The Kansas City Royals and Hallmark unveiled a downtown Kansas City stadium plan as part of a $2 billion, 85-acre Crown Center development that also reimagines Hallmark headquarters. The project, framed as the city’s largest private infrastructure effort, blends a new ballpark with mixed-use space to boost walkability, neighborhoods, and regional identity while keeping the team in Missouri. Public funding from Kansas City and Missouri’s Show-Me Sports Investment Act will accompany private investment. The plan marks a shift from earlier sites and aims to anchor a vibrant, lasting legacy for the Royals and Hallmark in central Kansas City.
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The venture combines a new Royals stadium with transformed Crown Center, including a reimagined Hallmark headquarters, within an 85-acre, park-like central square setting.
Total cost is about $2 billion, funded by Royals and private investors plus public support from the City of Kansas City and Missouri’s Show-Me Sports Investment Act.
Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe welcomed the decision, framing it as a statewide commitment to communities and fans beyond Kansas City.
The downtown site enhances existing investments like the Streetcar, improves parking access within a 10-minute walk, and is expected to lift the Royals into the top tier of MLB walkability rankings.
Crown Center’s location is central to Kansas City and represents a departure from earlier stadium searches that included sites in Missouri’s Jackson and Clay Counties and options across the state line in Kansas.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas emphasized the public-private partnership’s role in connecting neighborhoods, keeping downtown vibrant, and preserving big-league baseball for future generations.
Hallmark executives highlighted the return of the Royals’ iconic crown to the neighborhood where it was conceived, tying the project to Kansas City’s creative identity.