After 127 years, the American Royal owns its barns. The barbecue is invitation-only.

The American Royal walked its first horse into its own barn on Thursday.

The organization opened the Barns & Exhibition Hall at its new campus near 118th Street and State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas, on September 10, with a ribbon cutting, guided tours of all five gable sections, and the first horse led into the building under a giant horseshoe installed over the entrance, per KSHB 41’s Rachel Henderson. The day was invitation-only. It was the first piece of a $375 million project to open, and, per the station and the Royal’s own April announcement, the first time in the organization’s 127-year history that it has held an event on a campus it owns. The West Bottoms buildings that have been its home for those 127 years belong to the City of Kansas City, Missouri.

“The first meeting I attended on a new American Royal was in 2014, so this has been a long time coming, and there have been lots of places where people have been like, ‘Is this really going to happen,’” Jackie McClaskey, president of the American Royal Association, told KSHB. “But you just gotta have faith and you gotta know that you gotta get it done.”

Unified Government Mayor Christal Watson called the day “a celebration of tradition, community and an exciting future that is ahead,” per the station. “Wyandotte County is proud to be the future home of this treasured institution.”

What opened

The building is 390,000 square feet: five barn gables joined into one exhibition hall, with 3,774 cattle ties, 1,528 horse stalls, and room for up to eight temporary arenas, per KSHB’s tour of the site in August. The campus sits on about 80 acres east of 118th Street, just northwest of Kansas Speedway, and its permanent address is 1899 American Royal Way, per the Royal’s site.

What did not

Everything else. The Royal’s site lists the rest of the project as a main indoor arena of 5,000 to 8,000 seats, a second indoor arena of 3,000 to 6,000 seats, a covered outdoor arena, a 270,000-square-foot outdoor plaza, and an 80,000-square-foot Food and Agriculture Learning and Engagement Center with, per the Royal’s April announcement, a 750-seat amphitheater. KSHB reported that the additional construction is expected to be completed in late 2028. The Royal’s own page says the full campus is expected by March 2029, and that headquarters will stay in the West Bottoms until a move “no later than March 2029.” Both were live on September 12, 2026.

The UPHA American Royal National Championship Horse Show in November will stay in the West Bottoms, the Royal says, because the barn standing in as an arena this year “isn’t wide enough to safely accommodate the speed and style of Saddlebred classes.” What happens to the West Bottoms buildings after the move is not the Royal’s decision to make. They are owned by the City of Kansas City, Missouri, and “future use will be determined by the city,” per the Royal’s site.

Three years for a one-year job

Ground broke in March 2023, per KSHB and Ingram’s. In November 2023, at a steel-column raising attended by Governor Laura Kelly, the Unified Government’s own news article put the project at $350 million and said the first event was expected by late 2025 or early 2026. Then the private money ran out and construction stopped. “What we thought in the last round would take us about a year or so to finish took us three,” McClaskey told KSHB in August.

The restart ran through the Unified Government commission twice. On April 24, 2025, commissioners approved an amended STAR bond project plan and development agreement that set the public bond figure at $155 million on a $375 million project, up from a first request of $80 million on a $165 million project, per KSHB. Commissioner Phil Lopez was the only no vote on all three items, and Commissioner Chuck Stites did not vote, citing a conflict of interest. On December 4, 2025, per Ingram’s, the commission approved a reworked “barns-first” version that split the bonds into two rounds, the first to finish the exhibition hall. The Royal says the first round closed in early March 2026. When construction actually resumed depends on who is asked: late March, per KSHB; mid-April, per the Royal’s own site.

Who paid what

Of the $375 million, $155 million is STAR bonds, which is 41 percent. Sales Tax and Revenue bonds, per the Kansas Department of Commerce, let a Kansas municipality borrow to build “major commercial, entertainment and tourism projects,” and “the bonds are paid off through the sales tax revenue generated by the development.” Here that means the state’s pledge of its sales tax inside the district plus the Unified Government’s share of sales tax from Plaza at the Speedway for 20 years, per KSHB’s account of the 2025 agreement. It is tax that would otherwise be ordinary revenue. The Royal’s site said on September 12 that “more than 75 percent” of the $375 million is in place through charitable contributions, private financing, and public commitments, with fundraising ongoing for the rest.

As a nonprofit, the Royal intends to file with the Kansas Board of Tax Appeals for a property tax exemption on the new campus, and it could not file until the campus opened, per KSHB. Even exempt, it would pay the Unified Government about $2.5 million in Board of Public Utilities payments in lieu of taxes, per the station’s 2025 report. The Unified Government’s own 2023 projections for the campus were 4,900 new jobs, two million visitors a year, and $526 million in economic growth over 20 years.

What 41 percent buys at the door

A public share that size comes with a plain question: what can a resident walk into? The Kansas City Stare read the Royal’s event and ticket pages on September 12, 2026, and this is what they said.

Royal Showcase Horse Show, September 12–13. The first event on the schedule. The page lists a showbill and show-office hours and no admission price, so whether a spectator pays cannot be told from it.

Cutting Horse Show, September 18–20. $22 general admission for the September 19 session, per the Royal’s ticket page: the first ticket the public can buy on the new campus. The Royal’s own pages disagree on when the show ends, September 18–21 on its “Our New Home” page and April announcement, September 18–20 on its calendar and event page.

World Series of Barbecue, September 30–October 4. This is the event the public’s agreement secured. The 2025 development agreement states the contest “will be held exclusively in Wyandotte County during the life of the agreement,” per KSHB. This year the public is not invited. “Due to ongoing construction at the new site, there will not be a main stage or public activities,” the Royal’s page says; the on-site experience is for “invited guests.” The ticket page sells a $25 single-entry ticket for Friday, October 2, plus a $2.68 fee, gates at 3 p.m., children under 10 free, with the note that it is for people “invited to a specific team or corporate party.” The Barbecue Hall of Fame ceremony on October 3 is at Kansas Speedway, not on the campus.

Fall Livestock Show, October 9–25. The Royal’s calendar says October 8. No admission is listed. The Junior Premium Livestock Auction is October 17 and the 4-H/FFA Livestock Judging Contest is October 18.

The Royal’s own explanation comes first: the campus is an active construction site, a barn is doing an arena’s job, and “for the next couple of years, we will not be able to have the full footprint we’ve had in the past.” It has asked visitors to “show patience and understanding as we work through the first events at the new site,” and Visit Kansas City Kansas says the Royal plans to expand the barbecue “as construction progresses and the campus is completed.”

That is the state of it on opening week. The barns are real, the ribbon is cut, and the first public seat costs $22. The barbecue, the one event the agreement pins to Wyandotte County for its whole life, comes back to the public on a date no one has printed yet.

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Sourcing: the opening, quotes, and building figures are from KSHB 41's reporting of September 10 and August 25, 2026; the commission votes and agreement terms from KSHB 41 (April 28, 2025) and Ingram's (December 9, 2025); the STAR bond definition from the Kansas Department of Commerce; the 2023 projections from the Unified Government's own news article of December 1, 2023; event dates, prices, and public-access terms from americanroyal.com, its Ticketspice pages, and visitkansascityks.com, all read September 12, 2026. The Stare was not present at the opening and claims no firsthand reporting. Corrections: corrections@kcstare.com.