Long discussed as a fun “what if” scenario in bars and around water coolers throughout the Kansas City metro area, the idea of a Kansas City Royals downtown stadium is slowly becoming a reality. Over the last
few years, there’s been so much information doled out piecemeal as an immense amount of work gets done behind the scenes.
To help clarify what has been a confusing and drawn-out process, we’ve put together this timeline of what has happened so far in the Royals’ push for a new stadium. Originally posted in January 2024, we have updated this in October 2025 with the major happenings over the last nearly two years and will continue to update it moving forward.
Royals ballpark overview
With their lease at Kauffman Stadium ending after the 2030 season, the Kansas City Royals first gestured towards constructing a new downtown stadium in September 2021 and officially announced their intentions in November 2022.
In April 2024, Jackson County voters rejected a ballot measure that would have provided funds for a new stadium by the T-Mobile Center in the Crossroads Arts District, sending the Royals back to the drawing board.
By July 2025, both Kansas and Missouri had assembled state funding, which would cover 70% or 50%, respectively, of the cost of a new stadium.
As of October 2025, the Royals have not yet announced a location. They are known to be connected to three sites: North Kansas City, Washington Square Park in downtown Kansas City, and the Aspiria (formerly Sprint) campus in Johnson County, Kansas.
Timeline
September 2021: Owner John Sherman first floats the idea of a downtown stadium
In the same press conference in which Royals majority owner John Sherman introduced the promotions of Dayton Moore and J.J. Picollo, Sherman discussed that the Royals would be considering a downtown stadium as they look to the future:
“We’re in a good spot here at Truman Sports Complex, but we need to start thinking about our plans for our stadium over the next five to 10 years…We’re a little beyond just listening to others’ ideas. We are conducting an internal process to help us evaluate our options for where we play, and one of those options is to play downtown baseball.”
This was the first time that Sherman, whose ownership group took over from David Glass in August of 2019, specifically stated that the Royals could be pursuing a downtown stadium—though plenty had speculated such a move was on its way as the Kauffman Stadium lease entered its final decade.
May 2022: East Village and 18th & Vine site become early favorites
While potential sites for a hypothetical downtown stadium had been discussed off and on over the years, Sherman’s announcement corresponded with renewed interest in where Kauffman Stadium’s replacement might end up. Two sites quickly emerged: the East Village site, located between 8th Street and 12th Street, just a few blocks from City Hall, and a Jazz District site, located near the MLB Urban Youth Academy around 18th and Vine Streets.
Both sites have pluses and minuses, but both sites did offer plenty of size and space.
November 2022: Sherman reveals $2 billion price tag of stadium and ballpark village
In an open letter to Royals fans everywhere, Sherman and the Royals revealed many key details about the project. The Royals envisioned a “mixture of public and private investment” that would result in a ballpark and a new, shiny ballpark village, similar to The Battery in Atlanta.
December 2022: Royals reveal additional details, launch website, and start listening tour
Less than a month after Sherman’s first open letter, the Royals embarked on a listening tour at various community locales with members of the Royals organization on hand. Sherman promised that the team would remain in the Kansas City area, revealed that they had considered 14 sites for the new stadium, and outlined a 50/50 split for the $2 billion price tag—$1 billion for the stadium, $1 billion for the surrounding development.
The Royals also launched a website with additional details about the project.
March 2023: Kansas City Star site and Clay County site emerge as possibilities
With the East Village site still reportedly leading as the team’s favorite, proponents of two additional prominent sites argued for theirs as the best location as home of the Royals.
The owners of the former Kansas City Star printing building at 16th and McGee argued for their Crossroads site as a central location for the next Royals stadium. It arguably owned the best location of the three, being just a few blocks away from the Power & Light District and many area bars and restaurants.
The other site that emerged was in Clay County, north of the river in North Kansas City. Such a site would involve an entirely different financing setup than the potential extension of the 3/8 cents sales tax extension that seemed likely for a Jackson County site.
May 2023: Clay County officials pen letter arguing for the Northland site
Clay County continued to make its stadium push. In May, three major Clay County officials penned an open letter of their own in an argument for their vision. Their aim: Kansas City’s own “Wrigleyville” styled area.
June 2023: Frustrations bubble as the process encounters gridlock
In a fascinating piece from the Kansas City Star, writers Sam McDowell and Kevin Hardy combined to write a piece about the “faltering push for a downtown stadium.” By this point, half a year had passed since Sherman’s open letter that revealed the first true details about the project. But no site had been landed on, and officials with Jackson County and the Royals were pointing fingers at each other.
Privately, people inside those meetings expressed exasperation that while the Royals publicly portray progress on the stadium effort, there’s actually little momentum behind the scenes. Despite months of meetings, public officials still have no sharper picture of what the team wants. They wonder: After all this time, do the Royals even know?
“Get us out of purgatory,” said one city official who has been in meetings with the Royals. “We’re all exhausted by this conversation.”
The Royals insist they are not hiding specific details, but rather have not settled on them. In an interview with The Star on Tuesday, team president of business operations Brooks Sherman said the team has narrowed to two possible sites and is on course to announce its choice by the end of the summer. “We want to get it right,” he said, “so we don’t think it’s right that we should rush into anything.”
July 2023: Royals narrow down locations and pledge to reveal more details soon
Perhaps in response to growing frustrations that continued to bubble up in the media, Sherman released his second open letter. In this statement, the Royals promised to reveal more information within 30 days about two sites: one in Jackson County and one in Clay County.
Additionally, the Royals also set a date by which the team would have a finalized site: “late September.” The Royals would miss this self-imposed deadline.
July 2023: Chiefs state preference to remain at Arrowhead
As with Kauffman Stadium, Arrowhead Stadium’s lease will end at the same time: 2031. Whether the Kansas City Chiefs were planning on staying or looking to open a new home elsewhere was always going to be a big deal. In July, the Chiefs stated their preference to remain at and update Arrowhead. Clark Hunt called it “our number one priority” to do so, although he hedged a bit to crack open the future door:
Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt says the team has not yet completed its study examining the best options for a home base when the Arrowhead Stadium lease expires in January 2031. But he has a personal preference: to renovate Arrowhead Stadium in its current location.
“That would be our No. 1 priority,” Hunt said Friday. “We’re going to evaluate all our options, obviously. We’ve got to figure out what’s best for the franchise, what’s best for the fan base.”
President Mark Donovan was even more straightforward, but also pointed out that the team expected to spend some cash to maintain it further into this century:
“If everything plays out the way we think it’s going to play out, our preference is to upgrade and renovate GEHA Field at Arrowhead,” Donovan said.
“…The good news is we think the building itself is actually structurally pretty sound. Having said that, it’s going to take a significant annual investment to keep that building structurally sound.”
August 2023: Sherman discusses details at length with The Kansas City Star
In an interview with Sam McDowell and Vahe Gregorian, Sherman directly answered questions posed to him by the two Star journalists. Sherman discusses nitty-gritty details and touches on community benefits, lease agreements, how the stadium and the ballpark village play into baseball’s economic landscape, and more.
Sherman: I would just say that this really is bigger than baseball. It’s about the community. We’d love to have all of them come out to a game. I think if we get them out to a game, they might like it a little bit more. But this is about doing something special for a community, creating that vibrancy. You know it’s not just 81 nights a year. … We want 365 days a year of activation and both the community benefits and the economic activity that I think helps all of us long term….
I understand that. And it’s not just non-baseball fans. I think you have baseball fans that look at projects like this and they feel like they don’t have access, or they get left behind. So I hope that we can do things to create more opportunities for more people for access and other things. But I also hope that people take pride in their region. … I think we have great momentum and, again, all of those things: the World Cup and the NFL Draft, the Chiefs and the Royals. I hope that we can all be proud of that and that makes us feel better as a community in that there’s something in it for everybody. It’s hard to get specific about that.
August 2023: Royals release renderings of East Village and Northland sites
And now there were two: in late August, the Royals held a press conference to release renderings and further discuss the seemingly two final sites, one in the East Village and one in North Kansas City. The Royals publicly stated that the team would be looking to move into a shiny new home by Opening Day 2028.
October 2023: Frank White and the Royals have a tiff about the true cost of the stadium
Frank White played 18 seasons with the Royals from 1973 through 1990 and later became a color commentator alongside Ryan Lefebvre for four seasons from 2008 through 2011. White did not leave on his own accord, and it seems that the Royals fired him for being critical of the team.
This context is important because White is the Jackson County Executive, a role he has kept since 2016. White’s position gives him a huge amount of power in the stadium situation, and whatever hostility there still exists between White and the Royals organization has outsized consequences.
In October, news broke from White’s camp that they were calculating the true cost of a new stadium build to be double or triple the amount claimed by the Royals. The Royals responded in kind by saying, essentially, “Frank White doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
November 2023: Previously dead KC Star building site back on the table
One year after Sherman penned his first open letter, three months after releasing renderings of the seeming final two potential sites, two months after the Royals missed their self-imposed deadline to announce their site, news broke that the Royals were now seriously considering the KC Star building site:
The Royals have spent recent weeks quietly analyzing the possibility of a ballpark location along downtown Kansas City’s south loop after they were approached once more about the concept, sources told The Star. The area, which currently includes the former KC Star printing press pavilion at 1601 McGee Street, is a site that was originally pitched to the team at least eight months ago. And rejected. Initially. But evidently not permanently.
The site would lessen the need for a ballpark village with the Power and Light District nearby, but questions remain about land assemblage.
January 2024: Jackson County Legislature approves ballot measure
In the fourth year of new stadium discussions, the Royals and the Chiefs jointly announced the most concrete information. In—you guessed it, an open letter—the Royals and Chiefs stated a ballot measure approving a 40-year extension of the 3/8 cent sales tax would be up for a vote in April. Additionally, the teams announced $200 million in concessions to the county and promised that, should the ballot measure pass, both teams would remain in Jackson County.
The Jackson County Legislature approved putting the measure before voters in an 8-1 vote on Monday, but Frank White vetoed the measure, requiring the Legislature to override his veto just ahead of a January 23 deadline to get a measure before voters in April.
Approval would officially rule out the Clay County site, the Royals have yet to announce which Jackson County site would be the new home of the stadium. Clay County Commissioner Jason Withington says the Royals told him they are putting “all their chips” in on the printing press site.
February 2024: Royals unveil downtown ballpark proposal in the Crossroads
With less than two months before election day, the Royals finally revealed what, exactly, Jackson County voters would be voting on. The short version: the Royals proposed building a new stadium south of the T-Mobile Center in the Crossroads Art District, bordered by Truman Road, Grand Avenue, 17th Street, and Locust Street.
The site was a surprise, as it had been eliminated from contention months earlier when the team narrowed the choices to the East Village or North Kansas City. But it was, all of a sudden, back on the table. Renderings included improvements to Grand, a greenway down 18th Street, and a walkway to the T-Mobile center.
April 2024: Jackson County soundly rejects downtown ballpark at the ballot
In a decisive 58-42 vote, Jackson County constituents rejected the stadium funding ballot measure on April 1. The weeks leading up to the vote saw some serious campaigning on both sides, with Sherman and the Royals taking an aggressive stance and vaguely threatening to leave town if the vote didn’t go their way. “There’s lots of cities that would love to have these franchises,” Sherman told listeners on 610 Sports.
Officially, the Royals took the vote in stride and went quietly back to the drawing board. Unofficially, it seemed frustration with Jackson County continued, as indicated by the social media posts of John Sherman’s wife.
June 2024: Kansas passes STAR bonds to fund up to 70% of new stadium costs
With the downtown stadium vote failure, the state of Kansas passed an incentive bill to attempt to lure the Royals (and even the Chiefs) to Kansas. The Royals said that “Kansas provides us a path to explore.”
The bill expanded the STAR Bond program, which was designed to help fund tourism, infrastructure, and entertainment projects, a program that was central to the development of the Legends area. The new bill would cover up to 70% of sports stadium project costs, up to $1 billion, and was set to expire in July 2025.
August 2024: Washington Square Park emerges as a favored downtown site
Despite Mrs. Sherman’s insistence that the team was done with Jackson County, a new downtown site emerged as a potential location for a stadium: Washington Square Park. The Washington Square Park site is located immediately east of Union Station and at the time, had only three property owners, making it much easier to assemble ownership than for the Crossroads site.
Additionally, after the public vote, Mayor Lucas suggested in an interview with KCMO Talk Radio that a public vote for a site in the city may not be necessary. But while talks moved forward in the background, no state or county funding had materialized yet.
November 2024: Aspiria campus emerges as alternative stadium site
In an article for the Kansas City Star, columnist Sam McDowell reported that the Royals were exploring additional stadium locations. The most prominent location was the former Sprint campus, now the Aspiria campus, at 119th and Nall Avenue as a potential Johnson County site.
While the Royals had been exploring Kansas locations, this was one of the first pieces of evidence that the Royals were considering a specific site in Kansas.
Also, the Kansas City Star printing press that had been rejected as a site for the ballpark was sold to software and data hosting company Patmos to become a data center.
February 2025: John Sherman predicts stadium location would be in place by mid-2025
At Royals Rally, Sherman was made available to the media, who naturally asked questions about the stadium talks. Sherman stated that he and the team wanted to have an announcement about the stadium ready by the middle of 2025.
It’s our objective, by mid-year, to be prepared to talk about it…We’re having serious discussions here. This is big economic-development work, and discretion and confidentiality are paramount to those discussions. Certainly, (we’re) hopeful that before too long, we’ll be able to tell you a lot more — but not a lot to say right now.
May 2025: Royals business affiliate buys Aspiria campus mortgage
In perhaps one of the more interesting developments of this whole deal, news emerged in May 2025 that business associates affiliated with the Royals ownership group had purchased the Aspiria campus mortgage.
No, not the campus itself: the mortgage for the campus. The Royals did not deny this, announcing:
As part of our ongoing efforts, we have negotiated with or made investments in multiple potential sites – both in Missouri and in Kansas. One of these investments was the acquisition (by an affiliate of the Royals) of the mortgage on the Aspiria campus through an arms-length sale process.
This development comes one month after tech company Fiserv announced they would be moving to the Aspiria campus and opening a regional tech hub.
June 2025: Missouri legislature passes stadium funding plan
With the STAR bond deadline in Kansas set to expire and the Royals poised to make a decision, Missouri did not want to be left out. Governor Mike Kehoe proposed a funding plan for keeping the Royals and Chiefs, but the Missouri legislature adjourned the regular session without passing the plan. Kehoe called back the legislature in a special session, and the bill was eventually signed and approved.
The state bill sets aside money generated from tax revenue for the next 30 years and will pay for up to 50% of the costs for either or both projects. However, the bill does include a clause that requires “units of local government to support infrastructure,” so if Jackson County or Clay County, or Kansas City didn’t at least pony up some money, the deal would be off.
July 2025: Kansas extends STAR bond deadline
One year after approving the STAR bonds with a deadline of July 2025, the state of Kansas did not seem fazed that the Royals had yet to make a decision. After Independence Day came and went, the Legislative Coordinating Council agreed to an extension for the STAR bonds. The deadline to hear the stadium plans for one or both teams was extended to December 31, 2025.
September 2025: Frank White ousted in recall vote
On September 30, 85 percent of Jackson County voters approved recalling County Executive Frank White. For years, White had played hardball with the Royals and the Chiefs, pushing for details and resisting promises of funding for a stadium (or stadiums). With White no longer leading negotiations, the picture becomes even more murkier.
October 2025: Phil LeVota named Jackson County executive
The nine-member county legislature appointed attorney Phil LeVota to serve out the rest of White’s term which lasts until January 2027. LeVota supports the Washington Square Park site, but insists on a community benefits agreement and input from voters.
“I think the people that need to make those decisions already know me and are ready to talk,” LeVota said. “I want them to stay and I will do everything I can. But they also have to stay for a good reason. It has to be a community benefit. We’re not just going to write a blank check to the Royals and Chiefs. And I’m confident that they understand that too.”
