Voters could bring the MLS to St. Louis April 4th

[Bizziken]

Hopefully the NGA, Cortex, the aquarium and further Midtown development will spur more investment in the area sans a soccer stadium. 

[Box and Won]

20 minutes ago, Pistol said:

This is a big impediment to getting a stadium built anywhere else in the region.

Cincinnati's USL team plays in Nippert Stadium on UC's campus, where the Bearcats football team plays. It seats about 40,000 and they usually fill it with about half that amount on weekends, sometimes more. This fan base was pretty unexpected, but the team plays in a densely populated neighborhood surrounding Ohio's second-largest university. Like SLU, it's just a couple miles outside of downtown, it's along several major bus routes, and has thousands and thousands of 20-somethings (and me!) within walking distance. There's a separate end-zone seating area that the hooligans have claimed as their own. The soccer team's owners have paid to renovate Nippert in a way that makes it compliant with MLS and FIFA standards, to the tune of a few million bucks. This USL franchise has been a success beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

And in spite of all of these factors that make it the PERFECT venue for an MLS team, MLS has indicated that it still wants a downtown soccer-specific stadium for the team. In a small downtown that already has two stadiums, it's a real estate conundrum and a huge potential waste of money, private and/or public.

So good luck getting anything built outside of downtown STL, let alone out in the far suburbs or exurbs.

Sadly, we have several downtown sites large enough to accommodate a soccer stadium.

[For-DaLove]

19 minutes ago, brianstl said:

Yeah, except for all the recent additions to the league that don't play downtown.  You have Portland, Minnesota's new stadium isn't being built in Downtown St. Paul or Downtown Minneapolis, Orlando doesn't have a traditional downtown, Philadelphia is actually located in Chester, NY City's new stadium will be built in Concourse Park (a residential neighborhood), LA FC's new Stadium is being built in Exposition Park and none of the proposed Miami sites have been downtown.

 

Orlando's is in downtown. The major hold up on Miami's has been due to the fact that the MLS wouldn't let Beckham build the stadium further away from the city. Garber has been quoted many times saying MLS is looking for downtown stadiums.

Of course there are exceptions, as you noted, but some of those aren't in total contrast to the downtown theme. For example, Minnesota United's new stadium will be centrally located between Minneapolis and St. Paul.

St. Louis was not going to receive a franchise unless the stadium was located downtown or in the city proper (maybe midtown would work). The MLS2STL group was very aware of this.

 

[MusicCityBilliken]

17 minutes ago, For-DaLove said:

Orlando's is in downtown. The major hold up on Miami's has been due to the fact that the MLS wouldn't let Beckham build the stadium further away from the city. Garber has been quoted many times saying MLS is looking for downtown stadiums.

Of course there are exceptions, as you noted, but some of those aren't in total contrast to the downtown theme. For example, Minnesota United's new stadium will be centrally located between Minneapolis and St. Paul.

St. Louis was not going to receive a franchise unless the stadium was located downtown or in the city proper (maybe midtown would work). The MLS2STL group was very aware of this.

 

Atlanta will soon be relocating to the Mercedes Benz Stadium, it's downtown. Temporarily they playing at the Bobby Dodd Stadium (Georgia Tech's football stadium), which I would consider Mid-Town Atlanta. Mercedes Benz is also the new home of the Atlanta Falcons. 

[SShoe]

Just now, Bizziken said:

Hopefully the NGA, Cortex, the aquarium and further Midtown development will spur more investment in the area sans a soccer stadium. 

Cortex is killing it right now and is a huge reason to be hopeful.  Soccer team or no, companies (big and small) are locating there specifically for the environment.

Funny you mentioned the NGA.  Someone told me yesterday that the 1.2 million square foot Railway Exchange building in Downtown contained nearly 4K employees that were almost all employed at the May Company (Macy's) before it was acquired and those jobs were relocated. As great as the NGA announcement is, it's expected to employ only 3K. Mergers and acquisitions have not been kind to our region. 

[AnkielBreakers]

1 hour ago, SShoe said:

I wanted the stadium project to pass, but this is why I cringed every time a supporter tried to sell the stadium deal.  Why does anybody in their right mind think a soccer stadium, or really any sports facility, would change the fate of this region's economy? We really need to get away from talking about economic development in terms of silver-bullet projects. There are a lot of things that St. Louis can and should do that would drive real growth and very few of them involve shovels. 

Well, what this city needs is to lure in or retain Fortune 500 companies.  The city has had difficulty selling itself to those companies because of its taxes, because it is hard to recruit talent into St. Louis, and because of crime.  The stadium would not help with taxes, the metrolink expansion kind of kills everyone wth taxes.  I believe crime will not change with the 4 million dollars in revenue.  However, the younger generation appreciates soccer.  A soccer stadium could help attract talent to St. Louis.

I hope that this money goes towards cutting down on crime, but I would advise against holding ones breath.

[brianstl]

Just now, SShoe said:

Cortex is killing it right now and is a huge reason to be hopeful.  Soccer team or no, companies (big and small) are locating there specifically for the environment.

Funny you mentioned the NGA.  Someone told me yesterday that the 1.2 million square foot Railway Exchange building in Downtown contained nearly 4K employees that were almost all employed at the May Company (Macy's) before it was acquired and those jobs were relocated. As great as the NGA announcement is, it's expected to employ only 3K. Mergers and acquisitions have not been kind to our region. 

Today you can add Panera to that list.

Also, downtown lost a certain feel when those May jobs were lost.  For some reason the people that worked at May were more likely to hang around downtown after work than other downtown workers.

[brianstl]

2 minutes ago, AnkielBreakers said:

Well, what this city needs is to lure in or retain Fortune 500 companies.  The city has had difficulty selling itself to those companies because of its taxes, because it is hard to recruit talent into St. Louis, and because of crime.  The stadium would not help with taxes, the metrolink expansion kind of kills everyone wth taxes.  I believe crime will not change with the 4 million dollars in revenue.  However, the younger generation appreciates soccer.  A soccer stadium could help attract talent to St. Louis.

I hope that this money goes towards cutting down on crime, but I would advise against holding ones breath.

Do you know any business that has moved to be be in the same city as an MLS team?

St Louis started losing what was at one time a really large share of Fortune 500 and 1000 companies when it had the NFL, MLB and NHL.  What really hurt was TWA falling apart and international business consolidation.  The first made St Louis harder to get to both internationally and domestically.  The second made the coasts much more attractive  for headquarters location.

We can't make St. Louis closer to Asia, Europe, Central America or South America.  

We could do something about the airline situation.  If you really wanted to throw public money at someone, throw it at one of the big airlines to put a major hub in STL with multiple daily international arrivals and departures.  That would do far more good than throwing public money at a stadium.

[BillsCPA]

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/map-how-the-mls-stadium-vote-failed/article_2dc4be87-9bfb-5d62-917e-037bcdeb5ce5.html

 

seems clear from the map what demographic don't like soccer....

[cheeseman]

7 hours ago, Old guy said:

Isn't the Loop located in U City?, what does this have to do with St. Louis City funding?

Yes part of it is - it starts or ends depending how you look at it at the History Museum

[AnkielBreakers]

1 hour ago, SShoe said:

I wanted the stadium project to pass, but this is why I cringed every time a supporter tried to sell the stadium deal.  Why does anybody in their right mind think a soccer stadium, or really any sports facility, would change the fate of this region's economy? We really need to get away from talking about economic development in terms of silver-bullet projects. There are a lot of things that St. Louis can and should do that would drive real growth and very few of them involve shovels. 

That is a great idea, but it is either a county issue (since Lambert is in the county), or plays right into the problem of attracting talent to St. Louis.  Also, the companies that merged and left are gone, we need new ones.  Football never really meshed with St. Louis, either time it was here.  I felt soccer could be a good fit.  What we just did was to increase the sales tax, without adding anything of value to a potential company looking at this area.

[Bizziken]

14 minutes ago, SShoe said:

Cortex is killing it right now and is a huge reason to be hopeful.  Soccer team or no, companies (big and small) are locating there specifically for the environment.

Funny you mentioned the NGA.  Someone told me yesterday that the 1.2 million square foot Railway Exchange building in Downtown contained nearly 4K employees that were almost all employed at the May Company (Macy's) before it was acquired and those jobs were relocated. As great as the NGA announcement is, it's expected to employ only 3K. Mergers and acquisitions have not been kind to our region. 

Yeah...hopefully the $1.75B NGA investment is just the beginning for that area. Definitely not a panacea though. 

The startup that I work for is moving downtown, which I guess is a good sign. Even though it took a lot of convincing. It really is sad after seeing all the development occuring in Philly, Denver, Seattle, Nashville, etc and comparing that to StL. 

[cheeseman]

3 minutes ago, brianstl said:

Do you know any business that has moved to be be in the same city as an MLS team?

St Louis started losing what was at one time a really large share of Fortune 500 and 1000 companies when it had the NFL, MLB and NHL.  What really hurt was TWA falling apart and international business consolidation.  The first made St Louis harder to get to both internationally and domestically.  The second made the coasts much more attractive  for headquarters location.

We can't make St. Louis closer to Asia, Europe, Central America or South America.  

We could do something about the airline situation.  If you really wanted to throw public money at someone, throw it at one of the big airlines to put a major hub in STL with multiple daily international arrivals and departures.  That would do far more good than throwing public money at a stadium.

Right now SWA has made StL a hub but not in name.  Well over 200 flights a day and you can fly direct to many cities most would be surprised who haven't been paying attention.  I accept the international issue you raise as a problem but as you said nothing can be done about that.  Our loss of Fortune 500 and 1000 companies was not a function of StL but of the companies being bought by other companies.  Can you really fault successful companies being attractive to others?  Unless you are on the coasts lots of cities have suffered the same fate.  Seems like we get a company up and going well and another steps in like with Scott Trade.

[cheeseman]

1 minute ago, Bizziken said:

Yeah...hopefully the $1.75B NGA investment is just the beginning for that area. Definitely not a panacea though. 

The startup that I work for is moving downtown, which I guess is a good sign. Even though it took a lot of convincing. It really is sad after seeing all the development occuring in Philly, Denver, Seattle, Nashville, etc and comparing that to StL. 

Philly might as well be on the coast.  Seattle is on the coast and Denver has the Rocky Mtns.  Nashville - big music center which is a rather unique situation that could not easily be repeatable.  Downtown is not the issue - it is the region.  For some reason people think if it doesn't happen in the City then it doesn't count.

[Box and Won]

27 minutes ago, brianstl said:

Today you can add Panera to that list.

Also, downtown lost a certain feel when those May jobs were lost.  For some reason the people that worked at May were more likely to hang around downtown after work than other downtown workers.

Sounds like Panera should be okay.  

May was a huge loss.  Having worked downtown before and after the acquisition, I can attest that their presence made a huge difference.

On the bright - but still morbid - side, the retail industry is in the toilet, so May would be fuoked if they were still around.

[bonwich]

12 minutes ago, AnkielBreakers said:

That is a great idea, but it is either a county issue (since Lambert is in the county), or plays right into the problem of attracting talent to St. Louis.  Also, the companies that merged and left are gone, we need new ones.  Football never really meshed with St. Louis, either time it was here.  I felt soccer could be a good fit.  What we just did was to increase the sales tax, without adding anything of value to a potential company looking at this area.

You might want to bone up on regional idiosyncrasies. Lambert is owned by the City. 

[HoosierPal]

1 hour ago, For-DaLove said:

Orlando's is in downtown. The major hold up on Miami's has been due to the fact that the MLS wouldn't let Beckham build the stadium further away from the city. Garber has been quoted many times saying MLS is looking for downtown stadiums.

Of course there are exceptions, as you noted, but some of those aren't in total contrast to the downtown theme. For example, Minnesota United's new stadium will be centrally located between Minneapolis and St. Paul.

St. Louis was not going to receive a franchise unless the stadium was located downtown or in the city proper (maybe midtown would work). The MLS2STL group was very aware of this.

 

San Diego's proposed stadium for their MLS entry would be at the site of Qualcomm Stadium, which is about 7 miles via interstate highways from DT San Diego.

[Box and Won]

10 minutes ago, Bizziken said:

Yeah...hopefully the $1.75B NGA investment is just the beginning for that area. Definitely not a panacea though. 

The startup that I work for is moving downtown, which I guess is a good sign. Even though it took a lot of convincing. It really is sad after seeing all the development occuring in Philly, Denver, Seattle, Nashville, etc and comparing that to StL. 

It's always interesting to me when St. Louisans wonder why we can't be like cities with thriving urban cores, but then they locate their businesses in the burbs and/or don't support the urban businesses we have.

World Wide Technology would've had a much bigger impact on downtown than a soccer stadium.

[Bizziken]

1 minute ago, cheeseman said:

Philly might as well be on the coast.  Seattle is on the coast and Denver has the Rocky Mtns.  Nashville - big music center which is a rather unique situation that could not easily be repeatable.  Downtown is not the issue - it is the region.  For some reason people think if it doesn't happen in the City then it doesn't count.

I respectfully disagree. I think downtown is the issue...or at least the city/county divide certainly is.

[Glorydays2013]

5 minutes ago, bonwich said:

You might want to bone up on regional idiosyncrasies. Lambert is owned by the City. 

Talks are in place to have Lambert move to private ownership. Would be the 2nd airport in the country to do so, but can be a huge burden off the cities shoulders

[Bizziken]

6 minutes ago, Box and Won said:

It's always interesting to me when St. Louisans wonder why we can't be like cities with thriving urban cores, but then they locate their businesses in the burbs and/or don't support the urban businesses we have.

World Wide Technology would've had a much bigger impact on downtown than a soccer stadium.

That is certainly hypocritical. However, it's a chicken or the egg argument. Safety, taxes, unnecessary regulatory restrictions are all rampant in the city, which is why businesses go to the burbs. Clean that up, and there may be more investment in the city. And again, a lot of this goes back to the City/County divide and the fractured nature that is the St. Louis area.

[JMM28]

2 minutes ago, Bizziken said:

That is certainly hypocritical. However, it's a chicken or the egg argument. Safety, taxes, unnecessary regulatory restrictions are all rampant in the city, which is why businesses go to the burbs. Clean that up, and there may be more investment in the city. And again, a lot of this goes back to the City/County divide and the fractured nature that is the St. Louis area.

There has to be a few early adopters to plant their flag in the city. I don't know the details, but it seems like the city had some solid plans for the Washington Avenue area but it hasn't really gained any momentum for anything that isn't propped up by tax abatements, credits, and other incentives. 

[SShoe]

Figured this was a good opportunity to post this Atlantic article about changes to federal antitrust and competition laws in the 1970s and 80s and their impact on St. Louis and places like it. Good perspective on how changes occurring at national or global levels can greatly impact regional economies and there is really nothing local politicians can do about it. 

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/how-americas-coastal-cities-left-the-heartland-behind/478296/

[willie]

1 hour ago, Glorydays2013 said:

Talks are in place to have Lambert move to private ownership. Would be the 2nd airport in the country to do so, but can be a huge burden off the cities shoulders

I'm not sure this is correct. I think the city will still own the airport but will farm out administration to a private concern. 

[AGB91]

Willie, you are correct.