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2300 Main Street,Home Run Gold · Video
Crown Center to 18th & Vine
Messenger Ink · An Economic Development Blueprint
The stadium is the investment.
The corridor is the return.
The Gap · A mile and a half, end to end
A major-league ballpark, a restored train station and the founding address of the Negro Leagues inside a mile and a half, across Troost.
Stylized schematic, not a survey · Messenger Ink
The Gap · The same scale, both ends
The public share of one ballpark is about 2.75 times every dollar committed to 18th & Vine's fifteen projects, public and private combined.
Sources in presentation: Funding Agreement via KSHB 41 · Revive the Vine · KCTV5 · Messenger Ink tally
The Gap · The commitment, measured
The $5M to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is the largest line in the $24M paid up front. It is a negotiated commitment, and it should be credited.
Fourteen corridor projects are fully funded. The Negro Leagues campus remains $30 million short.
The Flow · Tools that already exist
The district isn't delineated yet. Its eastern boundary is a live decision.
The city's cut of net profits from every non-baseball event.
$14M is committed. Commission part of it at the east end.
The team is receiving $50M in state finance board credits.
Fund east-end rooms and the corridor keeps the lodging tax.
The arithmetic is below.
The Flow · The arithmetic on one dollar
34,000 seats across 81 home dates, at 70%, is roughly 1.9 million admissions a year.
One dollar across the 30-year lease is about $57M, more than the entire $55M community benefit package.
The Economics · Where the visitors already are
Each dot is roughly 293,000 visitors.
Kansas City hosts about 29.3 million visitors a year. Roughly 300,000 reach the Museums at 18th & Vine.
Sources in presentation: Visit KC, 2025 figures · Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
The Economics · Now run it both ways
155,000 crossings a year. At $25 a visitor, about $3.9 million in incremental corridor spending.
Stop asking how to send people east. Build one visitor economy.
Scenario model, not a forecast · Messenger Ink
The Economics · Putting a number on connectivity
The mid case, across the 30-year lease.
| Scenario | Capture rate | Crossings | At $10 | At $25 | At $40 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low | 3% / 10% | 87,000 | $0.9M | $2.2M | $3.5M |
| Mid | 5% / 20% | 155,000 | $1.6M | $3.9M | $6.2M |
| High | 10% / 30% | 280,000 | $2.8M | $7.0M | $11.2M |
Read this honestly: a scenario model, not a forecast. No ridership or capture study has been published for this corridor, which is exactly what should change.
The Economics · Kansas City has done this before
Monarchs players finished at Municipal Stadium and walked a few blocks to 18th & Vine, a district where, as the museum's president tells it, every musician wanted to be a ballplayer and every ballplayer wanted to be a musician.
The Ask
A ballgame is three hours. A ballgame plus a museum plus a jazz club is a weekend, and a hotel night is the highest-value visitor there is.
The east end already programs year-round. That is 284 days the west end does not have to fill alone.
Every new ballpark district is selling the same restaurants. Only this one can sell the founding of the Negro Leagues.
A district with two ends outperforms a district with a perimeter.
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HOME RUN GOLD · THE ROYALS BALLPARK SET · All figures sourced on the presentation slide where they appear.
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