October 25, 1985, was a good night to be in Kansas City. The Royals won the sixth game of the World Series. Across town, Tina Turner performed at Kemper Arena.
Turner was touring in support of her smash record Private Dancer. Word of the Royals' victory passed from spectator to spectator during her rendition of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together."
Turner is still amazing. At age 70, she continues to deliver "Better Be Good to Me" in sequins and heels. Her recent tour of North America began last October at the Sprint Center.
That new downtown arena has become the venue of choice for concert promoters. Other Kemper Arena veterans — Bruce Springsteen, Neil Diamond, AC/DC — chose the Sprint Center on their last trips through town.
No surprise. New and fancy beat out old and stockyardy every time.
The city owns both venues. City Councilman Russ Johnson recently floated the idea of selling Kemper in an attempt to close the city's budget gap.
Johnson suggested that Kemper might fetch $30 million, which seems, I don't know, about $30 million too high.
While Kansas City leaders talk about turning their outdated arena into cash, the city of Dallas is spending money just to be rid of its 1970s relic. Last month, the Dallas City Council approved $2.1 million to raze Reunion Arena, which became irrelevant when the American Airlines Center opened in 2001.
Reunion Arena wasn't a total loss. The venue's Zamboni — the slow-moving, crowd-pleasing ice resurfacer — sold for $1,500.
Though his number looks fanciful, Johnson didn't pull it out of the air. He tells me that real-estate professionals suggested Kemper Arena might be worth eight figures.
One real-estate man, the suave Gib Kerr, tells me that he's very interested in what happens with the House That Gerald Ford Rocked. (Kemper was two years old when it hosted the 1976 Republican National Convention.)
Kerr knows something about finding buyers for abandoned arenas. He's managing director of the Kansas City office of Sperry Van Ness, the firm that handled the sale of the Miami Arena, which fetched $28 million at auction in 2004.
Kerr thinks Kemper might command a similar price. "The City of Independence is spending $55 million on a new arena with only about 5,800 seats," he tells me in an e-mail. "That would make Kemper look like a bargain at $25 or $30 million."
But I don't see how.
First, let's knock out the Independence comparison. The arena costs $68 million, a price that includes roads and sewers. But that doesn't mean it's worth $68 million. After all, a government decided to build the thing. The money to pay for it comes not from investors but from a sales tax levied at a neighboring Costco and other businesses.
Once it's completed, the Independence Events Center will house a minor-league hockey team. As Kerr says, it will hold "only" 5,800. But intimacy will be part of its appeal.
Kemper Arena hosted three minor-league hockey clubs that moved or ceased operation. Those teams are gone in part because the sport isn't fun to watch when the empty seats outnumber the occupied ones. (Kemper Arena seats 17,647 for hockey.)
Miami doesn't work for comparison shopping, either.
Land near downtown Miami — not the arena itself — attracted buyers. The auction winner, Glenn Straub, demolished the building last fall.
Straub now owns five acres of Miami near a light-rail stop. Kemper Arena's buyer, if one can be found, will become a West Bottoms landlord — not exactly an equivalent exchange.
So the ground underneath Kemper Arena isn't worth much. No minor-league team would dare call it home. Where does that leave us?
With God.
In 2005, Joel Osteen's Lakewood Community Church in Houston moved into the Compaq Center, a '70s-era arena where the Houston Rockets played. The megachurch paid $11.8 million to lease the building for 30 years.
Osteen wasn't the first minister to turn an NBA gym into a sanctuary. Faithful Central Bible Church in Los Angeles bought the Great Western Forum for $22.5 million. On non-Sabbath days, the church makes the venue available for secular uses. (Surviving members of the Grateful Dead will perform at the Forum May 9.)
Alas, Kansas City lacks an Osteen-type evangelist who might look at Kemper Arena as a promised land.
The largest congregation in town, Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, seems an unlikely candidate to move to the West Bottoms. To do so would mean leaving the 66224 zip code, where family incomes are double the national average.
The metro's second-biggest church, Sheffield Family Life Center, reportedly draws 4,800 people a week — not quite arena-ready. Besides, the church built a new sanctuary in 2001.
Jerry Johnston? First Family Church's Pastor Hairspray is downsizing, according to a recent Kansas City Star report.
Kerr notes the significant number of Mormons who live in Kansas City. But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is building a new temple north of the river. Besides, Joseph Smith followers show a flair for architecture — it's not their style to simply weld a cross to a building where Big 8 basketball coaches wore plaid coats.
Kerr also mentions the Church of Scientology. OK, I don't want to start a thing here. But let's just say that Scientologists don't worship in the traditional sense. The celebrity-crazed movement's signature building is the former Château Elysée, once a residential hotel for Hollywood stars.
Kemper Arena's chief tenant, the American Royal, seems willing to negotiate a sale price. The Royal is a nonprofit with $3 million in assets and a commitment to funding youth scholarships. Hard to imagine $30 mil coming out of that rodeo, in other words.
The fault, in the end, lies not with Councilman Johnson's math but with the city leaders who preceded him.
By the mid-1990s, Kemper Arena's age had begun to show. City officials faced a choice: Renovate, build a new facility or say goodbye to the Big 12 tournament.
In 1996, the city spent $23 million to expand and upgrade Kemper. But it was a waste. Not long after the work was done, Big 12 Conference officials signaled their intention to explore other options, which they did. (The aforementioned American Airlines Center hosted the 2003, 2004 and 2006 tournaments.)
City leaders toyed with the idea of giving Kemper a second makeover. Ultimately, they funded the construction of a $20 million garage, which also serves the Butler Manufacturing headquarters and the Livestock Exchange Building.
The debt for both salvage operations, now $28 million, sits on the city's books, not unlike Wall Street's toxic assets.
Former Mayor Kay Barnes finally stopped the madness and put together a downtown arena plan. Yes, the deal is unfair to visitors who rent cars. And, yes, promises of an NHL or NBA team have gone unfulfilled. But the NCAA men's basketball tournament, in town last week, was sure as hell not coming back to the West Bottoms.
And neither was Tina.
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If you gave me a map of the US and asked me to point to the worst location in all of America for an arena, I would point right about where Kemper is located. What a fraud and scam it was to put an arena down there. The city should try to donate it to the American Royal, however I am not sure they would take it with all the operating costs.
If you gave me a map of the US and asked me to point to the worst location in all of America for an arena, I would point right about where Kemper is located. What a fraud and scam it was to put an arena down there. The city should try to donate it to the American Royal, however I am not sure they would take it with all the operating costs.
You forgot to mention the fact that some acts do still come through and play Kemper, not the Sprint center; quite a few actually. I think a few million in renovations could turn Kemper into a valuable venue for concerts, and other major events, the Sprint Center is going to be full before too long, and it would save a fortune by just investing in Kemper to have a second venue. I mean do you really see the Sprint Center NOT being full for the next 5 years? If not then we should demolish Kemper,....
You forgot to mention the fact that some acts do still come through and play Kemper, not the Sprint center; quite a few actually. I think a few million in renovations could turn Kemper into a valuable venue for concerts, and other major events, the Sprint Center is going to be full before too long, and it would save a fortune by just investing in Kemper to have a second venue. I mean do you really see the Sprint Center NOT being full for the next 5 years? If not then we should demolish Kemper,....
You forgot to mention the fact that some acts do still come through and play Kemper, not the Sprint center; quite a few actually. I think a few million in renovations could turn Kemper into a valuable venue for concerts, and other major events, the Sprint Center is going to be full before too long, and it would save a fortune by just investing in Kemper to have a second venue. I mean do you really see the Sprint Center NOT being full for the next 5 years? If not then we should demolish Kemper,....
You forgot to mention the fact that some acts do still come through and play Kemper, not the Sprint center; quite a few actually. I think a few million in renovations could turn Kemper into a valuable venue for concerts, and other major events, the Sprint Center is going to be full before too long, and it would save a fortune by just investing in Kemper to have a second venue. I mean do you really see the Sprint Center NOT being full for the next 5 years? If not then we should demolish Kemper,....
Hubbard: Scientology is a power-and-money-and-intelligence-gathering game. To use common, everyday English, Scientology says that you and I and everybody else willed ourselves into being hundreds of trillions of years ago --just by deciding to be. We willed ourselves into being ourselves. Through wild space games, interaction, fights, and wars in the grand science-fiction tradition, we created this universe --all the matter, energy, space, and time of this universe. And so through these trillions of years, we have become the effect of our own cause and we now find ourselves trapped in bodies. So the idea of Scientology "auditing" or "counseling" or "processing" is to free yourself from your body and to return you to the original godlike state or, in Scientology jargon, an operating Thetan --O.T. We are all fallen gods, according to Scientology, and the goal is to be returned to that state.
Penthouse: And what is the Church of Scientology?
Hubbard: It's one of my father's many organizations. It was formed in 1953, basically to avoid the harassment of my father by the medical profession and the IRS. The idea of Scientology didn't really exist before that point as a religion, but my father hit upon turning it into a church after he started feeling pressured.
Penthouse: Didn't your father have any interest in helping people?
Hubbard: No.
Penthouse: Never?
Hubbard: My father started out as a broke science-fiction writer. He was always broke in the late 1940s. He told me and a lot of other people that the way to make a million was to start a religion. Then he wrote the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health while he was in Bayhead, New Jersey. When we later visited Bayhead, in about 1953, we were walking around and reminiscing --he told me that he had written the book in one month.
Penthouse: There was no church when he wrote the book?
Hubbard: Oh, no, no. You see, his goal was basically to write the book, take the money and run. But in 1950, this was the first major book of do-it-yourself psychotherapy, and it became a runaway best-seller. He kept getting, literally, mail trucks full of mail. And so he and some other people, including J. W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction , started the Dianetics Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And the post office kept backing up and just dumping mail sacks into the building. The foundation had a staff that just ran through the envelopes and threw away anything that didn't have any money in it.
Penthouse: People sent money?
Hubbard: Yeah, they wanted training and further Dianetic auditing, Dianetic processing. It was just an incredible avalanche.
Penthouse: Did he write the book off the top of his head? Did he do any real research?
Hubbard: No research at all. When he has answered that question over the years, his answer has changed according to which biography he was writing. Sometimes he used to write a new biography every week. He usually said that he had put thirty years of research into the book. But no, he did not. What he did, reaily, was take bits and pieces from other people and put them together in a blender and stir them all up --and out came Dianetics!
Taken from the June 1983 Penthouse interview with L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Hubbard: Scientology is a power-and-money-and-intelligence-gathering game. To use common, everyday English, Scientology says that you and I and everybody else willed ourselves into being hundreds of trillions of years ago --just by deciding to be. We willed ourselves into being ourselves. Through wild space games, interaction, fights, and wars in the grand science-fiction tradition, we created this universe --all the matter, energy, space, and time of this universe. And so through these trillions of years, we have become the effect of our own cause and we now find ourselves trapped in bodies. So the idea of Scientology "auditing" or "counseling" or "processing" is to free yourself from your body and to return you to the original godlike state or, in Scientology jargon, an operating Thetan --O.T. We are all fallen gods, according to Scientology, and the goal is to be returned to that state. Penthouse: And what is the Church of Scientology? Hubbard: It's one of my father's many organizations. It was formed in 1953, basically to avoid the harassment of my father by the medical profession and the IRS. The idea of Scientology didn't really exist before that point as a religion, but my father hit upon turning it into a church after he started feeling pressured. Penthouse: Didn't your father have any interest in helping people? Hubbard: No. Penthouse: Never? Hubbard: My father started out as a broke science-fiction writer. He was always broke in the late 1940s. He told me and a lot of other people that the way to make a million was to start a religion. Then he wrote the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health while he was in Bayhead, New Jersey. When we later visited Bayhead, in about 1953, we were walking around and reminiscing --he told me that he had written the book in one month. Penthouse: There was no church when he wrote the book? Hubbard: Oh, no, no. You see, his goal was basically to write the book, take the money and run. But in 1950, this was the first major book of do-it-yourself psychotherapy, and it became a runaway best-seller. He kept getting, literally, mail trucks full of mail. And so he and some other people, including J. W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction , started the Dianetics Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And the post office kept backing up and just dumping mail sacks into the building. The foundation had a staff that just ran through the envelopes and threw away anything that didn't have any money in it. Penthouse: People sent money? Hubbard: Yeah, they wanted training and further Dianetic auditing, Dianetic processing. It was just an incredible avalanche. Penthouse: Did he write the book off the top of his head? Did he do any real research? Hubbard: No research at all. When he has answered that question over the years, his answer has changed according to which biography he was writing. Sometimes he used to write a new biography every week. He usually said that he had put thirty years of research into the book. But no, he did not. What he did, reaily, was take bits and pieces from other people and put them together in a blender and stir them all up --and out came Dianetics! Taken from the June 1983 Penthouse interview with L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
I am aware of the difference, J. That's why the sentence with the link describes "followers of Joseph Smith," not Mormons.
I merely wanted to give both denominiations props for their sense of architecture.
Quick note:
The link inserted for the following quote takes you to the Community of Christ. This church is different from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). The Community of Christ broke off from the church restored through Joseph Smith (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) after Smith's martyrdom:
"But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is building a new temple north of the river. Besides, Joseph Smith followers show a flair for architecture"
There was an error in your article when you indicated that "worship" occurs in a Church of Scientology.
There is no worship or prayer. The reason is that Scientology is all-denominational. Although Scientology absolutely acknowledges the existence of God (Supreme Being, Author of All -- the various names given amongst the more than 2,500 religions and faiths practiced in the world), worshop and prayer is left entirely to a Scientologist's personal faith, whether at his/her Christian church, Jewish synagogue, Muslim mosque, Buddhist temple, etc.
It was scientifically proven in 1951 that a person is immortal and his/her memories go well beyond this lifetime's body. In the reduction of past life traumas, persisting unwanted conditions this lifetime are resolved.
The short videos at scientology.org detail this.
However, a person does NOT have to agree with this to benefit from the many "how-to" solutions developed by L Ron Hubbard to resolve problems faced n daily life, which are summarized for anyone to read and use at www.ScientologyHandbook.org
It is pathetic (if not outright obscene)for certain organizations to based their position and control by brainwashing people into thinking they live only one life time. The body lives one lifetime -- the person (an immortal spiritual being) continues, often forgetting what happened "earlier" -- but the tools developed by Hubbard enable any individual to regain awareness and increase abilities that have long remained dormant. It is well known that a person only uses 10 percent of his/her abilities. Have you ever considered what the other 90 percent might be?
I am aware of the difference, J. That's why the sentence with the link describes "followers of Joseph Smith," not Mormons. I merely wanted to give both denominiations props for their sense of architecture.
Quick note: The link inserted for the following quote takes you to the Community of Christ. This church is different from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). The Community of Christ broke off from the church restored through Joseph Smith (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) after Smith's martyrdom: "But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is building a new temple north of the river. Besides, Joseph Smith followers show a flair for architecture"
There was an error in your article when you indicated that "worship" occurs in a Church of Scientology. There is no worship or prayer. The reason is that Scientology is all-denominational. Although Scientology absolutely acknowledges the existence of God (Supreme Being, Author of All -- the various names given amongst the more than 2,500 religions and faiths practiced in the world), worshop and prayer is left entirely to a Scientologist's personal faith, whether at his/her Christian church, Jewish synagogue, Muslim mosque, Buddhist temple, etc. It was scientifically proven in 1951 that a person is immortal and his/her memories go well beyond this lifetime's body. In the reduction of past life traumas, persisting unwanted conditions this lifetime are resolved. The short videos at scientology.org detail this. However, a person does NOT have to agree with this to benefit from the many "how-to" solutions developed by L Ron Hubbard to resolve problems faced n daily life, which are summarized for anyone to read and use at www.ScientologyHandbook.org It is pathetic (if not outright obscene)for certain organizations to based their position and control by brainwashing people into thinking they live only one life time. The body lives one lifetime -- the person (an immortal spiritual being) continues, often forgetting what happened "earlier" -- but the tools developed by Hubbard enable any individual to regain awareness and increase abilities that have long remained dormant. It is well known that a person only uses 10 percent of his/her abilities. Have you ever considered what the other 90 percent might be?
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