If you guessed "Eagerly watching election results from a county in Missouri" as how I'd spend my night tonight, congratulations, you are right!
The Jackson County election could determine whether (or where) the NFL Chiefs and MLB Royals stay in Kansas City beyond their leases' end date of 2031.
In the end, voters rejected plans to extend a 3/8% tax (for the next 40 years) that would have raised $1.7 billion to subsidize the building of a new home for the Royals in a new development and massive stadium improvements for the Super Bowl Champion Chiefs.
Like all such plans, it's far more complicated than that.
I'm not here to argue, nor defend, the principle of public money subsidizing private sports organizations.
What I believe is that sports is a massive catalyst for urban development and that's what this vote could have led to.
With the help of innovative architecture, design, engineering and construction firms, along with diverse community stakeholders, effective sport-led public-private partnerships have brought together cities and unlocked the keys to fantastic mixed-use developments.
These community hubs help deliver jobs, housing, inclusive neighborhoods, tourism, pride-in-place, and much more. They create the magnetic infrastructure that help attract people and funding to cities, and can bring people together.
I'm disappointed that (at least for now) people voted against the current plans in this pitch.
In the coming days we'll learn more about how this wide 58%-to-42% margin came to be, and what comes next.
Still, with dozens of cities hoping to anchor mixed use developments around sports infrastructure, this story is far from over. Looks like I'll be tracking more elections in the future.
#citybuilding
#sportbusiness
#urbanism
#urbandevelopment
Kansas City Chiefs
Kansas City Royals
Quinton Lucas
Sylvester "Sly" James, Jr.
Colleen Cassidy, AIA, NCARB
Populous
HOK
AECOM
Jacobs
Alyson Walker
Jed Schneiderman
John Stackhouse
Paul Beirne
Richard Peddie
Glen Grunwald
Aileen McManamon
Ross van Dongen
Lisa Chamberlain
David Gilford