The Kansas City Chiefs, who’ve performed in 5 Tremendous Bowls and received three of them since 2020, introduced Monday they may go away their longtime house at Arrowhead Stadium for a brand new, domed stadium that will probably be constructed throughout the Kansas-Missouri state line and be prepared for the beginning of the 2031 season.
The announcement got here shortly after a council of prime Kansas lawmakers voted unanimously inside a packed room on the state Capitol to permit the state to subject somewhat greater than $2.4 billion in bonds to cowl about 60% of the price of the brand new stadium, a brand new coaching facility and retail and leisure house.
The bonds will probably be paid off with state gross sales and liquor tax revenues generated in an outlined space round it.
“The placement of Chiefs video games will change,” Chiefs proprietor Clark Hunt mentioned after the assembly, “however some issues received’t change. Our followers will nonetheless be the loudest within the NFL, our video games will nonetheless be the most effective place on the earth to tailgate, and our gamers and coaches will probably be able to compete for championships, as a result of on the sphere or off the sphere, we’re large dreamers, and we’re prepared for the following chapter.”
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The Chiefs intend their $3 billion stadium undertaking to be inbuilt Kansas Metropolis, Kansas, close to the Kansas Speedway and a retail district generally known as The Legends. The world consists of Youngsters’s Mercy Park, the house of MLS membership Sporting Kansas Metropolis, and Legends Subject, the house of the Kansas Metropolis Monarchs minor league baseball workforce.
The Chiefs additionally plan to construct their $300 million follow facility within the Kansas Metropolis-metro suburb of Olathe, Kansas. They’ve dedicated to a minimum of $700 million in different improvement.
“Immediately’s announcement is actually historic. Truly, it’s somewhat surreal,” Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly mentioned. “Immediately’s announcement will contact the lives of Kansans for generations to come back. Immediately’s announcement is a complete game-changer for our state.
“We now have all the time been Chiefs followers,” Kelly mentioned. “Now we’re Chiefs household.”
State officers additionally predict that greater than 20,000 new building jobs will probably be created.
Whereas the ultimate location for the stadium has not been determined, Chiefs president Mark Donovan mentioned it might seat about 65,000, roughly 10,000 fewer followers than Arrowhead Stadium. That follows a pattern throughout skilled sports activities of constructing stadiums and arenas which have fewer total seats however extra facilities, luxurious seating and premium areas.
“We now have quite a lot of work to do. We’re nonetheless early within the course of,” Hunt mentioned. “Within the months forward, we’ll rent an architect and contractor and get to work on the five-plus-year timeline to construct a brand new stadium.”
The transfer by the Chiefs is a large blow to Missouri lawmakers and Gov. Mike Kehoe, who had been engaged on their very own funding bundle to stop a 3rd NFL franchise and the second in a decade from leaving their borders; the Rams left St. Louis for Los Angeles partly attributable to their incapacity to safe funding to assist change The Dome at America’s Middle.
Kehoe had backed a particular legislative session in June to authorize bonds masking as much as 50% of the price of new or renovated stadiums, plus as much as $50 million of tax credit for every stadium and unspecified help from native governments.
“They thought new and glossy was higher than previous and dependable,” Kehoe mentioned after the Chiefs’ announcement, including that the membership was in discussions with Missouri officers about staying at a renovated or rebuilt Arrowhead Stadium as late as final week.
“We received’t quit. We’ll search for cracks within the armor and discover out if there’s a Missouri Present-Me resolution via our sports activities act.”
