urbanSTL

Looks like St Louis being heavily considered for a future MLS team per today's PD.



St. Louis still a candidate for MLS

By Tom Timmermann

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

"We're continuing to move forward with our plans for St. Louis," said Michael Huyghue, one of the potential owners. "I'm very, very optimistic and I think the ball is rolling, but it's premature to say it's a go. All the work that needs to be done is being done."



-snip-



"St. Louis is very much on the horizon for a team," Huyghue said. "We don't have to do anything heroic or Herculean. There's nothing to lessen the league's interest in St. Louis."



The ownership group has pretty much settled on a Metro East site and recently commissioned a second feasibility study to look at whether Missouri residents would cross the Mississippi to attend games in Illinois. An announcement on a team could come before the start of the World Cup on June 9, and possibly next week.

Link to Article

Also looks like the future stadium will be in the Metro East. I wonder where...

My preferred location for an MLS stadium is the East St. Louis riverfront. It has regional accessibility and visibility that's second only to downtown, it would be another piece in the puzzle toward reviving the east riverfront, and East St. Louis could certainly use the investment.



That said, I'm okay with the Collinsville location. I'd much rather drive there than most places in St. Louis County, especially those beyond Interstate 270.



Although a location within the City of St. Louis would still be the most ideal scenario IMHO, potential sites are limited, and the measure passed after the Cardinals' stadium was built requiring a vote on public funding would likely doom a city-based MLS venue.

I dont care where in IL it is - as long as you can get there via Metro link. East side of the river front would be my definate 1st choice, but anything HAS to have a metro link within close distance.

Are there any plans for metrolink to go up to collinsville?



I also prefer an east riverfront location. In fact, Eero Saarinen's original riverfont plans included a sports stadium on this location. In any case there should be more than a park there.

This news is encouraging! I really hope the Illinois officials have the foresight to put the stadium in East STL. Besides the access advantages (including train), this could really give another boost to that poor city.

ArchMadness wrote:This news is encouraging! I really hope the Illinois officials have the foresight to put the stadium in East STL. Besides the access advantages (including train), this could really give another boost to that poor city.

A "good" boost is imporatnt - as opposed to strip clubs <sauget> and casinos <ESTL>. But that boost would be purely seasonal... so just as BUSCH II wasn't the cure for downtown in the mid 60s, nor was the arch, or STL Centre in the 80s - we shouldn't look for the stadium as a cure, just a step in the right direction.

The stadium just needs to be somewhere outside of downtown, but not in the suburbs of either side of the river. Just look at Houston's venues and New York's. they arent in downtown like Busch or the Jones Dome but they arent to far away either. IMO that is where the stadium needs to be.

A soccer stadium doesn't need to have parking for 60,000 cars the way other venues might. We're talking more in numbers of a hockey game. I think you build a stadium that can hold (at most) 30,000 but no less than 20,000. With more transit coming in, the Metro Link is a more viable use since it goes right by the East Riverfront.



But I wouldn't put it on the Cargill site, I'd move it further north, so the MetroLink would run right by it. In between the Eads and MLK, I think there should be enough room to fit a stadium. That would give great access to highways, great transit access, and even a walkability point with Eads Bridge. Casino Queen could provide some of their lot for parking, and you could have a great soccer stadium and campus to really create a unique feeling in that location.

only problem I see with that is the lack of view of the arch/downtown (blocked by the Eads bridge). To me one of the big reasons to build right there assopposed to collinsville is the view of the city - similar to the new Cards Stadium - great views, great memories.

The stadium wouldn't be right up against the river. You would set it back enough to have that view. Eads eventually falls back to street level. So theoretically, you could have a campus of practice fields and facilities attached to the stadium grounds that took up the rest of the land up to the riverfront. And at that point, you could even create a river lookout point for fans to check out. Maybe a family area as well.

They could always put it underneath the arch.

St. Louis Texan wrote:They could always put it underneath the arch.

I am sure the federal goverment and parks service would love this....

we could even use the arch as one of the goals, that would save some money.

We would have the highest scoring games ever. Can you say, "MVP Player every year?"

Maybe we should build the MLS soccer stadium at 15th and Cole streets to complete the bracketting of downtown with stadii and start reviving that corner of downtown.



Downtown Map

Gary Kreie wrote:Maybe we should build the MLS soccer stadium at 15th and Cole streets to complete the bracketting of downtown with stadii and start reviving that corner of downtown.



Downtown Map

/Guiness



Brilliant!



/

Gary and TCS, both of you have great ideas!



I think the 15th and Cole would be a good site for a soccer stadium. And TCS, I think I'll drink a Guinness before I go to bed.



Seriously, has anyone heard anything about MLS expansion plans? I've focused on the World Cup, and with the ongoing Cardinals slump, I haven't paid much attention to other happenings in sports.

There is a gigantic open patch of land (well, not gigantic, but two full blocks between Carr and Biddle east of 18th. The only problem I see with this location (northwest downtown area) is the lack of highway access. Both Busch and Kiel Center sit abutting 64/40, and the Dome sits next to 70. Great highway access is a staple of sports stadia (stadii? ).



I wouldn't have a problem with a northwest downtown location, but I think the East riverfront would work better because of bridge access with the MLK and Eads bridges, a potential for a future north Mississippi River bridge, and great Metro East highway access, not to mention MetroLink.

The original Mississippi River Bridge Plan would have funnelled traffic right into 15th and Cole.



http://www.newriverbridge.org/pdf/MissouriMap.pdf

^ And now the prospects for any new Mississippi River bridge don't look so good.



I'd prefer a city location, and then the East St. Louis riverfront. However, I'm perfectly okay with a team locating in the eastern suburbs. Hopefully we'll see good news on this front sometime soon.

Multiple-Listing-System Team? Wow, Real-Estate agents have gone too far on this one. Remax vs. CBG I'm guessing.