BY: JASON HANCOCK
Missouri Independent
With only a week to go before the legislature adjourns for the year, Missouri lawmakers are considering a last-minute push for a $300 million incentive package aimed at building a new stadium for the Kansas City Royals in Clay County.
The tentative plan, which according to those involved has the blessing of the governor’s office, would commit the state to $15 million a year to a newly created Clay County sports authority for the next 20 years. That money would be used to help finance a new stadium in order to prevent the team from moving to Kansas.
It’s unclear if the legislative package will include money to help the Kansas City Chiefs remodel Arrowhead Stadium in Jackson County.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Legislation sponsored by state Sen. Kurtis Gregory, a Republican from Marshall, would be the vehicle for the funding. The underlying bill, which passed the Senate and could be taken up as early as Monday in the House, would authorize Clay County to establish a county sports complex authority for the purpose of “developing or maintaining sports, convention, exhibition or trade facilities.”
Any stadium funding plans would be added to the bill as an amendment in the House, said state Rep. Brad Christ, a St. Louis County Republican handling the legislation in that chamber.
Christ said his involvement with the stadium funding is “very minimal,” and he has not been kept in the loop on any details of the proposal.
All signs point toward Clay County as the preferred location for the new stadium, Gregory said, with the idea that moving the Royals would also clear the way for the Chiefs to remain in Arrowhead, demolish Kauffman Stadium and build a covered entertainment center.
“It’s not ‘downtown,’ but Clay County works a lot better,” Gregory said of a possible North Kansas City site. “There can be better parking. You’ll have the Kansas City skyline just two miles away. They could run the streetcar out to it. It just works.”
Some sort of local support would likely still be needed, Gregory said. But he’s optimistic that can get done, because “when I was knocking doors in Clay, the most frequent question I got was ‘what are we going to do about the Chiefs and the Royals.’”
Both teams have publicly expressed interest in moving from Missouri to Kansas after Jackson County voters rejected a proposal last year to extend a 3/8-cent sales tax to help finance a downtown Kansas City baseball stadium and upgrades to Arrowhead.
Kansas lawmakers responded by expanding a tax incentive program in the hopes of convincing one or both teams to relocate. The leases for both teams’ Jackson County stadiums run through the end of the 2030 season.
Regardless of the details of any potential plan, the idea faces incredibly long odds with so little time left in the session. The House and Senate must adjourn for the year at 6 p.m. next Friday.
The tight timeline is especially problematic in the Missouri Senate, where any opposition could turn into a run-out-the-clock filibuster.
State Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, a Kansas City Democrat who co-sponsored the Clay County sports authority bill with Gregory, said she’s not been involved in recent discussions and had doubts there was time to still get something done so late in the session.
Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin, a Shelbina Republican, said there have been ongoing talks all year about the idea of trying to keep the Royals in Missouri. But she has not been directly involved in formal discussions of a new plan this week, she said.
And taking a stadium funding plan from start to finish in less than a week, O’Laughlin said, will be incredibly tough.
“That would be pretty quick,” she said with a laugh.