It was a hat trick for the Kansas City Wizards and OnGoal, LLC on Thursday, as the club and their ownership group added a soccer-specific stadium to their list of successes in 2007. The long sought dream took a giant leap forward when the Kansas City, Mo. city council voted unanimously to approve the Three Trails development project formed by Lane4 Property Group.
Though not fully out of the woods, the announcement was a massive victory that paves the way for the 18,500-seat stadium that will be part of new destination point in south Kansas City. The last obstacle is a piece of the financing plan for Three Trails, which will be reviewed by the state in the near future. It includes about $30.8 million in state tax increment financing and tax credits. Government officials in attendance vowed their support to help get the state funding approved before Jan. 31, 2008.
The city council's approval came one day after Mayor Mark Funkhouser's initial trepidations about the "Super TIF" part of the deal were smoothed over and the Kansas City Finance and Audit Committee unanimously recommended approval to the full city council.
The $949 million project calls for the closed Bannister Mall and the surrounding Benjamin Plaza shopping center to be replaced by the stadium, a 12-field tournament-style soccer complex, a 250-room hotel, up to 1.1 million square feet of retail space and up to 1.7 million square feet of office space in the 467-acre area. The plan also calls for creating a $10 million neighborhood benefit district, with $2 million advanced up front by the developer, which would provide grants, loans and other assistance for commercial and residential property owners near the development site.
"We're going to approve the super TIF because we need state participation in this," Funkhouser said Wednesday to The Kansas City Star, acknowledging that the state of Missouri would not supply financial aid without the super TIF. "I support this. It's an enormously beneficial project."
For OnGoal and the Wizards, Thursday's subsequent approval victory caps off a year that saw the opening of the Wizards multi-million dollar training facility in nearby Swope Park and a return to the MLS Cup Playoffs after a two-year absence. Achieving the goal is especially rewarding since the purchase of the club from Hunt Sports Group was contingent on the new owners having a doable stadium plan in place. Despite a failing a year ago to gain voter approval in the first step to building in Overland Park, Kansas, OnGoal persisted.
"It's an incredibly exciting day. This is the culmination, for some of us, of a four-year ordeal. From the time Lamar Hunt put the team up for sale until just 15 minutes ago, the future of the team was in Kansas City was in doubt." said Wizards executive vice president Greg Cotton. "This is a huge step for not only Kansas City and the fans of the Wizards, but the fans of Major League Soccer who didn't want to see a great soccer city like Kansas City lose its team."
"What Lamar taught us is that you need to have soccer specific aspects to have your franchise healthy, and we have a plan in place to make that happen. We're thrilled. I hope Lamar is up there smiling today," said Wizards president Robb Heineman.
The Bannister location is a prime spot for the Wizards in visibility and viability. Three major highways intersect nearby and 1.1 million people live within a 20-minute drive, and the many people in support of the project amidst the overflow crowd confirmed their interest.
The state hurdle remains, but Heineman was optimistic.
"We have to get through the state process, and based on the response we got from the reps, we think everything is going to go well," he said. "We need to move forward. We need to get into the stadium in the spring of 2010, so we need to start as soon as possible."
Groundbreaking for the stadium is still a ways off, but it's tantalizingly close, closer than ever.
"We can't physically get everything going until probably by [Jan. 31]. We still have to do a pretty large demolition project before we can start digging," said Heineman. "But our intent would be to start digging the stadium sometime in the September time frame."
Bob Rusert is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
