Mayor Lucas will vote yes on KC stadiums tax, but he opposes Royals closing Oak Street

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Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas supports a Royals baseball stadium in the East Crossroads neighborhood and will vote yes on Question 1. But he objects to the team’s proposal to block off Oak Street and to redevelop property east of Oak, which would displace a number of small businesses.

“I do not believe that in any way the redevelopment footprint should or needs to extend over Oak Street in Kansas City,” Lucas said on a Facebook Live conversation with constituents on Sunday night. “I don’t think that that needs to be part of this project. And you don’t need those parcels…to actually have a successful baseball stadium.”

Closing Oak could be one of the first potential conflicts to arise, should Jackson County voters make the stadium project possible by repealing the current stadiums sales tax and replacing it with a new 3/8th-cent sales tax that would help pay for a new Royals ballpark and renovations at Arrowhead Stadium.

Assuming the Royals can come up with additional funding it would need from the state, city or another public body for the $1 billion-plus project, the discussion will shift to getting the ballpark built, with or without the additional commercial development the team envisions for the two square blocks east of Oak.

Lucas says the Royals need to scale back the plan so that it would have less impact on existing Crossroads businesses.

In announcing last month the team’s desire to relocate from Kauffman Stadium to the East Crossroads, the Royals said they intended to acquire six city blocks for the ballpark and additional commercial development – from Grand Boulevard to Locust Street, Truman Road to 17th Street.

According to the plans, the ballpark would be built on the four westernmost blocks and a bit more, sprawling onto Oak Street, which would be closed for good at the northern and southern boundaries of the development. The team headquarters would be smack in the middle of what now is the intersection of Oak and eastbound Truman Road.

Plans show that existing buildings on the two square blocks from Oak to Locust and Truman to 17th, would be demolished. In their place, the Royals would like to team with developers to build a hotel, a corporate office building, apartments and an “entertainment venue.”

Lucas says that closing Oak is a non-starter as far as he is concerned. Oak is an important through street, he says, that connects downtown with the Crossroads, Hospital Hill and points further south.

And why build another entertainment district when there are plenty of places to eat and drink already in the Crossroads and across I-670 in Power and Light?

“I don’t know why you need in some ways a new entertainment district or something of that sort on the east side of Oak, when you have an entertainment district, frankly, kind of all around you,” he said. “I think one concern or challenge that I have had throughout this process is that we haven’t actually had that conversation in connection with it enough.”

The Royals declined to comment on Lucas’ position regarding closing Oak Street and redeveloping the property east of there.

His views on the topic and that of his 12 colleagues on the city council will matter, if the project moves forward. Councilman Nathan Willett this week said that while he cannot vote on Question 1 because he does not live in Jackson County, as a member of the council he is opposed to closing Oak Street.

“Oak Street is an important artery of our city and I will work with our neighbors, my colleagues, and local businesses to make sure it stays open. Oak should not be vacated,” he told radio station KCUR.

Hoping out hope

Were Oak to close, the next closest north-south through street east of there linking downtown with Hospital Hill and midtown is Holmes Street, three blocks away.

Lucas announced on Sunday that he would be meeting the next day to discuss all this with a business owner on Oak Street that he didn’t identify.

It was Sarah Hoffmann, as it turns out, who has been concerned for months about what a Royals ballpark would mean for her. Hoffman owns the building at 1601 Oak St., where she plans to soon open a restaurant.

At first she worried about how stadium construction might affect her business. Then she fretted that she might not have a business on Oak at all, if the street closed and then the city or some other governmental entity might force her to sell her property for the Royals project.

She met with Lucas Monday afternoon at the future home of Green Dirt on Oak and told the mayor that she has sunk a lot of money into the venture since announcing 18 months ago that she planned to open a second location of Weston-based Green Dirt Farm in the Crossroads.

The HVAC system alone cost more than she paid for the building, she told two top Royals executives when they paid a visit recently and heard why she isn’t particularly interested in selling.

She said Lucas reiterated what City Manager Brian Platt told her back in February, before the Royals’ choice of a Crossroads location was only a rumor. The city was not about to let the stadium project cross Oak.

“When we met with the mayor yesterday and showed him our building and showed him all of the investment that we’ve made in this building, and in this community, he reiterated that same point, that he was going to do everything in his power to prevent them from closing Oak Street,” she said. “So that gave us some hope.”

Lucas met with the Royals Tuesday. His office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on what they discussed.