals\u2019 interests there. The intersection is just one block north of the potential stadium site.<\/p>\n The Royals wouldn\u2019t comment on our story Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have information. No one\u2019s presented it to us as a residential community of what the impact is going to be on the community,\u201d she said in an interview with FOX4 Tuesday. \u201cNo one from the Royals\u2019 camp has come to us and said, \u2018We want to come to North Kansas City, and here\u2019s what we want to do for your community,\u2019 so we can\u2019t do an analysis of the cost and the benefit because we don\u2019t have any information.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, we\u2019re not even as far as we know at the table really having conversations. Those conversations are happening with the county, but they\u2019re not happening with the residents, and we\u2019re the ones that are going to be most impacted.\u201d<\/p>\n If the Royals and county leaders want an April stadium election, that would be exactly six months away from Tuesday, October 7th, taking place April 7th<\/sup>\u00a0of 2026.<\/p>\n