Hallmark Clears Its Lot for the Royals Downtown Ballpark

The Kansas City Royals and Populous released six new drawings on October 15 of an open-air Crown Center ballpark with about 34,000 seats, limestone walls, and a crown-shaped video board. Groundbreaking is set for June 2027. First pitch is aimed at the 2030 season.

The pictures are the easy part. The lot under them is Hallmark Cards’ headquarters campus, and Kansas City has already voted the public money that makes the drawings buildable.

Limestone Walls and a Crown-Shaped Board

Populous, the Kansas City design firm named as architect of record, put the bowl into the existing limestone bluff and borrowed cues from Municipal Auditorium, Union Station, and the Liberty Memorial. Royals Chairman and CEO John Sherman said the club picked the firm because it wanted the best design, the best fan experience, and the best pedestrian experience in Major League Baseball, and because that firm sits in Kansas City.

Brooks Sherman, the club’s president of real estate and development, called Populous the hometown design team and the world leader in sports architecture. About 90 percent of the design staff for this park will work in Kansas City. Populous has done work with 29 of 30 Major League clubs, including Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Oracle Park, PNC Park, Yankee Stadium, Target Field, and Truist Park, and it has already renovated Kauffman Stadium and designed Surprise Stadium, the Royals’ spring home.

Earl Santee, a Populous senior principal and founder who grew up at Kansas City Athletics games at Municipal Stadium, said the building will be designed one time, one place, for one community.

WHAT THE NEW PARK PUTS IN THE BOWL

• The seats: About 34,000 in four decks, a smaller bowl than Kauffman Stadium, which opened in the 40,000-seat range.
• The shade: A light fabric canopy is drawn to cover about 65 percent of the seats in late-afternoon sun.
• The loop: Two continuous 360-degree concourses tie a right-field entertainment building and a left-field team headquarters into the seating bowl.
• The trademarks: Royals fountains and a Crown Vision board sit in the outfield, with downtown skyline views through the open end.
• The skin: Limestone at the entries, layered with light materials, metal, and terracotta.

The official club post on X carried the new views the same afternoon, with a short film the team titled Gratitude, Passion, Progress.

A new crown jewel for Kansas City is taking shape. https://t.co/MHtmZG4YJl pic.twitter.com/OBhk4xeZ88

— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) October 15, 2026

On the drawings, the Crown Vision board does not sit dead center the way the old board does at Kauffman. That is the first thing the pictures give away. The fountains still do the emotional work. Santee and the club say the design keeps the crown, the water, and the Little K, while the six new renderings and a fabric canopy try to make an open-air Kansas City summer sit-able.

Hallmark Leaves the Headquarters It Has Used Since 1956

The ballpark is not a vacant-lot idea. It is planned where Hallmark’s corporate offices stand now, near Pershing Road, Gillham Road, and 25th Street, inside the 85-acre Crown Center district the greeting-card company has run for decades. Hallmark’s buildings have been the company headquarters since 1956. Executive Chairman Don Hall Jr. said the current headquarters site was the best stadium location after the company looked at options in Crown Center and Washington Square Park.

When the new Royals stadium opens at Crown Center, something proud will come full circle. The iconic Royals crown that Hallmark created will return to the very neighborhood where it was conceived.

Don Hall Jr., executive chairman, Hallmark Cards

Hall said the company will move into a newer building that stays inside Crown Center. The Royals, in a joint partnership with Hallmark Cards announced April 22, 2026, would put team offices in the ballpark itself. Sherman has said demolition of the Hallmark building may start in early 2027.

Joyce C. Hall brought the card business to Kansas City in 1910. The Hall family and Sherman go back years; Sherman has said he talked with Hall when he was buying the Royals in 2019. Hallmark is a partner in the private development around the park, a separate company from the stadium entity. Crown Center as a district is supposed to remain, even as the headquarters that defined it comes down for baseball.

Mayor Quinton Lucas has described the project, in so many words, as a way to keep Major League Baseball and Hallmark Cards in Kansas City. That pairing is the deal. The drawings sell a ballpark. The land deal sells two local brands staying put.

$600 Million, Bonds, and a 30-Year Lease

On October 8, 2026, the City Council approved tax increment financing plans and bond authority for the city’s fixed $600 million commitment toward the $1.9 billion ballpark. That city number splits as $90 million in infrastructure and $510 million in city-supported bonds. The stadium would be city-owned. The Royals would lease it.

The August 20 framework sets a 30-year lease with five two-year extension options, a possible 40 years if every option is used. The club pays repair, maintenance, utilities, and operating costs. The city gets 5 percent of net profits from non-baseball events. The funding agreement puts combined city and state public money at $1.14 billion, with the Royals’ private share at $760 million and the club on the hook for cost overruns. The wider Crown Center district is described as about $3 billion, including more than $1 billion in private work around the park.

HOW THE $1.9 BILLION SPLITS

Missouri’s Show-Me Sports Investment Act lets the state help pay for a sports venue with more than 30,000 seats and project costs of at least $500 million, with annual state spending capped at the franchise’s baseline-year state tax revenue and a term of no more than 30 years. Adjacent housing and retail do not count as part of that project under the statute. The city’s TIF tool redirects new tax receipts in a stadium impact area (food and beverage, hotel, public safety, and parks sales taxes among them) toward bond payments for 30 years.

The club also signed a Community Impact Partnership Agreement with at least $55 million in community benefits, including $24 million up front and at least $1.03 million a year, adjusted for inflation. Up-front money is listed for a homelessness housing initiative, a Negro Leagues Baseball Museum capital gift, and a fixed-rail study for Union Station. Annual money is listed for a relocation-area account, Washington Square Park, and arts. The Royals have also agreed to hold Kansas City Public Schools harmless and to wage terms with the Service Employees International Union.

Jackson County Already Voted This Down Once

On April 2, 2024, Jackson County voters rejected a 40-year, three-eighths-cent sales tax that would have helped pay for a Royals ballpark in the East Crossroads and for Arrowhead work. The count was 78,352 no (58 percent) and 56,606 yes (42 percent). Sherman said that night that the club respected the voters and would take time to find a path forward.

The path they found does not go back to the county ballot. It goes through City Hall, state sports-aid law, and a TIF on Crown Center. Missouri TIF rules require a blight or conservation finding before that tool can be used, and the city applied it to the Crown Center site. The October 8 rezoning of about 68 acres for a ballpark district passed 13-0. The TIF plan and the bond authority each passed 11-2, with council members Nathan Willett and Johnathan Duncan voting no.

Duncan said the city was robbing residents to pay business owners for a for-profit business. Council member Wes Rogers said the project would create more tax revenue than it costs and would change downtown for a generation. Lucas, after the October 8 votes, said Kansas City had voted to keep baseball and Hallmark in town, with protections and community commitments attached.

The club has said the April 22, 2026, Crown Center plan would create 20,000 jobs in the construction phase. A city financial analysis used for the TIF projected a 20 percent attendance increase at a downtown park, the figure that is supposed to feed the tax receipts paying the bonds.

Kansas City Walked Away From Downtown in 1973

Kansas City has done this move in reverse. Municipal Stadium, at Brooklyn Avenue and 22nd Street, opened in 1923 for the Blues and the Monarchs, then housed the Athletics from 1955 to 1967 and the expansion Royals from 1969 to 1972. The Royals’ last game there was October 4, 1972. The city tore the park down in 1976.

In the late 1960s, a downtown stadium site near where the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts sits now was on the table. Jackson County voters in 1967 approved bonds for a sports complex. Cheap land, highway access, and parking at the Leeds site east of downtown won. Arrowhead opened in 1972. Royals Stadium, later Kauffman Stadium, opened April 10, 1973, at the Truman Sports Complex. The Royals have played there since.

Santee watched the A’s in the old neighborhood park. The new drawings quote Union Station and the Liberty Memorial, which sit next to Crown Center, and they quote Kauffman’s fountains and crown. The 2030 park is a return to the urban core the city left for the interstate lots, paid for this time with a greeting-card campus and city bonds instead of a 1967 county bond issue.

Who Covers the Bonds if Receipts Fall Short?

If the district’s redirected taxes do not cover the city’s bond payments, the city still owes the debt. City staff told the council the bond issue would produce about $537 million toward the park and team offices, and that interest over 30 years would take the city’s repayment to about $1.39 billion. A forecast prepared for the votes put redirected revenue at just over $1.4 billion through 2059, a thin cushion over that debt-service figure. Hunden Partners, the firm behind the analysis, told city officials those receipts should cover the bonds if the district performs as modeled.

WHERE THE MONEY IS FIRM, AND WHERE IT IS NOT

• Firm city cap: Kansas City’s contribution is a fixed $600 million, not an open construction tab.
• Club overruns: The Royals pay if the $1.9 billion ballpark budget is blown.
• Daily costs: Maintenance, utilities, and operations sit with the team, a shift from costs Jackson County has carried at the Truman Complex.
• The gap risk: The funding agreement leaves the city, not the club, to cover shortfalls on city-backed bonds, which is why the TIF forecast and the 20 percent attendance lift have to land.

Sherman has said there are no new taxes and that public dollars are matched by private ones in the larger district. The mechanism is still a 30-year capture of taxes the city would otherwise spend elsewhere, plus state aid tied to the Royals’ own baseline tax take. That is the wager inside the limestone.

Groundbreaking Is on the Books for June 2027

The club’s public calendar now has dates. The city’s legislative calendar already spent its big ones.

THE PATH FROM THE 2024 NO TO OPENING DAY

1. April 2, 2024: Jackson County rejects the stadium sales tax, 78,352 to 56,606.
2. April 22, 2026: The Royals and Hallmark name Crown Center, a $1.9 billion park inside an about $3 billion district.
3. August 20, 2026: The council approves the lease framework, the $600 million city cap, and the community-benefits deal.
4. October 8, 2026: The council approves TIF, the stadium impact area, and bond authority, and rezones about 68 acres.
5. October 15, 2026: Populous and the Royals release six new drawings of the limestone bowl.
6. June 2027: Ceremonial groundbreaking, with Hallmark-building demolition targeted for early 2027.
7. April 2030: Target opening, in time for the 2030 Major League season.

Kauffman Stadium’s lease runs into the 2031 season. Sherman has said the club will not simply break that lease and would negotiate an earlier downtown move. The new park is a year ahead of that expiration if the 2030 opener holds.

Demolition of the Hallmark headquarters is the next physical fact, not another drawing. Until those walls come down, the crown on the renderings is still sitting on someone else’s building.