MLS stadium design unveiled for St. Louis

When it comes to the ongoing downtown revitalizations in cities throughout the nation, destination points always are part of such plans, since they bring in visitors. A good downtown revitalization always includes a sports stadium or two, since such spots create a vitality that radiates out into the neighborhood surrounding it.

In St. Louis, plans for a proposed Major League soccer stadium downtown are meant to build upon the success of recent developments there. The design plans dovetail into plans of the MLS league to expand to 30 teams.

Recently, MLS4TheLou released a conceptual design of the Major League Soccer Stadium that the booster group would like to see built in the city. The mixed-use, soccer-specific stadium will have a capacity of 22,500 to 25,500 visitors. Fans will be able to enter the stadium from all sides of the facility. A large entry plaza will serve at different times as a pre-game or post-game gathering spot for fans. The stadiums’s pitch will extend 40 feet below ground level—which will provide a unique sports viewer experience. The design plans resulted from a whirl of activity by organizers of the stadium push.

“It has been an amazing 36 hours for our effort to bring an MLS team to St. Louis. With Major League Soccer’s announcement that the league will expand to 30 teams, combined with being able to share our initial stadium design plan, we are inching closer to making this a reality for St. Louis,” says Carolyn Kindle Betz.

The stadium will be configured so that it is open to the north and east, offering views of the Downtown West District neighborhood. Adjacent to the stadium, as part of the development, will be a grouping of mixed-use buildings and restaurants, which will add more character and definition to the surrounding neighborhood. The design concept for the stadium was partly informed by researching what many others have done in developing their city’s soccer stadium.

“Over the last six months, we’ve visited numerous MLS stadiums to review designs and learn best practices in order to be as thoughtful as possible to our proposed stadium here in St. Louis,” Kindle Betz says. “While they’re still a work-in-progress, we’re excited to finally give fans a glimpse at our proposed stadium.”

The design plans will bolster St. Louis’s chances of winning a new MLS team. Such a team would have about 20 regular season games and three exhibitions per season and be capable of hosting concerts and other events. The ownership group has been working with the partnership of HOK and Julie Snow, co-founder of Snow Kreilich Architects, as the design team helping to shape the initial vision of this project.

The first visitor center we designed was the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center for the Everglades National Park in 1993. I remember it well for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the ongoing dialogue we had with our retail consultant. He insisted that the gift shop be located on the right as one exited the visitor center because people “always turn right.”

| Mar 12, 2014

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