Not sure how this slipped under my radar last week, but: St. Louis Cardinals president and nepo baby Bill DeWitt III said Thursday that he’ll be asking the city, county, and state for a “big infusion of capital” to upgrade Busch Stadium, which is (checks calendar) 18 years old:
DeWitt said the Cardinals don’t have a specific request of the public support the franchise might seek for a revamp of Busch Stadium, but that officials would approach the city, county and state as plans are developed for the project.
“We’ll sit down with the appropriate folks at the right times, but it’s premature to say ‘oh, the Cardinals are asking for something,’” Dewitt said. “We want to have those conversations with the mayor, county executive, whomever else – the state – as we sort of formulate a game plan for committing to downtown for really forever.”
DeWitt further said that the money would be needed in the next three to five years, so while it may be premature to say “oh, the Cardinals are asking for something,” it is not at all premature to say “oh, the Cardinals are about to ask for something.”
If all this sounds familiar, it’s because DeWitt the Younger said all of the exact same stuff in April, down to the “significant capital infusion” line, though back then he said it was needed in the next two to five years, so either he’s scaling back his expectations a bit or he just needs a better continuity supervisor. Back then he name-checked the Milwaukee Brewers and Baltimore Orioles renovations that are expected to be in the $500-600 million range, so presumably that’s still the dollar figure on the table, though by the time we hit the 3-5 year mark the benchmarks could be higher, who knows?
Back in 2002, right after St. Louis approved about $130 million in public money for construction of this stadium, voters approved a referendum requiring any city funding for sports facilities to go to a public vote, so presumably that would be on the table for Cardinals renovations as well. Unless the DeWitt clan figures out a way to call the city share of the money “infrastructure funding” or something that doesn’t trigger the stadium language, of course — it would be premature to assume otherwise.
“officials would approach the city, county and state”
St Louis the city is independent, not part of St Louis the county. The county has no reason to give any money unless the team moves to the suburbs like the Braves did. The governor seems pretty gullible if he is getting in a bidding war with Kansas over the Royals, so state money might be gettable if the team threatens to move to Illinois.
The Cardinals’ lease runs through 2041, so the DeWitts are going to have a tough time threatening to move anywhere. (Unless there’s some state-of-the-art clause in it that I’m not aware of.)
https://law.marquette.edu/assets/sports-law/pdf/St.%20Louis%20Cardinals%20Lease%20Summary.pdf
I was also curious as to why St. Louis County would be involved – apparently they “loaned” money for the project even though it’s not located in the county.
“I was also curious as to why St. Louis County would be involved – apparently they “loaned” money for the project even though it’s not located in the county.”
St. Louis city and county function as one large city. They’re infighting in the 1980’s caused the area to lose the football Cardinals. So, they worked together on sports stadium and other area issues ever since. The city built a dome and landed the Rams and well you know the rest…
With that being said the Cardinals will get their money regardless. St. Louis’ downtown isn’t close to what it was in 2005 when Busch III was built. They’re basically the only game in St. Louis city with the Rams leaving.
*The Blues situation is different.
*The city, county, and state built a dome and landed the Rams and well you know the rest…
I don’t even understand what they could ask for to improve an 18 year old stadium. all of the “advancement” in stadium development seems to be in the inclusion of land for a “stadium district,” which the cardinals sort of pioneered?
is this about those holographic displays that the Bengals (?) made sure to include in their upgrade paperwork?
I don’t get it
As a consequence of expansion, owners have lost nearly all of the credible relocation threats they once had.
No doubt some of them long for the good old days when an MLB owner could threaten to move a team to Denver or Phoenix or Florida.
As a Cardinals fan I’ve seen this team become mostly irrelevant over the last 5 years or so. I wouldn’t spend the money on what is called MLB (Major League Bad) baseball. Move to East St.Louis. Who cares and CYA!
What other business request the public to pay for their building sp we can spend our money on their product??? None! That would be ludacris.
Amazon:
https://goodjobsfirst.org/amazon-tracker/
Tesla:
https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2014/09/04/nevada-strikes-billion-tax-break-deal-tesla/15096777/
Should I go on?
THERE IS ZERO CHANCE THEY MOVE EVEN IF THE ST LOUIS CITY SAYS POUND SAND. WHY? LOOK HOW BAD THEY’RE RIGHT NOW AND EVEN SO THEY’RE OUTDRAWING AT LEAST 50% OF THE TEAMS IN BASEBALL. LOOK HOW BAD THE STADIUM IN LETS SAY MILWAUKEE IS EVEN IF THEY RENOVATE YOU CAN’T MOVE IT TO DOWNTOWN, OR ADD A BALLPARK VILLAGE. IF THE CARDINALS LEFT THE CITY OF ST LOUIS HALF THE LEAGUE WOULD BE BIDDING TO TAKE THEIR PLACE. THIS ISNT AN NFL SITUATION. SECONDLY LOOK HOW LONG THE A’S GOT STUCK IN OAKLAND… DO YOU REALLY THINK EVEN FOR TWO SECONDS MLB WOULD ALLOW THE CARDINALS TO MOVE NOT A CHANCE. ZERO CHANCE. THEY WOULD TEL THE DEWITS TO SELL THE TEAM. THE OWNERSHIP IS INVESTED IN APARTMENT COMPLEX, BARS, RESTAURANTS ALL AROUND THE STADIUM. ZERO ZERO ZERO CHANCE THEY EVER GET APPROVED TO MOVE. THE OWNERSHIP NEEDS TO PAY OUT OF POCKET FOR ANY UPGRADES. PERIDO
Seems I recall that the idea of “Ballpark Villages” in STL and elsewhere was to provide the “extra revenue” to have a competitive team and presumably competitive facilities. The politicians lapped up that ruse.
Looking at actual aerials of and proposals for such properties, you see every inch of ground covered, no more parking lots, so when that Village stadium needs replacing at the whim of ownership, where does it get built? We might not know the answer for years, but it looks grim to me for the taxpayer for the next land grab.
Because we knew all along the profits weren’t going to the team business enterprise, but to the owners’ and investors’ portfolios.
I don’t see that the Cardinals have much leverage here. They can’t leave downtown without massively driving down the value of Ballpark Village which they also own. Don’t think too many people are going to Cardinal Nation restaurant if the ballpark is in Illinois.