The Kansas City stadium-village project is getting public funding.
The process of building a Major League Baseball stadium for the owner of the Kansas City Royals franchise, John Sherman, has started. There seems to be no turning back although the Kansas City, Missouri city council has placed a referendum on the April 6th, 2027 ballot asking city residents if they should have a say if the city decides to fund stadium or arena projects. Whatever the outcome of that vote turns out to be, it probably won’t have any impact on the Kansas City baseball stadium-village project. The Kansas City city council approved legislation that committed $600 million in public funding to the project.
Missouri Workers Power, the group behind a petition drive that forced the city council to place the stadium permission question on the April 6th, 2027 ballot, feels it can stop the stadium from being built but Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas does not agree. “Projects already underway, such as Royals Stadium at Crown Center, the Kansas City Current stadium expansion, the Kansas City Symphony’s new South Plaza project, and the Starlight Theater canopy project are not affected by the proposal.” The public funding for the stadium-village project will come from sales taxes generated within a stadium district. The district that has been created probably is too big as it is around four square miles so it would use sales tax money from businesses which probably are too far in walking distance from the stadium. Hunden Partners, a development consulting firm, claimed the much smaller stadium that will seat only 34,000 people will pay for itself generating hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue from local businesses that will be redirected to pay construction debt instead of going to the city’s coffers. There is also the usual it will create businesses and jobs projection. The Royals stadium construction has started.
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