New Kansas City Royals Stadium

In 2019, a new ownership group led by John Sherman purchased the Kansas City Royals from David Glass. The ownership group also consisted of construction company JE Dunn and private equity firms such as VantEdge Partners.

In 2021, Sherman, the team's majority owner, began speaking openly about his desire for the Royals to play in a stadium in downtown Kansas City.^[2] In November 2022, Sherman announced that the team would leave Kauffman Stadium prior to the end of their current lease, scheduled to expire at the end of the 2030 MLB season.^[3] The team announced in June 2023 that the two final sites under consideration for the stadium district were the East Village neighborhood and North Kansas City.^[4][5] However, a third site in the Crossroads district emerged as the final site chosen by the team in February 2024.^[6]

While the Royals ownership group committed $1 billion towards a stadium and ballpark district, a larger portion of the funding would have come from the passing of an election referendum for a 40-year, 3/8th-cent sales tax to help finance the new Royals ballpark and renovate Arrowhead Stadium for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL).^{[7][8][9][10]} This referendum was rejected by Jackson County voters on April 2, 2024.^[11] Even after the failed ballot initiative, the team still planned to open a new stadium by the start of the 2027 or 2028 MLB season,^[12] with a seating capacity of about 34,000.^[13]

The plan was controversial, considering the proposed stadium location would have required over a dozen small businesses to close or relocate, the limited amount of parking downtown, and claims that Kauffman Stadium got a "bad batch of concrete" when built.^[6] The Royals also had pledged to invest at least $1 billion towards purchasing and developing real estate around the stadium, but was only willing to pay $300 million towards a new ballpark.^[14]

Alongside the stadium plan, the 3/8th-cent sales tax also received significant public pushback due to the Royals and Chiefs struggling to present their finalized stadium plans to voters, bringing about several accusations of a lack of transparency throughout the process.^[15]

On April 22, 2026, the Royals and Hallmark Cards announced a partnership to build a new ballpark in Crown Center, at the current location of Hallmark's corporate headquarters, instead of the Crossroads site. Groundbreaking is scheduled to take place in 2027.^[16][17][1]

The Royals also had considered relocating across the state border to Kansas City, Kansas,^[18] as well as building a downtown ballpark in Washington Square Park, an area located between Union Station and Crown Center on the Missouri side.^[19] In November 2024, it was reported that the Royals were also examining "two or three" potential stadium sites in Johnson County, Kansas.^[20]

In May 2025, an affiliate of the Royals purchased the mortgage on the Aspiria campus in Overland Park, Kansas.^[21] However, team officials denied that the campus was under consideration as a site for the development of a stadium.^[22] In January 2026, the Royals confirmed that the team was no longer considering the Aspiria Campus as an option.^[23]

On January 1, 2026, Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins advised that the state of Kansas said the door was essentially closed in creating a STAR Bonds deal to build the Royals a stadium in Kansas. "The Royals and the Chiefs both had plenty of time," Hawkins said. "They had 18 months to come up with a good plan. The Chiefs did that. The Royals did not."^[24]

On January 7, 2026, Clay County, Missouri Commissioner Jason Withington said that he had ended negotiations with the team, referring to it as "a closed chapter." Withington cited a number of reasons, including missed deadlines by the Royals and the business side of baseball.^[25]

• New Chiefs Stadium – A planned domed stadium for the Kansas City Chiefs (NFL) to be constructed in Kansas City, Kansas.