Will Chiefs pick Missouri or Kansas? Here’s what will determine their stadium future

As the Chiefs survey their options for a new — or, ahem, renovated — stadium, team president Mark Donovan on Friday made one thing clear:

It won’t simply be a do-over.

In the process.

It still might lead the Chiefs to the same destination.

The organization wants to finalize its future stadium plans within the next six months, Donovan said during a news conference at Missouri Western, the Chiefs’ training camp home.

What he didn’t say: which home, which city, which county or which state they will seek to finalize those plans. You know, the part that has your curiosity most piqued.

Those involved in ongoing discussions about the Chiefs’ future home have flip-flopped their own predictions in conversations with The Star over the past several weeks, which is perhaps symbolic of the twist and turns after Jackson County voters rejected a sales tax that would have helped fund an Arrowhead Stadium renovation coupled with a Royals move to the Crossroads District.

The Chiefs are engaged in substantial conversations with political leadership in both Missouri and Kansas, the former only more recently — which means that, yes, they are still strongly considering remaining at Arrowhead Stadium.

I’ve mentioned this once before, but the Chiefs have the atypical advantage of gaining leverage after having a vote that not only failed but failed quite convincingly. The options, after all, have swelled, and they’ve emerged publicly. What’s better than that?

Well, in that vein, let me interject some top-of-line context about each side of the state line: After the Kansas Legislature passed a plan to attempt to lure the Chiefs half an hour down the highway, the path in the state still has more challenges than people seem to want to realize; and in Missouri, no such path has even emerged, with legitimate questions about whether one will.

The latter is where, with only minimal between-the-lines reading required, it’s evident the Chiefs are modifying the process of reaching a conclusion.

What would another try at renovating Arrowhead Stadium entail?

Donovan said Friday it would be “difficult to really create a partnership” on the Missouri side that does not include putting another vote before the public.

Well, the more conversations I have about this, it’s increasingly difficult for me to envision the Chiefs putting another vote before the public without accompanying support from the state and county.

Three months ago, as Jackson County residents arrived at the ballot booths, the Chiefs had neither.

Frank White, the Jackson County executive, campaigned against the question, arguing the county did not receive enough benefits from the measure. While the legislature would override his veto, the public sided with him. The Chiefs would not be eager — or even willing, I might even say — to put another measure in front of voters if that kind of opposition from public leadership exists, particularly when it might be absent elsewhere.

Which means part of the stay-at-Arrowhead-Stadium equation would require finding common ground with White. Those of us who reported extensively on the last try would share a dose of skepticism about such an agreement being made without a change of heart, tone or stance from one side, though the Chiefs have met with White since the April vote.

But it’s not just about the county level. As I previously reported this summer, the Chiefs also had not sealed their potential state financial contributions before the April vote — and offered the leverage of a potential Kansas option, they consider that vital to any future plans.

Given the makeup of the Missouri state legislature, which is subject to change after the elections this fall, some of that will be removed from the Chiefs’ control.

But there are aspects within their control that can — and should — change, if they give it another try in Jackson County. Although the Royals were certainly not a help in pushing the measure across the finish line with voters — and, if anything, the opposite — the Chiefs’ post-April analysis has illuminated some faults too.

Like, this one: The Chiefs wouldn’t fast-track this vote while saying, if not merely hoping, many of the financial and other details will come after its approval.

“We have committed that if we go to a public vote, we’ll do it in a way which is much more final before we get to the vote,” Donovan said. “We’ll have a lot of the facts; we’ll have a lot of the details determined before we go.”

The Chiefs would be open to a renovation plan, or potentially building new on the Truman Sports Complex site or at a different Missouri site, Donovan said, but let’s not complicate it: A second attempt in Missouri would likely resemble the initial attempt.

Kind of.

Although it would likely be a renovation plan, it wouldn’t necessarily be the same renovation plan — it’s no secret that their rollout last spring did not exactly overwhelm the public.

“We have to acknowledge that did not go over as well as we thought it would,” Donovan said. “I want to be non-defensive here, but I also want to support my team — I think if you really look at those renderings and what we had planned, it’s a really exciting project. I think a lot of people went into that presentation (thinking), ‘We’re going to see a dome, and we’re going to see this incredible retail facility around it.’ And that’s just not reality.

“But you have to acknowledge that didn’t do it. That didn’t really move the needle for people. So we’ll look at that and figure out how we can better present it — see if there’s anything that we missed that we would do, or maybe do it in a different way.”

What about the Chiefs moving to Kansas?

During a special session in June, Kansas legislators approved a bipartisan bill that permits the lawmakers to issue bonds to fund up to 70% of the estimated cost of a professional sports project.

It’s the equivalent of a one-word billboard:

Welcome.

If only it were the easy, right?

While Donovan said, “it’s amazing what Kansas did,” he also acknowledged, “I think both (states) are really complicated. I don’t think there’s a simple path on either side. There’s a lot of work to be done in Kansas to see what the reality of that is.”

A project in Kansas — the Chiefs are not to the stage of site-specific conversations there — would require a new build, obviously, likely a domed stadium, which the Chiefs have estimated to cost $2.5 billion-$3 billion.

The Arrowhead Stadium renovations, by contrast, had an $800 million price tag, with the Hunt family ownership contributing $300 million. That left a $500 million gap.

The total price tag in Kansas is significantly larger, in other words, just as you’d expect it to be for a new stadium — and therefore, even as the potential state contribution is larger, so is that gap in terms of pure dollar amount.

“I think if you look at the history of STAR bonds and the percentages, I don’t think there’s been a STAR bond project that has gotten the full percentage. So that’s not our expectation,” Donovan said.

When I asked if the Hunt family would contribute more than $300 million to a new build in Kansas, Donovan added, “If you look at the proposals and projects, you would have to put in more because it’s going to cost more. ...

“If you’re talking about a new domed stadium, you’re at $2.5-3 billion. If STAR bonds is $1-1.5 billion, where’s the other half coming from? So it quickly turns to, how are you going to finance it? We know that. As we get closer to that — if we get closer to that — that’ll be one of the things we talk about. That’s a significant commitment by the family.”