Royals Announce Monumental Stadium Move to Downtown Kansas City

The MLB team will be partnering with Hallmark to make this move possible.

The Royals announced a stadium move to downtown Kansas City. | Peter G. Aiken-Imagn Images

Months after the Chiefs announced their move from Missouri to Kansas coming in 2031, the NFL team’s neighbor, the Royals, finally made their stadium move official. Unlike the Chiefs, the MLB team will be staying in the Show-Me State.

The contracts for both Arrowhead Stadium and Kauffman Stadium are up in 2031, forcing the two professional teams to either re-sign the contracts or find new homes for a new era. Both teams elected to start fresh. The Chiefs will cross the state border into Kansas City, Kans., while the Royals will move just a quick drive up I-70 to downtown Kansas City, Mo.

The new ballpark will be located downtown at the city’s iconic Crown Center, owned by Hallmark Cards Inc., the team announced on Wednesday after months of waiting on the news. The Royals are partnering with Hallmark to make the new stadium.

"Our founder Ewing Kauffman wanted the Royals to be Kansas City's forever, and he wanted the team to benefit his hometown as much as possible," Royals CEO and chairman John Sherman said in a statement. "Joining Hallmark with this project achieves both and extends the Hall family's critical legacy of helping Kansas City grow."

Hallmark notably created the Royals’ iconic crown logo design, which can be seen on the video board at the current Kauffman Stadium. The plan is to keep this design at the new stadium. Here’s the renderings the team shared on Wednesday.

Better look at the renderings of the new Royals ballpark and surrounding area in downtown Kansas City. pic.twitter.com/WZIdHyFGBi

— Anne Rogers (@anne__rogers) April 22, 2026

The stadium will take up 85 acres of land and will cost $2 billion, but will be funded by the Royals and other private investors. There will also be public funding from the Kansas City and Missouri's Show-Me Sports Investment Act.

Kansas City received a lot of backlash when the Chiefs made the decision to jump to Kansas because the state could afford to build them the domed stadium they dreamed of. The state of Missouri then made it a priority to keep the Royals instead of losing both pro teams in the area to Kansas.

"Today's announcement reinforces that the State of Missouri is not just where the Kansas City Royals play, but where they belong," Missouri governor Mike Kehoe said. "This decision by the Royals to invest in our state is more than just a commitment to Kansas City, it is a commitment to communities and fans across Missouri."

Downtown baseball stadiums are becoming more and more popular when teams decide on locations of their ballparks. Kauffman Stadium was ranked in the bottom 10 in the league in terms of walkability (if you’ve been to the grounds, you know there’s virtually nothing nearby the stadiums), but the new stadium’s location boosts the team into the top-10 list of most walkable ballparks. Fans will be in the heart of downtown when attending a ball game instead of being far out of the city on I-70 highway.

As a resident of Kansas City, Mo., it’s an exciting time for sports in the city. I can’t wait to see what the team creates.

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