For the KC/TSC Historians

[DanT]

Here's a story that talks a little about the Truman Sports Complex. You can see from the drawings that it was basically in an area with lots of open space, but in reality, the area is a combination of industrial, residential, and undeveloped. My dad worked at GMAD Leeds, a big auto assembly plant that was pretty close to the stadium but which shut down around 1990. When the Truman Sports Complex opened, from what I recall as a kid who grew up near Paseo High School, was that the residential areas east and north of Truman Sports Complex were reasonably safe and more or less suburban. I saw a lot of games there as a kid and worked there as a food vendor from 1982 to 1988.

The Sheraton Royal (which became the Adams Mark) was a fairly nice hotel but was mostly catering to the sports events, which aren't particularly numerous--80-some baseball games and 10 or so football games a year-- and Truman Sports Complex was fairly close to some major shopping centers of the time, including Blue Ridge Mall and, a little further east, the shopping in Independence. There wasn't any particular reason to build much else near there. KC is very car oriented. I recall that when the city touted Truman Sports Complex, they talked about driving time between it and other tourist sports, like Worlds of Fun and KCI. They weren't thinking of it as a place to go to and hang out at, other than to see a game.

The fact that the city was so car-oriented was something I was very aware of, because even though my dad was an autoworker, neither he nor my mom drove, so we relied on the city buses to get around until my brothers and I started driving as teenagers. Getting to TSC for work before we drove was a bit of a challenge, especially getting there early enough for roll-call on weeknight games, when we had to take the Roanoke bus and then walk from Raytown Road, and on Sunday games, when we had to take the 39th Street bus and walk from Van Horn Blvd. Getting home from there wasn't that bad, because we could ride the Stadium Bus routes that were available then, which would drop you off at the Plaza and we could walk from there, or else if the timing was right transfer to the Troost or Armour-Paseo buses.

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes had a new building that opened up in 1979, which was north of Royals Stadium and alongside I-70, overlooking the left field. The little motels, Drury Inn and Holiday Inn opened up to take some of the sporting event trade and the higway travelers and whatever other business might be had out there, same as the Taco Bell and the Denny's.

Anyway, if those areas have since deteriorated, that is just begging the original question, as it should be the case that if showpiece stadiums spur development, then the area around those two beautiful stadiums should have benefitted or at least sustained themselves. I think the record on sports stadium is mixed but leans toward them not spurring development, particularly when they were built for a car-oriented fanbase like the Royals and the Chiefs have.

https://flatlandkc.org/news-issues/w...story-repeats/