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<\/p>\nThe Kansas City Royals on Wednesday put forth plans to build a new ballpark in downtown Kansas City, Mo., at cost of $1.9 billion \u2014 including $600 million in taxpayer money from the city, an unspecified contribution from the state that will likely total hundreds of millions, and at least $800 million from the team.<\/p>\n
The stadium would be part of an 85-acre development at Crown Center, a shopping and dining district run by Hallmark Cards, which is headquartered at the center and is partnering with the Royals in the real-estate venture. Between the ballpark and the entertainment district, the project\u2019s total bill could run to about $3 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur founder Ewing Kauffman wanted the Royals to be Kansas City\u2019s forever, and he wanted the team to benefit his hometown as much as possible,\u201d Royals chairman John Sherman said in a news release. \u201cJoining Hallmark with this project achieves both and extends the Hall family\u2019s critical legacy of helping Kansas City grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The announcement comes less than a week after Kansas City\u2019s city council approved an ordinance earmarking the $600 million for the Royals. That ordinance, however, includes requirements for further approvals from the city council, which means the stadium isn\u2019t yet a done deal. Groundbreaking is slated for 2027 with a targeted opening in 2030 if the process goes as planned.<\/p>\n
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\n A rendering of the proposed stadium amidst the larger planned shopping and dining district (Courtesy of the Kansas City Royals)<\/p>\n
The Royals\u2019 unveiling also arrives two years after Jackson County residents in Missouri voted down a tax measure<\/a> that would have helped the Royals\u2019 stadium efforts. Whether Jackson County will now provide funding is unclear.<\/p>\n Professional sports teams routinely go to great lengths to secure public money<\/a> to support their businesses, and increasingly, they have found ways to do so without putting the matter directly to voters. Some organizers in Kansas City have publicly opposed using taxpayer dollars, including KC Tenants, which is focused on housing advocacy, and Missouri Workers Center, a labor group.<\/p>\n At a news conference Wednesday, Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas touted the creation of 20,000 jobs in construction trades, and his office said in a news release that the project \u201crelies on revenues generated by baseball and ancillary development with no new taxes and no large special taxing districts.\u201d<\/p>\n But those claims are specious, according to J.C. Bradbury, an economist at Kennesaw State University in Georgia who has an upcoming book about publicly funded stadiums. Bradbury, who is vocal on social media, virtually always opposes taxpayer money going to stadiums because economists have found the projects rarely, if ever, deliver the financial benefits that teams and local governments promote.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t get $600 million for free. You can\u2019t just pull that out of thin air, that\u2019s going to come from taxpayers,\u201d Bradbury said by phone Wednesday. \u201cThat the funding is not coming from the general fund, I just wanted to point out that that\u2019s totally irrelevant.<\/p>\n \u201cTaxes are largely raised by locals who spend. \u2026 That\u2019s money that people would have otherwise been spending elsewhere and transferred.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, state lawmakers in Missouri passed the Show Me Sports Investment Act, which could provide hundreds of millions to the team over the next 30 years to help pay for the park, according to The Beacon<\/a>, a local news outlet in Kansas City.<\/p>\n \u201cEconomists have been studying the economic benefits of stadiums for five decades, and they consistently find that they are bad public investments,\u201d Bradbury said. \u201cThey do not generate enough economic benefits to generate enough revenue to pay for themselves. They\u2019re not self-funding things. If you\u2019re building the stadium, you\u2019re gonna end up costing your community money.\u201d<\/p>\n Since 1973, the Royals have played at Kauffman Stadium, which is still in the city proper but away from downtown, about nine miles from Crown Center. Sherman\u2019s group bought the team in 2019.<\/p>\n The Kansas City Chiefs, who play next door to the Royals\u2019 Kauffman Stadium, are leaving Missouri for Kansas after securing about $1.8 billion in public funding for a $3 billion stadium there.<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s announcement reinforces that the State of Missouri is not just where the Kansas City Royals play but where they belong,\u201d said Governor Mike Kehoe. \u201cThis decision by the Royals to invest in our state is more than just a commitment to Kansas City, it is a commitment to communities and fans across Missouri.\u201d<\/p>\n