Businesses in Crossroads argue new Royals stadium would ‘destroy neighborhood’

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Businesses in the Crossroads neighborhood want the Royals to play ball in the East Village. Since the team committed to putting a ballpark downtown, there have been talks it could go up in the Crossroads where the old Kansas City Star printing press building sits. But many are worried that the plan won’t work.

When you look at the area off Oak Street and the nearby space, an MLB Stadium would not fit here unless alterations were made to a few blocks in each direction. That’s because the Kansas City Star building alone is only one block wide and two blocks long. Making those changes would mean displacing multiple local businesses that make the crossroads special to Kansas Citians.

Across the street from the old KC Star printing press building, Matt Adkins has spent four years building up his liquor store the Pairing Wine and Grocer, which also offers a bar. 

“It still doesn’t seem real sometimes to get to do what I do for a living,” Adkins said. “Especially in this neighborhood where I’ve been a regular and huge fan.”

After hearing the owners of the old KC Star building might offer their space to the Royals, Adkins worries they’ll only have room if they demolish neighboring blocks where his business sits now.

“To put a stadium in this neighborhood would destroy this neighborhood as far as the culture built down here for the last 25 years,” Adkins said. “It’s going to displace so many businesses and neighbors.”

The Royals project the new stadium to seat up to 35,000 fans, plus have a baseball park district surrounding it. Charlie Coburn argues that removing current storefronts would hurt other businesses with clients in the Crossroads. 

“I sell alcohol to a lot of places over here and if the stadium came in they would have to demolish a lot of this area,” Coburn feared. “And the traffic would be slowed down. It would just be bad for everything around here.”

Other business owners KCTV spoke to at risk of being displaced, like Shannon Moore, who owns KC Kush, said relocating would not be easy. 

“I love this spot, I don’t think there’s any place close so I would have to go further and that’d not be good,” Moore said.

We reached out to the Royals and owners of the old KC Star Building for comment on what the potential is for building a new stadium in the Crossroads area.

The Royals had no comment on what their next steps are. That lack of transparency led local businesses we spoke to toward frustration.

The owners of the old KC Star building did not respond to KCTV5 for comment.

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