With the acquisition of a mortgage on 141 acres formerly hosting the Sprint corporate campus in Overland Park, Kansas, ownership may be positioning the team for a new Royals ballpark across state borders, with potential movement from Missouri at hand.
Technically, an affiliate of the Royals corporation acquired the mortgage on the Aspiria office campus, a 20-building site comprising some 3.8 million square feet of Class-A office space originally developed as Sprint headquarters. After Sprint was acquired by T-Mobile in 2020, Occidental Management transitioned the site as a corporate office development.
The 141-acre site is the collateral for a $232.5 million mortgage acquired by what is described as a Royals affiliate. (Not unusual: MLB teams now have real-estate development affiliates. An Atlanta Braves real-estate affiliate developed much of the office/residential/retail space surrounding Truist Park, while a Chicago Cubs real-estate arm developed land surrounding Wrigley Field as well as new office space overlooking Target Field, home of the Minnesota Twins.) While Occidental Management has been making payments on the mortgage, it fell into a special serving category in August 2023 that yielded shortfalls in interest payments. T-Mobile is still a large tenant on the site, which has a 68 percent occupancy rate.
The Royals affiliate paid $183.5 million for the mortgage, a situation that is yielding both income for the affiliate in monthly payments as well as giving the team a potential new-ballpark site. As of now there are still 42 undeveloped acres within the 141-acre parcel—plenty of land for a new ballpark as well as a sports and entertainment district and perhaps even more development.
The land acquisition doesn’t mean the Royals have settled on Overland Park as the site of a new ballpark; as an investment, the mortgage stands on its own and doesn’t financially rely on any ballpark development. Located in the southern Kansas City suburbs, Overland Park’s eastern boundary not far from the Kansas-Missouri state line. While the Royals spent a lot of time pursuing a downtown location for a new ballpark, the team has shifted in recent weeks to a more expansive search across the south and western portions of the Kansas City metro area, bringing Kansas sites into the mix.
“The Kansas City Royals continue to explore all options throughout our community to develop a new stadium for the team,” according to a statement issued by the team. “As part of our ongoing efforts, we have negotiated with or made investments in multiple potential sites—both in Missouri and Kansas. One of these investments was the acquisition (by an affiliate of the Royals) of the mortgage on the Aspiria campus through an arms-length bidding process.”
The acquisition comes at a time when the Royals continue to negotiate potential tax breaks with both Kansas and Missouri regarding a new ballpark. It’s a certainty the team will not be committing to a long-term tenure at Kauffman Stadium, and in pursuit of both the Royals and the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs Kansas officials put together a financial incentives deal that expires on June 30. That deal includes bonding to cover up to 70 percent of the cost of new facilities for both the Chiefs and Royals through Sales Tax and Revenue bonds, or STAR bonds. Today Missouri Republican Governor Mike Kehoe is expected to call a legislative special session, and a potential bonding package for new Chiefs and Royals facilities is expected to be a prime topic. Details on a package that would back a new downtown Royals ballpark are still being worked out between city and state officials, but it’s likely to include sales-tax diversions.
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