The present stadium is suffering from cancer.
Major League Baseball’s spring training season has started and while baseball consumers and fans are dreaming of their team making it to the Fall Classic, MLB owners in Kansas City, Anaheim, Oakland, St. Petersburg, maybe Phoenix, Cleveland and Toronto are dreaming of eventually getting a shiny new stadium in very near future or by 2035 or 2040. In Kansas City, Royals owner John Sherman wants a new stadium in the downtown area. The renovated Kauffman Stadium just doesn’t cut it anymore. The stadium opened on April 10th, 1973, and underwent extensive renovations between 2007 and 2009.
“It’s becoming challenging to maintain the K,” Sherman explained in a letter last fall to Royals’ customers as to why he would like his Royals to play games at a new downtown facility .“A new home would be a far better investment, both for the local taxpayer dollars already supporting our facility and the Kansas City community.” According to Sherman’s architecture partner, the Kansas City-based Populous, the Royals stadium is suffering from ASR or cancer of the concrete. The stadium has thirty years to live if it doesn’t get treated. The Jackson County Sports Complex Authority said the stadium is healthy. Since Sherman purchased the Royals baseball team in November, 2019, he has been pushing for a new stadium. Sherman said that he wants to move his business into a downtown Kansas City location by 2032. Sherman has it all figured out, sort of. The team will have a stadium somewhere but just where is not known yet. It is supposed to cost $2 billion to build a downtown Kansas City stadium-village but who is paying the bill is not known. But Sherman is like a lot of other owners. He just wants a pretty and new stadium with plenty of revenue generating gadgets sooner than later.
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