OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (KCTV) – As a Dec. 31 deadline nears for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals to seize on STAR bond incentives offered by the state of Kansas, Johnson County residents are organizing to say no to one possible ballpark location.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of Johnson County residents packed a meeting room Monday night in Leawood to get on message and get that message out. More than 250 people attended the meeting to voice concerns about a potential stadium at 119th Street and Nall Avenue in Overland Park.<\/p>\n
The site on the Aspiria campus, originally the Sprint headquarters, sits just across from the Town Center Plaza shopping center. Though the immediate area is largely commercial, numerous subdivisions are located just a few blocks away.<\/p>\n Mark Kelly, who heads the Hawthorne Place Homes Association, lives less than a mile away at 123rd Street and Nall Avenue.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so close and so big and it\u2019ll be so noisy,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n Residents worry about the impact of 81 home games each season on their neighborhoods. Some games conclude with fireworks. They think about cars cramming the roads not far from homes, schools and hospitals.<\/p>\n \u201cI know people love to go to the ballpark and have a good time, but then, you know, you have a few beers, and traffic concerns mount as you\u2019re coming out,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n He and Marsha Friedman, an opposition organizer, cited safety concerns related to the site\u2019s proximity to an elementary school and Blue Valley North High School, which is barely over a mile away.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got people who are going to be drinking and driving. You\u2019ve got the most vulnerable kids who are going to be driving, the 16-year-olds who just got their license. It\u2019s not a smart move,\u201d Friedman said.<\/p>\n Residents also worry about congestion and potential bottlenecks that could interfere with emergency traffic to Menorah Medical Center, located directly across the street from the proposed site.<\/p>\n Friedman said the location lacks the highway access available at other sports venues.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like you have with the Truman Sports Center. You get on a highway; you get off a highway and you\u2019re there,\u201d Friedman said.<\/p>\n The nearest highway access would involve driving 1.5 miles down Nall from Interstate 435 or 3 miles across 119th Street from U.S. Highway 69. If those routes become backed up, Friedman suspects traffic would spill into residential areas.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to be backed up on the highway, bumper to bumper. They\u2019re going to get off on State Line. They\u2019ll go through the Hallbrook neighborhood,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Kelly questioned whether existing infrastructure could handle the increased traffic and who would pay for necessary improvements.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think the streets that we have currently are designed to handle the traffic. I\u2019m concerned that when we have to do the street improvements, that because of the tax breaks the Royals are getting, it\u2019s going to fall on the backs of the taxpayers,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n Kelly encouraged the hundreds of homeowners in attendance to make their voices heard to elected officials.<\/p>\n \u201cJust make noise. We\u2019re just going to try to let the elected officials in our area and in Topeka know that this is not something that we would welcome, that we have a thriving community right now, and we don\u2019t think that a stadium would have a positive impact,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n<\/div>