Readers want to keep the Rams playing downtown
The poll last week asked about where to put a new football stadium and most readers feel a new facility should be downtown:
Q: A future facility for the STL Rams (NFL) should be located in:
- downtown St. Louis: 72 [32.3%]
- City of St. Louis (outside of downtown): 39 [17.5%]
- As long as it is open air or has a retractable roof I don’t care: 29 [13%]
- Metro East (Illinois): 27 [12.1%]
- St. Louis County: 19 [8.5%]
- Other answer… 17 [7.6%]
- Unsure/don’t care: 10 [4.5%]
- anywhere in the region is OK: 6 [2.7%]
- Jefferson County: 3 [1.3%]
- St. Charles County: 1 [0.4%]
From the comments on the original post I realize I should have had different choices. “Metro East” is too vast. One answer should have been the East side of the river with elsewhere on the East side another. Also I should have defined “downtown” and provided a downtown-adjacent answer.  The other answers were numerous and I’ve divided them into two groups:
The first group is a mix of answers:
- Somewhere in the City, open air / retractable roof
- north city
- Franklin County
- Los Angeles
- Mars
- privately funded…like the patriots
The question was about where, not how funded. The second group all had a common theme:
- keep refurbishing the current facility
- They should use the same facility they have now. It’s the “green” thing to do.
- Don’t move.
- exactly where it already is
So we have the keep it in place view. I believe somehow we will get past the 2015 deadline. Either the team waives the requirement to stay in the top 25% or the CVC finds the money to upgrade the facility. But come 2025 the lease expires. At this point the facility will be over 30 years old. Some say rip off the roof of the current dome. I asked some local architects about the feasibility of reworking the dome in such a way to give it another 20-30 years of life. The responses were mixed from it can be done to it wouldn’t work.
Razing the then 30 year old dome and building new is the only viable option on the current site, in my view. When the new Busch Stadium was built they were able to build much of the new facility next door while the team continued to use the old stadium.
But there is no next door spot available. The window between games is nine months — not enough to raze and build a new facility on the site. One option might be for the Rams to play home games for one season at another facility such as the University of Missouri in Columbia. What about other locations downtown?
A facility easily consumes four city blocks. Additional acres are needed for parking and other game day activities. Such a facility just doesn’t fit into a Central Business District based on the enormous size. Doesn’t matter, no site big enough is currently available. Will a site be available by 2025? I hope not! I would not wish for such a hole to open up.
The site closest to downtown I can think of is the old Nooter site at 2nd & Rutger. Development of this site may happen over the next 10 years so even it may not be available in the future. The long vacant Pruitt-Igoe site will be developed if Paul McKee’s NorthSide project works. The potential sites are few. Rebuilding on the current site requires the team to play elsewhere for a season. Even if the team funds a new facility without taxpayer assistance the options in the core are very limited.
– Steve Patterson
Why couldn't the top be ripped off the dome and the whole thing retrofitted?
The biggest problem is the area around it and the face it presents to the street. Major retrofits, but certainly possible.
My immature (as in I'm still thinking) thoughts on the matter, http://stlelsewhere.blogspot.com/2010/02/edward…
I would really like to see an open air stadium surrounded by a sea of parking somewhere in east stl. I think that there are sites that the future MRB ultimate concept could serve adequately. Maybe even the Madison/Tri-cities metrolink could have a stop at the stadium and gateway racetrack. I have actually started to conceptually design alternatives for the relocation of the stadium in conjunction with 1-70 being removed. There is a lot of potential but also a lot of space to fill…I personally believe that we cannot activate the landing and adjacent downtown districts with a 6-block building that gets used 10 times a year.
I agree with David, east st. louis riverfront, raze the Casino Queen. I can see myself visiting the arch grounds (after i-70 is removed and memorial is brought to grade)…I can see myself visiting the arch grounds more frequently to check on the progress of the stadium.
My only concern is where does that leave the CVC? I'd like to see EJD razed and maybe one day Bottle Park District go up. I think the CVC likes being downtown and holding conventions at the EJD but the EJD just ruins the grid.
Maybe the CVC would move its conventions to east st louis with the new stadium? I prefer an open air stadium; a retractable roof is nice but if it obstructs from the view of the skyline, than it defeats the purpose of having the stadium at that site. I think the CVC and the Stadium have to be separate.
Given the flaws apparent in the first poll, how abaout a do-over (using lessons learned/more-precise questions)?
Personally, I say let the private sector fund any new facility. We have plenty of other, more-demanding issues to focus our finite tax resources on.
Rip off the roof to make it an open air stadium and tear up I-70. This is the only stadium choice that Missouri can afford or an owner would be willing to pay into. No one can afford, the taxpayers, or would be willing, private investors, to build a billion dollar stadium for the St. Louis market. Second, tearing up I-70 would finally connect game day patrons with Casino's, Laclede's Landing as well as provide great tail gating space along the river (Heck, you can start a new tradition unique to the rest of the nation by having a Mississippi mud dip before or after the game). More importantly it makes game day a true all day event downtown and finally finds a way for the Edward Jones to provide the region with a first class soccer stadium.
Second, if that won't work. Talk about a proposal in the making immediately across the river. I would keep the casino, put up the stadium and solicite a Legoland on the site that will most likely be next to an expanded Jefferson Memorial Park. Four destination attractions in the same spot that doesn't depend on a sea of box stores. You can build out parking garage, lots, and a predesterian/retail promenade that accomondates not only the existing Metrolink Station as well as existing Amtrak service incorporating a game day stop but also future commuter and High Speed Rail that will go right along this site. This would put the current greenfield Glen Carbon proposal that is totaly dependent on Illinois subsidies to shame and would favor not only the region but the immediate downtown.
the EJD is a tragic attempt at classic architecture, it should be demoed and the rams should play at a local university. HOK sport could design a inovative structure that connects to the city.