Good Afternoon Parkville! As you may or may not be aware, Parkvilles own Todd Kobayashi (CFO) and David Jones (COO) are senior executives at the real estate development firm, Foutch Brothers, LLC. Foutch Brothers is at the leading edge of a plan that would convert Kemper Arena into a youth sports and fitness facility (soccer, lacrosse, volleyball, basketball, fitness training, etc.). With the American Royal Rodeo already having moved to Sprint Center, the Foutch plan calls for the sports facility and the American Royal to be neighbors in the West Bottoms with all American Royal events going off just as they did last year - including, of course, Joe Leluga and his Savage BBQ teams award winning Friday night party. The Foutch plan is not funded with any City money (tearing down Kemper alone would cost the City of Kansas City approximately $6MM). Foutch believes that this kind of development should not be done at the expense of a City that is already tight on its budget. That said, he has created a site plan showing a new American Royal building on the East side of arena site (assuming there is money to build it), to be constructed in a manner that both the American Royal and the new youth sports facility would co-exist. The Kansas City Business Journal has posted a survey on the topic. The first choice is to tear down Kemper (using $6MM of City money) and build a new American Royal building (unknown of City money would be required). The second choice is to convert the existing Kemper into a privately owned and operated youth sports facility (using no City money) and leave the options open for a new American Royal building. I want to get the burden of the maintenance and upkeep of the arena off the Citys books and I want another indoor youth sports facility (especially one reasonably close to Parkville). But I also dont want to lose the tradition and culture of the American Royal (including the famous BBQ contest). The only way to have both is to privatize and re-purpose the arena. We get our sports facility, we get our American Royal, the City of Kansas City is relieved of a maintenance burden and the City of Kansas City does not have to use its scarce resources to unnecessarily tear down an arena that the developer can save! There is a link to the survey below. I will be voting to convert Kemper Arena into a privately owned and operated youth sports and fitness facility.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 21:08:08 +0000