Roy Blunt Luminary Park, the much-discussed plan to build a park over four blocks of I-670 in downtown Kansas City, just missed another federal grant application, according to the Kansas City Business Journal. The city’s request for $25 million was not included in the federal Department of Transportation’s recent round of $1.73 billion in handouts.
It’s the fourth rejection from the feds since 2022. Over the past four years, the city has failed to impress federal reviewers for the RAISE program in 2022 ($25 million), the Mega program in 2023 ($60 million), the Reconnecting Communities & Neighborhoods program in 2024 ($75 million), and now the BUILD program (previously called RAISE). Three different federal programs and four different reviews yielded the same answer.
Maybe, just maybe, the universe is trying to send city hall a message: Stop!
But the response from city leaders has been the same each time: Keep going. This time, they want to issue $51.6 million in new bonds, backed by convention and tourism taxes plus “any legally available” revenue, and repay it over 15 years.
The project’s own history is a warning. An HNTB study in 2017 estimated the cost at $139 million to $175 million. It ballooned to $217 million in 2023. Now the “target budget” is $315 million. Assistant City Manager Jeff Martin attributes the increases to “more refined” estimates.
Exactly how were they generating estimates before? With a Magic 8 Ball?
As the costs have climbed, the completion dates have been extended. Officials once hoped to finish before the World Cup; now they hope to open a single block by 2029, and a second phase is set to begin in 2032 with no committed completion date.
It’s setting up to be our version of Boston’s Big Dig, the project that rerouted Interstate 93 underground through downtown. Originally pitched at $2.8 billion in the mid-1980s, it climbed to $6 billion when formally approved. When it finally opened, years late, the true cost approached $15 billion.
Luminary Park is much less ambitious, but the story is the same: Cost estimates that grow every time they’re revisited, a completion date that disappears into the horizon, and a funding gap filled with more and more public borrowing.
This is a bad idea. It’s time to pull the plug.
