Arena style

Will design decisions concerning Kansas City's new sports arena produce a final product that will be a disappointment to voters?

Debate continues on the size, cost, completion date and appearance of Kansas City’s new downtown sports arena.

According to various reports, the facility is likely to cost more than original estimates, and the project won’t meet its proposed completion date. Some observers say the arena needs more seating capacity and that cost considerations, along with drawbacks to a huge glass exterior surface, probably will mean that the building’s final design will be considerably different than what the public was shown when city officials were trying to gain voter approval for the project.

During the process to select an architect for the arena, local civic pride entered the picture, and a consortium of several well-known Kansas City architecture firms, with fine records for sports arena work, was selected for the project.

Those in charge of selecting the architects turned their backs on a truly world-class architect, who was eager to design a facility that would not only serve as a fine indoor sports arena but also would have an architectural style sure to draw thousands of visitors to the downtown area.

With growing concerns about what the arena eventually will look like and the likelihood that it will lack originality and mirror the appearance of other major cities’ sports arenas, it was interesting to hear a Kansas City architectural spokesman claim he didn’t know of any sports enthusiasts who bought tickets to see a game because of the appearance of the structure.

It seems one of the major reasons for the new Kansas City arena was to attract people to what had been a dying and deteriorating downtown area. Buildings created by the noted architecture firm of Frank Gehry have proven to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors. It is likely many downtown Kansas City merchants would like to have hundreds of thousands of visitors strolling the inner city streets along with those going to a sports event.

It will be interesting to see whether the nuts-and-bolts-style arena will end up being the panacea Kansas City leaders had hoped for. Or would a bit more vision, courage and dollars by those selecting the architect have resulted in something truly outstanding that would have served as a nationally recognized landmark for the community, a world-class tourist attraction and a winning sports arena?

Time will tell.