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The Kansas City Royals are moving from their longtime home at Kauffman Stadium to the Crown Center area downtown and partnering with Hallmark Cards on a $3 billion project that includes a mixed-use development with a new ballpark as its centerpiece.
Royals owner John Sherman was joined by Hallmark Chairman Don Hall Jr., Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, along with other local and state dignitaries, as they made the announcement Wednesday near Hallmark headquarters.
While the final master plan is not yet complete, Sherman said the $1.9 billion stadium would break ground next year in the middle of Crown Center as part of the first phase of an 85-acre project. Two-thirds of the funding will come from private sources and the remaining third from public partners, including money earmarked by the state for stadium projects.
“This is a partnership between two treasured Kansas City institutions,” Sherman said. “We are committed to creating a vision that honors our history, the rich past of both organizations, while innovating and reimagining what our future can be together.”
The announcement came about a week after Kansas City officials passed an ordinance authorizing City Manager Mario Vasquez to negotiate a $600 million deal to help the Royals relocate downtown. Most thought the stadium would sit on Washington Square Park, which is adjacent to Union Station, but it will instead be located just south of it, with the park included in the development.
Hallmark intends to build a new headquarters in the area, which is connected by a streetcar to the Power & Light District, with the T-Mobile Center serving as its anchor. That part of downtown Kansas City will provide the backdrop behind the outfield fence.
Officials touted the availability of public parking already in the area and convenient traffic flow from nearby highways.
Missouri’s contribution comes from a law passed last year that authorized bonds covering up to 50% of the cost of new or renovated stadiums in the state, plus up to $50 million in tax credits for each stadium and unspecified aid from local governments.
“We think this is a great investment for our Missouri taxpayers because this doesn’t affect existing programs,” Kehoe said. “The ripple effect from this facility will really be far-reaching into rural Missouri and other parts of the state.”
The Royals have insisted they would vacate Kauffman Stadium when their lease at the Truman Sports Complex expires in 2031, and Sherman’s intent ever since he bought the club in 2019 was to build a ballpark downtown as a replacement.
Still, getting to Wednesday’s announcement didn’t come without plenty of pitfalls.
The biggest stumbling block came in April 2024, when the Kansas City Chiefs joined the Royals in a plan to renovate Arrowhead Stadium and replace Kauffman Stadium. The plan hinged on the expansion of a sales tax that had paid for stadium maintenance, and voters in Jackson County, Missouri, overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, forcing the franchises to go their separate ways.
The legislature in neighboring Kansas aggressively pursued the Chiefs, committing last December to issue $2.4 billion in bonds to cover 60% of the cost of a new $3 billion domed stadium in Kansas City, Kansas. The NFL franchise ultimately decided to move across the state line, where it will also build a new practice facility in the nearby suburb of Olathe, Kansas.
Kansas officials also briefly pursued the Royals, but their interest in the MLB franchise had always been lukewarm.
The Royals had considered several options in recent months. But they ultimately rejected an opportunity in suburban Overland Park, Kansas, and allowed a deadline to pass for a site north of downtown and across the Missouri River in Clay County, Missouri.
Economists have long concluded that subsidizing stadiums is not worth the cost to local communities because the venues draw economic activity away from other parts of the area rather than expanding the overall economy. Still, states and cities continually provide money to renovate stadiums or build new ones — 49 of the 60 used by MLB or NFL teams are publicly owned or sit on public land.
One of the stadiums Sherman cited as an example of what is possible in Kansas City is Truist Park in Atlanta.
The stadium was a public-private partnership, with the Cobb-Marietta Coliseum & Exhibit Hall Authority issuing up to $397 million in bonds, the county raising millions more from transportation taxes and businesses adding millions in cash. The Atlanta Braves contributed the remaining money for the park and The Battery, a mixed-use development, with a total cost of more than $1.1 billion.
“There are many great ballpark neighborhoods in Major League Baseball,” Sherman said, “but this is a bigger project with more land downtown and in the heart of the city. We’re bringing a modern, state-of-the-art ballpark experience to our fans, closer to our public transportation and where more people work and live.”
Report from the Associated Press.
