KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) — The sketches and computer animations for a rolling roof at Arrowhead Stadium look like something from "The Jetsons."
But with frigid conditions predicted for the Chiefs AFC Championship Game with the New England Patriots, some fans are giving the failed plan from 2006 a second look.
“That would’ve been amazing,” Chiefs fan Valerie Matthews told our Kansas City affiliate WDAF Fox4 KC.
Jackson County voters rejected the $170 million plan to install a rolling roof that could have alternated between Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums in 2006.
The Chiefs would have had the option of playing in the elements on comfortable fall Sundays or pulling over a lid, of sorts, to create a climate controlled atmosphere at Arrowhead on the bitterly cold or rainy days.
“It would’ve been extremely cool,” said Jim Rowland, executive director for the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority.
The rolling roof plan failed, with 52 percent of voters saying no in the April 2006 election. The price tag would have been covered by a special use tax on businesses.
“I don’t know that it was so well thought out that, that they had their arms wrapped around the cost and how to do it,” Rowland said. “But it was an issue that was on the ballot that eventually was rejected by the voters.”
It’s not every year that the Chiefs are playing games in mid-January. But with the Patrick Mahomes-era just beginning, some fans are hoping home games in January at Arrowhead Stadium could become the new normal.
And many believe it may be time to give the rolling roof a second look.
“A lot of people that currently have tickets are actually giving up their tickets,” Valerie Matthews said. “So it would be an incentive to go.”
