Update: On Wednesday, the Taylor family's plan for the soccer stadium, should St. Louis secure a Major League Soccer team, was approved unanimously by the St. Louis Housing, Urban Development, and Zoning Committee. It will be brought to the full Board of Alderman to vote on Friday.
“The #MLS4TheLou ownership group would like to thank Board of Alderman President Lewis Reed for his leadership on moving this Resolution forward, Committee Chairperson Joe Roddy for conducting a very thorough hearing, and everyone who came out today in support," said Carolyn Kindle Betz, one in the #MLS4TheLou's ownership group. "We are ecstatic that the St. Louis Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee unanimously voted yes for the Resolution to be pushed straight to a full Board of Alderman vote on Friday, November 30. Gaining the full Board of Alderman’s official support for the Resolution will be a positive step for our effort to bring a Major League Soccer team, and accompanying stadium, to St. Louis.”
Original story:
It's been more than a month since members of Enterprise's Taylor family—including Executive Chairman Andy Taylor and his niece, Senior Vice President Carolyn Kindle Betz—and World Wide Technology CEO Jim Kavanaugh announced that they are making a bid to bring a Major League Soccer team to St. Louis. To recap, if successful, the league would be one of the only in pro sports to be majority women owned. It would also be largely privately financed, unlike an April 2017 ballot measure struck down by voters that asked the public to partially fund a soccer stadium.
We got excited. We bought swag branded with #MLS4TheLou (the catchy hashtag dreamed up by the Taylor fam). We started learning the teams in the MLS. We watched Bend It Like Beckham (hey, it's research). "Soccer club, please" we wrote at the top of our wish list for Santa. We weren't the only ones who were pumped. Here's St. Louis native Ellie Kemper:
And we're still excited. But 48 days on from the announcement, we need an update. Here are three things to know a month after St. Louis found out it might, might be getting a pro soccer team.
1. The first major hurdle on the path to maybe one day becoming a soccer town: Who should own the to-be-built, now-only-just-a-dream stadium near Union Station—the city or the soccer team ownership partners? It's expensive to keep up on stadium maintenance, and should those costs fall to the city? St. Louis Alderwoman Christine Ingrassia argued that the city shouldn't be on the hook if soccer—worst-case scenario—didn't take off here, and the stadium needed to be demolished.
According to MLS4TheLou's site, the ownership group would like the city to "enter a triple-net lease of at least 30 years with the ownership group for the stadium site, which would require the ownership group to cover all costs of the stadium, including costs that are typically the responsibility of the property owner. The ownership group will reimburse the City for all costs associated with purchasing the land."
Which brings us to...
2. There are a lot of city agencies the ownership group needs to work with in order to get the (soccer) ball rolling. At a Wednesday Aldermanic Committee hearing, a resolution filed by Board of Alderman President Lewis Reed on the behalf of the ownership group will ask for support on a number of points, including the one stated above, about the ownership group reimbursing the city for costs associated with purchasing the soccer stadium land and construction.
3. But when will we even know if St. Louis is picked as an MLS expansion city?
Likely not for a while, unfortunately. “Realistically, we are expecting it to be the first quarter of 2019,” Betz told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch when the paper asked when MLS might pick St. Louis for a team. MLS commissioner Don Garber might visit as early as mid-December, according to the paper.
