Kansas City Women's Soccer Team (KC Current) Parking fiasco....

1,086 Views | 7 Replies | Last: 2 mo ago by agracer
agracer
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AG
In the you can't make this up department, the KC Current will be charging more for parking than the Superbowl Champion KC Chiefs for parking. Who's in charge here?

https://theathletic.com/5301449/2024/02/26/kc-current-parking-stadium/

Quote:

The club that will have the first stadium purpose-built for a professional women's soccer team shocked its supporters on Wednesday when they showed that season ticket members would pay $50 per match for their season parking pass if they chose that option.

Season ticket members got the first choice to secure a season parking pass before other fans.

The price is equal to fans who park at Arrowhead Stadium to watch the back-to-back Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. Parking at Kauffman Stadium only costs $20 to watch the Kansas City Royals.
Note that the $50 does not include taxes and fees (it comes out to about $56/game). They also only have 2,000 spaces and an 11,500 seat stadium. The Current averaged over 10,000 fans a game in 2023 (i read that somewhere).

EDIT to add: I didn't realize the stadium was located that close to the river. I lived in KC in 1993 when there was a bunch of flooding in IA, NB, MO and KS. Pretty sure that location was under several feet of water in 1993. Did the planners think it would never flood again?
wangus12
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AG
Color me shocked that a US soccer operation is out of touch with how much things should cost
Dre_00
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Probably had to sacrifice flood risk for a downtown location at a reasonable cost. Royals and Chiefs don't play anywhere near downtown and I would expect parking to be more similar to downtown parking prices than to their parking prices. It's been years since I've been to KC but $50 probably is at least somewhat comparable (but still more than I would expect) to other downtown parking prices? I think Houston Dynamo parking is about $35 a game but been a while since I've done that too.
deadbq03
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AG
Flood risk = really cheap land. And flooding of a major river takes a lot of time to develop (compared to flash flooding), so it's not too risky for this kind of land use… the chances for loss of life are virtually zero, and there's not much property risk, assuming they engineered the structure for it. Worst case, they have to move games to other venues for a month whenever a catastrophic flood event occurs (once every couple decades or so). Not a bad trade-off for cheap land.

The bigger question is why they picked a site where they couldn't build enough parking spots AND there's no access to mass transit. So the $50 is simple supply and demand with low supply compared to perceived demand. But now the demand is going to inevitably drop and things will balance out. And Uber drivers are gonna make a killing.
agracer
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Dre_00 said:

Probably had to sacrifice flood risk for a downtown location at a reasonable cost. Royals and Chiefs don't play anywhere near downtown and I would expect parking to be more similar to downtown parking prices than to their parking prices. It's been years since I've been to KC but $50 probably is at least somewhat comparable (but still more than I would expect) to other downtown parking prices? I think Houston Dynamo parking is about $35 a game but been a while since I've done that too.
I can park a few blocks from the T-Mobile Center (large arena near downtown) for $20 and easily walk to the event. That's pretty close to downtown. Most downtown parking for any event in town is ~$20 for the day.

The KC Current facility has 2,000 spaces and no other parking close bye.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/PMeGBTQbdyJDoStWA

The closest pay lot is 1.1 miles away and a 30m walk according to google maps. That's assuming you're willing to talk a busy trafficway with no sidewalk and cross a set of RR tracks to get to the game.

Here's some more information;

https://www.kctv5.com/2024/02/25/kc-current-breaks-down-its-sustainable-accessible-parking-options/
Quote:

  • Off-Site Parking: Fans can utilize standard street, lot, or garage parking in Downtown KC. From there, they have several options to arrive at CPKC Stadium:
    • Walk: Starting at the Town of Kansas Bridge, which is located at 2nd and Main Street off the River Market, it's about a one-mile walk down the Berkley Riverfront Trail to CPKC Stadium.
    • Bike: CPKC Stadium will offer free, secure bike valet services for fans. For cyclists who will be utilizing public transportation at any point, all KC buses are equipped with bike racks and bikes are allowed in the middle car of the streetcar.
    • Bus: RideKC is free and has multiple lines running through the River Market Neighborhood
      • On 3rd at Grand - Southbound stop services the 10, 55, 77, 85, 103, and 201 bus routes.
      • On 5th at Grand - Northbound services the 10, 85, and 201 bus routes.
    • Streetcar: Eventually, the streetcar will be extended to the Berkley Riverfront. The groundbreaking for that portion of the streetcar extension is set for Friday, March 1, 2024, and is not anticipated to be running until next year. Until then, KC Current says they will "cover the last stretch of the fan journey," via shuttles. Exact details on shuttle services will be available at a later date.
  • Ride Share: There will be designated pick-up and drop-off locations for fans using ride-share services.

The town of Kansas Bridge is 1-mile from the stadium. The parking and walk to the bridge is another 20-30m walk.

People who don't buy a $50 pass to the limited close parking lot are going to be walking 40-60 minutes to get to the game. That sounds fun walk back to your car at night in downtown KCMO.

They were playing in the Children's Mercy Park (where Sporting KC Plays) which has tons of free parking less than a mile from the stadium, and very easy in out.

They killing access to a marginal product by making it harder to access the product all to be the first purpose build women's stadium in the world.

If they wanted their own stadium, the could have built it close to Children's' Mercy Park, shared parking and been way ahead. But for some reason everyone has this fascination with "downtown sports" which never works out the way they tell us it will.
Dre_00
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Yikes...if other public parking options are far away and mass transit isn't a possibility then indeed it doesn't sound like they thought through the logistics of this. I mean unless it's mass Uber or you have a private shuttle bus service or something, you're going to have to cram 5+ people in every car in order to fill the stadium.
greg.w.h
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AG
So like Kyle Field…
agracer
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Dre_00 said:

Yikes...if other public parking options are far away and mass transit isn't a possibility then indeed it doesn't sound like they thought through the logistics of this. I mean unless it's mass Uber or you have a private shuttle bus service or something, you're going to have to cram 5+ people in every car in order to fill the stadium.
They'll have busses running to/from the stadium area and down town. But it's part of the regular mass transit system. It does not read in the article I posted above like it's specific for getting people to/from the stadium to drop off spots downtown for events at the stadium.

The Royals are looking to move downtown as well. The won't have enough parking either and will rely on local garages and surface lots. It's going to be a bigger mess with 20-40k people going to/from games as opposed to the relatively easy access we have now.
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