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Second St. Louis MLS group unveils stadium renderings

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The MLS expansion showdown between the two competing St. Louis groups is heating up.

While the first group, led by former Anhauser-Busch president Dace Peacock is narrowing their focus  for a stadium site, the second group, led by  former Express Scripts executive Dan Cordes, has stepped up the competition by unveiling renderings of their potential stadium.

The site, a 13-acre plot located at the intersections of Grand Boulevard and Chouteau Avenue, is owned by St. Louis University and would host an expansion MLS team as well as a professional women’s soccer team, SLU’s men’s and women’s soccer teams, and other events such as concerts.

The stadium would seat 22,500 people and is estimated to cost between $135-150 million and Cordes expects it would be mostly privately funded, though with some public assistance in the form of tax increment financing. As SLU owns the land, Cordes “Foundry St. Louis” group would lease from the university after building the stadium.

Cordes has stated that his group anticipates submitting a proposal to MLS by November ahead of a meeting of the league’s owners to discuss potential expansion plans.

Comments

  1. We need these stadiums to be larger than 20k! At the very least aim for 30k so that you can semi-respectively hold a USNT game. Just look at the numbers the USWNT has been getting in the last few years, or any of the MNT qualifying games. Those games are forced to move to NFL venues played on hastily assembled grass over turf fields. We should be playing them in MLS stadiums! With St. Louis location within the US this should be a no-brainer…

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    • This is something I’ve been preaching for a couple of years. Look at Sporting KC and Portland–sold out every game for years. Orlando consistently getting big crowds (31,000 average), NYCFC gets good attendance at Yankee Stadium and of course Seattle. Five teams are averaging over 25,000 this season. Soccer is really going to take off in the next 5 to 10 years and the owners need to think bigger.

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    • In business go with what works that’s why the new iPhone looks just like the last one. When people demand change it will happen until the 20-25k is a good average size. When the fans show the passion you can always expand.

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    • something to be said about having guaranteed packed houses in these 18-20k stadiums for MLS and US games,

      but i agree this country has very few 30-40k seater, grass field, urban stadiums (TFC, RFK, Hartford, thats about it..) that really fit the needs of the current US national teams and MLS teams in the very near future. whoever fills that niche will get a lot of international games and be a very well funded MLS team.

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    • Or since there are literally millions of soccer players around the world add as many teams as you want. If the American players want to make it let them earn it. That’s what’s wrong with the English system.

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      • I don’t think that is the issue with the English system (and there are many). I think (and I could be wrong)is: (1) the type of players that they are developing (2) not giving talented players enough playing time at the higher level and ROOM to make mistakes and learn. There is too much to loose in terms of money for dropping out of the premier league so teams just buy players from other leagues (which many have done exactly that). To put things in perspective, a team at the bottom of the premier (20) earns more than a team who makes to the group stage of the Champions League (the numbers are available). The team who wins the Premier League earns more than the team who wins the Champions League. In fact, the last team in the premier league (Aston Villa) last year earned more some teams who made it to the knock out stages in the Champions League.

      • no intentions on starting another pro/rel debate… but please don’t call it the English system! feel free to call it the system used in every country except USA, Canada and a fair amount of other countries either too small or economically turbulent to develop a complete soccer pyramid

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