Ownership wants to break ground by spring in order to open the stadium in time for the first game in March '22HOK
Plans for a $250M MLS stadium in downtown St. Louis have "gotten bigger, now stretching three blocks north of Market Street" for the 22,500-seat venue, according to a front-page piece by Barker & Frederickson of the ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH. Practice fields and other team facilities would be "wedged south of Market between 21st and 22nd streets, replacing empty land and highway on- and off-ramps." Sources said that the expansion team's ownership group plans to "retain private ownership of the stadium, taking responsibility for its upkeep and maintenance and paying some property taxes," rather than "leasing it from the city." The ownership group, led by Enterprise Holdings Foundation President Carolyn Kindle Betz and the Taylor family, has been "quietly reaching deals with private landowners on the north end of the footprint," and "all but one property owner is under contract." Ownership "wants to break ground by spring in order to open the stadium in time for the first game" in March '22. Though the group would "own the stadium, it still plans to ask for 25 years of property tax abatement" on the value of the development. Much of the stadium's financing plan "remains the same: owners hope to impose three 1% sales taxes using special taxing districts." They also expect $30M in "state tax credits from the Missouri Development Finance Board for site preparation." Meanwhile, the latest plans show the "open-air stadium awning won't be divided into two, right-angled pieces," as it was in renderings released in April (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 10/30).
EXCITEMENT BUILDING: In St. Louis, Ben Frederickson writes the updated renderings of the stadium development "represent a commitment from the MLS4TheLou ownership group." This will be a "stadium you walk to and down into, feeling the excitement grow as the noise bounces between the canopy and the natural grass pitch." It is "hard to feel much more than excitement at this point" (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 10/30).
