Mayor Lucas dreams of playoff baseball in Downtown Kansas City

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Playoff baseball is back in Kansas City, but Mayor Quinton Lucas said its economic impact on the city could be greater if there was a ballpark downtown.

“Imagine if there were 40,000 more people. Imagine the number of places that get filled up, the amount of money that is being spent in the core of our city, the jobs that happen,” said Lucas of what downtown could look like on an MLB playoff game day.

Lucas said local businesses would benefit from the thousands of extra customers a downtown ballpark would provide.

“Frankly, the game didn’t end that late [Wednesday] night. How many people would have wanted to stop by a tavern or a restaurant and grab a bite to eat? That’s the sort of opportunity you get from it long term.”

After Game 3 of the ALDS on Wednesday, some fans took to social media to complain about traffic while entering and exiting Kauffman Stadium. Lucas even shared this post on X:

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“I was one of those people who was in about an hour of traffic getting back home, and I was just going from the Truman Sports Complex to Midtown Kansas City,” Lucas said. “That’s maybe 5-6 miles. I know for many others there is a lot more of a trek.”

Lucas said the city continues to explore what a downtown baseball facility would look like – as well as how the city would optimize things, so Downtown KC with a ballpark could thrive.

“We often do want to think about how can you make it efficient, but importantly, how can you make it for local businesses a place where people want to spend money and get engaged,” said Lucas. “Occasionally, I get asked this question: ‘Is Kansas City a football or baseball town?’ The answer is, ‘Yes.’”

In April, Jackson County overwhelmingly voted down a 40-year extension of the 3/8ths-cent sales tax that would have built a Royals’ stadium downtown. No other serious pushes to build a downtown ballpark have been made since.

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