First off, it you are doing business and are not a member of the Platte County Economic Development Council, you need to be. Follow this link here and see how they can help you. They also have some free data and reports you can peruse this weekend while sitting a swim meet or just hanging out at the pool.
Today the KCMO City Council approved an ordinance which would move the proposed Northland Sports Complex into the next phase. The ordinance states:
Directing the City Manager to issue a Request for Information and a Request for Proposals/Qualifications for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of a new 12-field soccer complex in the City’s Northland; authorizing the Director of Finance to close project accounts; declaring the intent of the City to reimburse itself from the bond proceeds for certain expenditures and recognizing that this ordinance has an accelerated effective date.
You can read the whole thing here and read about the economic impact from my post about it last year (note, I'm still in the middle of a DIY disaster but getting closer to the end). What does that all mean? Well it means the City wants to move forward with starting a procurement process to find someone to build and run the thing. It also means the completion of the gap in Old Tiffany Springs Road from Line Creek Parkway to Platte Purchase is going to be very important to start and get done in the next year.
Here are some snippets from the presentation. Keep in mind this is all conceptual and subject to change but will give you an idea of where/what the complex will look like. Here are some of the sites that the EDC team looked at for the complex.
Here is a blow up of site 7 at the Northwest corner of the Route 152 and Platte Purchase Drive interchange. CostcoTM is on the southeast corner of the interchange or diagonal of the site. The complex will have one large stadium as the marquee field and also to host World Cup 2026 practices for people to watch from what I've heard. If the complex was located in this area, there would be some efficiencies with the future Platte County R-3 High and Middle Schools just to the north where they could use the stadium for Friday night football games and parking could be shared. How? Well, there are only 4-6 Friday night home games a year (maybe 7 or 8 if Coach Utz's team has a good year) and so overflow parking could park on both sides of the new street because all of the soccer fields won't be filled every weekend for a tournament.
The EDC also highlighted the economic analysis from the report.
You can watch the presentation as given as I downloaded the video from the KCMO City Clerk's website. You should check out the page and video on demand of committees. It's a great way to see your government in action and the discussion under consideration. Maybe someday we'll have that ability in the Park Hill School District for board meetings.
I encourage you to read the FACT Sheet on the KCMO website to see how this is actually funded. With debt service it's $68 million dollars out of the general fund. They want to take surplus TIF funds from the I-29 KCI corridor project and repurpose them for this project. Is that even legal?
Second, this is to build a PAY TO PLAY facility. Not a PARK, not something we can use for RECREATIONAL sports, but for COMPETITIVE for-profit club and tournament sports. Why is the city subsidizing this? Watch the comments from the City Manager's office, they aren't even requiring the developer to put ANY money in, nor is Platte County, nor are the school. Just the KCMO taxpayers.
You can read my opposition to this plan at the link below.
https://bennybfromkc.blogspot.com/2019/06/pay-to-play-sports-and.html
Posted by: ManTrails | 06/25/2019 at 09:35 AM