Kansas City turned down Denver-style urban prosperity
I was a co-developer of the Bravo Hotel at the Kauffman Center that the City Council denied a few years ago. I have since moved away from Kansas City, and I feel I have attained a kind of “free agent” status and hope I can comment credibly on the voters’ recent rejection of the Royals’ move to the downtown area. Also, I lived through a similar experience in Denver in the early 1990s with a very different and very positive outcome, when the Coors Field development inspired a stunning downtown renaissance that has now lasted more than 30 years. At that time, I co-developed an upscale hotel nearby, so I had a firsthand view of the process.
Coors Field was as controversial at the time as the Royals’ attempt has been now. In Denver, however, government and civic groups pulled together and creatively got the deal done. The new ballpark subsequently inspired multiple waves of quality development that made Denver an astonishing economic success story. After the opening, dozens of restaurants, bars and clubs opened to serve crowds before and after the 81 hometown games each year. Then came galleries and cultural sites.
Then hotels, including a Ritz and a Four Seasons. Then condos, apartments, upscale grocery stores and office buildings. Finally, and stunningly, more major venues, such as a new Broncos Stadium, a renovated Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and basketball and hockey stadiums. From a tired, vacant downtown in the late ‘80s, Denver transformed itself into a concentrated, exciting market where folks wanted to visit, live, and work.
The process inspired prosperity — moreover, prosperity for all. I have long admired former Mayor Kay Barnes’ determination to bring that kind of juggernaut to Kansas City in the early 2000s. Her plan was to use the Power & Light District and the Sprint Center as catalysts for Denver-like waves of development. It could have worked, but why has that plan stalled?
Of course, the answer is politics. In Kansas City, there appear only to be warring factions with narrow and short-term interests. No one is willing to compromise and lead the city to higher ground. It’s not just the City Council, but also the downtown development interests, KC Tenants, the Royals ownership group, Visit KC, Crown Center, the Country Club Plaza, the Truman Sports Complex, the Legends Outlets Kansas City and the Kansas-versus-Missouri partisans. They are all spread out and separated, physically and civically. Why can they not team together in a common cause to build a clearly defined, thriving downtown area?
The fault lies with both leaders and voters. We must all accept some responsibility for allowing our beloved hometown to go the way of Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland or St. Louis. Too many strident voices, playing on base emotions and prejudices, have divided us, and we have given them too much power in the process. The result is disunity, chaos and stagnation.
Stop to consider the economics of the proposed stadium. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an average Jackson County resident spends about $15,000 on goods per year subject to sales tax. That means the 3/8-cent stadium tax comes to only $50 per year per person, or about $200 for a family of four. But leaders swayed voters to be outraged on principle over “bad optics.” So, voters unwisely gave up the opportunity to emulate the Denver success story, which would have brought innumerable jobs, new businesses, culture and community high life. What a terribly misguided tradeoff for Kansas City residents. If voters wanted to chasten the Royals’ ownership group for presuming they would get the subsidy, they must think again. The team already has options from other cities — that is, municipalities that actually seek to promote opportunity for their citizens.
Our Bravo Hotel proposal offered a deal with 100-plus well-paying jobs, tens of millions in increased cash flow to the city and the school district, and no up-front city investment. But the project was turned down for (wait for it) “bad optics.” The same excuse was also professed when city leaders turned down an Urban Outfitters fulfillment center that would have brought 2,000 jobs to the 5th Council District, a high unemployment area. One wonders how jobless south side residents feel about this kind of intentional decision-making to hinder economic progress. At the end of the day, what is important is people, not “optics.”
A city with World Series and Super Bowl champions deserves its place in the sun.