New Kansas City Royals Stadium

The Kansas City Royals' new downtown ballpark is set into the limestone bluff at Crown Center, the anchor of a roughly $3 billion, 85-acre mixed-use district developed with Hallmark Cards around a park-like central square with fountains. Populous, the Kansas City-based firm behind the Royals' Surprise Stadium spring training home, is architect of record, with Mortenson, McCownGordon and JE Dunn as construction partners. The $1.9 billion open-air ballpark seats about 34,000, with room for roughly 3,000 more standing around the field and 80 percent of seats between the foul poles, and its upper and club decks sit 20 feet closer to the field than at Kauffman Stadium. The design carries over Kauffman's signatures, with the Royals' fountains as the centerpiece of the bowl and a three-dimensional crown-topped CrownVision scoreboard, plus the Little K. A limestone entrance framed by layered screens of metal and terracotta leads to two continuous 360-degree concourses, and a lightweight fabric canopy shades about 65 percent of seats in late-afternoon conditions. Views run to the downtown skyline, with Liberty Memorial and Union Station beyond right field. The district plan adds a right-field entertainment building, a left-field Royals headquarters building and reimagined headquarters for Hallmark, and the city has approved a fixed $600 million contribution and a 30-year lease.