How can KC justify a new downtown ballpark?

Once again, Kansas City is trying to play “catch up ball” against its cross-state rival, St. Louis.

When State of Missouri, St. Louis City and St. Louis County elected officials shook hands last Tuesday after signing an agreement calling for a new downtown St. Louis baseball park, Kansas City Royals owner David Glass made it clear that his organization would join with city officials to explore expansion options that included talks about a new downtown ballpark.

Wait a minute. It wasn’t that long ago that Glass was heaping praise on Kauffman Stadium and describing in glowing terms the future of Royals baseball at the Truman Sports Complex. Now Glass says a new stadium downtown, with shops and other amenities similar to what St. Louis is proposing, is worth taking a look at. Glass said late last week that he didn’t have a sense of the community’s feelings toward a new stadium. He’s getting that now.

The timing for a new stadium for KC is all wrong. Glass was right the first time. Even though it’s 30 years old, Kauffman Stadium is still one of the best baseball venues in the major leagues in terms of beauty, atmosphere, cleanliness and accessibility.

Glass’s comment that the Royals need a stadium that can compete with other stadiums puzzles me. Is there another pro team in KC that we don’t know about — one stealing dollars from Royals by offering better facilities and more attractions? Or is Glass referring to new stadiums that have recently opened in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati? Is Glass inferring that if the Royals don’t have a shiny new facility they won’t be competitive? Excuse me, but I think the Royals’ problems go beyond where they’re playing.

Glass is sneakily insinuating that the price of renovating Kauffman Stadium might be so high that building a new stadium would be a logical step. Bull chips. The price tag for a new downtown park would be more than two or three times the cost of a Kauffman Stadium makeover, though I bet Chiefs fans would love it if they’d just blow up “The K” and add more parking spaces for Arrowhead Stadium.

The Royals should do a study to determine how much of their patronage comes from the outlying areas of Kansas and Missouri. How many rural-area baseball fans are going to be willing to drive downtown for the promise of poor parking and higher ticket prices. For sure, they’d have to come up with a better location than they did for Kemper Arena (I don’t even want to talk about wonderful Kemper Arena). If the Royals build a downtown stadium and draw the kind of crowds they’d like to have, I shudder to think of the traffic nightmares awaiting fans, both before and after games. By the way, the cheapest seats at Pittsburgh’s new park are $16. Right now the Pirates, with nearly the same winning percentage as the Royals, aren’t coming close to filling all the seats. And just wait til the new wears off.

Proponents for a new St. Louis ballpark (who aren’t above using scare tactics) have certainly done their homework. The stadium-finance deal calls for Cardinals to come up with at least $120 million up front. The state, city and county would be responsible for financing $200 million dollar in tax exempt bonds over 30 years. Beginning in 2005, the state would pay $7 million a year from money that would come from increased revenue generated by the project, which, in addition to a ballpark, includes a “Ballpark Village” housing office space, commercial and retail space, residential units, Cardinals baseball museum space and a large aquarium.

The Cardinals would sell the naming rights to the new park to a big corporation for millions of dollars annually. That money would go into a fund that, after 10 years, would be used to make up the difference if the increased tax revenue from the project fell short of city and state contributions. If there still wasn’t enough to cover the gap, the team would make up the difference.

The Cardinals could be playing in a new stadium by 2006. Ballpark Village would be completed in phases from 2011 to 2014.

It remains to be seen whether Kansas City officials can put together the same kind of package that would “pay for itself” through new tax revenues. Maybe a new stadium complex could house the Negro Leagues Museum, which is struggling to draw support over at 18th and Vine. Then again, moving the museum would leave the American Jazz Museum and Gem Theater to fend for themselves.

Having vented my opinions, I’ll leave it to one of our legislators to give the definitive reason for a thumbs-down to new ballpark constructions. State senator Sarah Steelman (R-Rolla), speaking about the St. Louis proposal, rightly stated that “Major League Baseball needs reforming before any public money is poured into a new stadium.”