ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) is focused on building and rebuilding streets to help stimulate economic development in Downtown West, where our new MLS Stadium was built.
While SLDC did not have a hand in attracting an MLS team to St. Louis, the work of the SLDC determined where in the city it would locate. Getting the land lined up allowed MLS to see the vision to build a stadium in downtown St. Louis.
A development board staffed by SLDC, the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (LCRA) secured rights to purchase property and assigned those rights to the MLS.
By working infrastructure deals to get developable land to the MLS, LCRA helped reactivate more than 31 acres of wasted space in the City of St. Louis, providing the ability to build on a previously unbuildable area.
Today, three practice fields and a training center sit where there once was a highway, and St. Louis is home to the best soccer complex in the MLS. Downtown West has seen the completion of two major projects – St. Louis City Park and renovation of the old Butlers Brothers building: The Victor. These projects are paving the way for more than $500 million in planned construction in and around Downtown West.
Rob Orr, Sr. Vice President of Real Estate Development at SLDC, says the new stadium anchors an emerging mixed-use district in its Downtown West neighborhood. SLDC continues to invest in public infrastructure to make downtown projects come to life.
“St. Louis recognizes that infrastructure can lead to development and so improving the streets and the sidewalks and the walk ability and neighborhoods adds to the safety that the public realizes, and we look to invest in the infrastructure to help support economic development,” said Orr.
St. Louis CITYPARK is a 22,500-seat facility that took over a vacant piece of land once reserved for a highway extension. The abandoned I-755 Interstate connector would have connected I-44, I-55, I-64 and I-70 but would have disconnected neighborhoods along the way.
City leaders made the strategic decision to fix what they say was an inefficient, poorly designed ramp system and the reconfiguration of the I-64 interchange at Jefferson Avenue freed up 31 acres for new development where CITYPARK is now.
Orr says, “We (SLDC) are spending approximately $125 million on streets. We are doing the I-64 Jefferson interchange, we are also looking at Cass Avenue, and we are about to go to bid for 20th street all the way up to St. Louis Avenue. There will be a bike path all the way. So the $145 Million Dollars is literally to the benefit of the residents and the opportunities that we have here in Downtown West.”
CITYPARK sits on the same block that was once a part of Mill Creek Valley, the predominantly black neighborhood on the Southwest end of St. Louis once home to 20,000 residents, 800 businesses and more than 40 religious institutions. Today, St. Louis CITY SC and Great Rivers Greenway are using the stadium as a platform to tell the story of Mill Creek Valley with a permanent art exhibit called Pillars of the Valley located on one of the stadium’s plazas.
A few blocks away from CITYPARK, additional investment of Memphis-based Development Services Group, Inc. is the 117-year-old Butlers Brothers building that sat vacant for over two decades has been reactivated from the inside out to become The Victor.
Located at 18th Street between Olive Street and Locust, the $130 Million redevelopment of the 735,000 square foot building began when DSG purchased the property in 2020. Construction began in March of 2022, with ambitious plans to transform the prominent building into a mixed-use complex with 384 apartments offering residential amenities like in-building parking, expanded interior courtyard and a rooftop pool and pickleball court.
Gary Prosterman is the President & CEO of DSG who says, “The main driving factors, catalytic energy of soccer stadium combined with NGA under construction. We knew this was an important area, that it was growing with residential and commercial in very near term.”
He says the SLDC was a big support that helped the project receive 15 years of tax abatement to the city. In return, DSG agreed to designate 20% of the units for workforce housing, which are designed to be more affordable and cater to workers close to their workplaces.
Prosterman says workforce like teachers, police officers and more are already living in the building that is open and ready for the public to move in. The SLDC helped make his vision possible, “I think one of the things that made this project feasible are the tax abatements that were available. The building is already listed on the National Register, and in Missouri there is a competitive process for the tax abatements.”
Community leaders say CITYPARK along with The Victor, 21C Museum Hotel, AHM and other projects are helping to reimagine the city with an MLS team at the core of it.
Orr says, “This is the biggest infrastructure investment the city has made going back to the Stan Musical Bridge. We think that this investment, will create investments that we are seeing from the Butler Building , which has now become the Victor and the AHM has a number of projects that are playing a couple of blocks away.”
“What we like to see is a lot of the surface parking lots that are in downtown West be re-purposed for new development and constraint the parking into structure parking so that we can utilize the ground for new development. All this public infrastructure is really creating that opportunity.”
This is what Positively St. Louis looks like. To learn more about the SLDC Real Estate Development plans, visit them online at DevelopStLouis.org.
