Rendering of the KCK stadium proposal. Art//Populous
After planning for nearly two years to have a new soccer stadium built in the old Bannister Mall area in south Kansas City, it now appears the Kansas City Wizards’ new stadium is more likely to be built on the Kansas side of the state line near CommunityAmerica Ballpark, where the team is currently playing its games.
Lane4 Property Group, the property developer working with the Wizards ownership group, OnGoal LLC, has proposed a new stadium plan for an 18,500-seat facility that would be used exclusively for soccer and be located on a site owned by Nebraska Furniture Mart in Wyandotte County near the Kansas Speedway and within the Village West retail area.
While the new stadium is the key attraction, the project proposal for the Wyandotte County site also includes a 600,000-square-foot office building that would house approximately 4,000 new jobs to be created by Cerner Corp, one of Kansas City’s leading employers and a top national supplier of healthcare information technology solutions, as well as an amateur sports complex containing 12 soccer fields. In addition to the 4,000 news jobs that Cerner would be creating, the developer is forecasting that nearly 2,000 more jobs would be created from spin-off opportunities generated by the new office complex and another 2,400 jobs from the operation of the stadium and the sports complex. This would mean more than 8,000 new jobs and a projected economic benefit of $500 million, according to officials at Lane4.
Wizards hope to be in new soccer home by 2011.
The developer is seeking approval from Wyandotte County and Kansas state officials to use revenues generated from existing sales tax revenue bonds, called STAR bonds, previously issued to help finance the Village West retail district, to help pay for the new stadium project. The STAR bond program works by diverting 100 percent of the new state and local sales taxes generated by a development project to offset certain project costs.
The STAR bond financing is scheduled to run through 2020. The developer believes that the new stadium project proposed at Village West can be completed with that same revenue stream without having to extend the bond maturity date.
But what happens to the original site for the new Wizards soccer stadium, which was part of a $1 billion redevelopment plan approved two years ago by the Kansas City, Mo., Council for the Bannister Mall property? A few months after the city approved the development plan, the financial markets took a drastic turn, prompting the developer to seek additional financial assurances. The K.C., Mo., project has lain virtually dormant ever since.
Although Kansas officials have not yet approved the new stadium proposal, the development team, including the Wizards’ ownership, is excited about the opportunity and acknowledged that it is pretty far down the road in exploring the Kansas alternative plan. The nationally recognized and locally-based sports architecture firm Populous, formerly known as HOK Sport Venue, has done artist renderings of the new Wyandotte County stadium site.
Another driving reason why the Wizards are so excited about the new stadium proposal in Kansas: It’s the only option they have if they still want to get their own new stadium in time for the 2011 season.
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