{"id":672796,"date":"2026-04-10T23:00:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/672796\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T23:00:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:00:36","slug":"mayor-lucas-outlines-vision-for-baseball-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/672796\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Lucas outlines vision for baseball district"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) &#8211; The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/royals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/royals\">Kansas City Royals<\/a> could call downtown Kansas City home in a few years, but several pieces of the city\u2019s plan still need to fall into place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcmo.gov\/city-hall\/city-officials\/mayor-quinton-lucas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kcmo.gov\/city-hall\/city-officials\/mayor-quinton-lucas\">Mayor Quinton Lucas<\/a> highlighted his proposal Friday at the Downtown Council luncheon, a day after presenting it to the city council. The $1.9 billion investment includes building a new stadium and baseball district in the Washington Square Park area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The city would commit up to $600 million through bonds. The state is also expected to contribute funding.<\/p>\n<p>Vision draws from multiple cities<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Royals owner John Sherman told KCTV5 about a week ago that he envisions a development similar to Atlanta\u2019s Battery, a mixed-use district with restaurants, shops, nightlife and entertainment venues adjacent to Truist Park, home of the Braves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI\u2019d like to locate our next generational home in a place where we can build energy and vibrancy around it in a higher density area,\u201d Sherman said. \u201cJust coming from Atlanta, you know, opening day was like, it was like college football game day before the game. I mean, it was really almost like a college football atmosphere and the stadium\u2019s great. And so I really want to generate that type of excitement. The objective that we have is to find that next generational home that will make sure the Royals and Major League Baseball are here for the next 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Lucas said his inspiration comes from Baltimore and other comparable cities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIt is walkable and it\u2019s kept the city that doesn\u2019t always have people talking about it in a positive sense, pretty active and alive in its downtown corridor,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cSo you can frankly go to almost any comparable city Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, others. Baltimore. Right. And see kind of what this model is. That\u2019s why, you know, this isn\u2019t something that\u2019s just pie in the sky. It\u2019s something that I think Kansas City will take to very well long term.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Lucas said mayors from those cities have reached out, asking if Kansas City is finally getting on board with the model.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Cross Blue Shield building demolition planned<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To make room for the development, Lucas said the Blue Cross Blue Shield building would have to come down.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"The Kansas City Royals could call downtown Kansas City home in a few years, but several pieces...\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Y5AU4HTO3VAMJF56P5UI747B3A.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"735\" \/>The Kansas City Royals could call downtown Kansas City home in a few years, but several pieces of the city\u2019s plan still need to fall into place.(KCTV5\/Zach Fisher)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThe office tower right now is anticipated to be on the site itself,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cNow, I think the way that the site lays out is that you do look at a demolition of the current Blue Cross Blue Shield building, most other activity being towards the outfield or towards ground the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The building sits behind where the outfield wall would be. An office tower would also go up as part of the development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The idea is to bring year-round traffic to the area. Kathy Nelson with Visit KC said the prospect is exciting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIt feels real. It feels the right thing to do at the right time,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cAnd you know, again, it\u2019s at stake in the ground that when we have whether you\u2019re a resident or a visitor to our city, and there\u2019s this much more to do now and it\u2019s walkable, you can stay down here if you\u2019re at work, you can catch a 1:00 ballgame or a 7:00 ballgame. I mean, it\u2019s just so the excitement is so much more palatable now when you think about this is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Leaders will need to show a clearer site plan and how they will pay for the pieces around the park.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) &#8211; The Kansas City Royals could call downtown Kansas City home in a few&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[85415,686,963,422,4013,143,5,14562,16019,85417,9300,9767,250,936,2123,55,2596,2595,1667,16302,4,85418,5103,85416,3207,11061,9762,252,37732,6517,1428,5732,31444,414,1984],"class_list":{"0":"post-672796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-1-9","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-as","11":"tag-at","12":"tag-b","13":"tag-baltimore","14":"tag-baseball","15":"tag-billion","16":"tag-cities","17":"tag-citing","18":"tag-district","19":"tag-downtown","20":"tag-for","21":"tag-kansas","22":"tag-kansas-city","23":"tag-kansas-city-royals","24":"tag-kansascity","25":"tag-kansascityroyals","26":"tag-lucas","27":"tag-mayor","28":"tag-mlb","29":"tag-models","30":"tag-other","31":"tag-outlines","32":"tag-park","33":"tag-plan","34":"tag-proposal","35":"tag-royals","36":"tag-shape","37":"tag-square","38":"tag-stadium","39":"tag-takes","40":"tag-vision","41":"tag-washington","42":"tag-with"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116382903069668341","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}