Pro Soccer, Hockey, Baseball All Within A Mile? What It Means For Downtown St. Louis

While fans are excited about the arrival of Major League Soccer in St. Louis, the new stadium could be the beginning of a more vibrant sports-entertainment district in downtown.

The likely site of the MLS expansion team’s venue will be west of Union Station, just down the street from the Enterprise Center, where the Blues play, and Busch Stadium, home of the Cardinals. That will mean a roughly one-mile stretch boasting three professional sports venues, similar to districts in Pittsburgh and Detroit.

St. Louis Public Radio's Wayne Pratt spoke with Washington University Sports Business Program Director Patrick Rishe, who says there a couple of key reasons cities are creating such districts.

Patrick Rishe: Number one, if you put the buildings in the center of the city, you’re gonna hopefully stimulate additional development. A lot of cities in the last 20 years have decided that they want to redevelop their core. I think the second thing, just practically speaking, is that if the facilities are located downtown, you are more central to all of your local suburban areas and therefore people living north, south, east and west of downtown, it’s now equally easy for them to get to ballgames and hockey games and basketball games and so on and so forth.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/pro-soccer-hockey-baseball-all-within-mile-what-it-means-downtown-st-louis