Soccer City… A Symbol of Our Future — Sophisticated St. Louis

By Craig Kaminer / Photos by Joe Martinez

Over the years, St. Louis has been called a great sports city, a great arts city, a great music city, a great architecture city, and recently, a great food city. Now with the debut of St. Louis CITY SC, all of these great assets come together in one place.

This new Major League Soccer (MLS) team could not have come at a better time to activate downtown. What started as a conversation between the Taylor Family (Enterprise Rent-A-Car) and former SLU soccer star Jim Kavanaugh, now the CEO of World Wide Technologies eventually led to a bold investment from the two families to further St. Louis continued growth. For the Taylors, it was a natural next step for STLMade, an initiative supported by Greater St. Louis, Inc., the organization which brings together business and civic leaders to create jobs and opportunities, expand inclusive economic growth, and improve St. Louis’s global competitiveness.

Soccer has an established history at both the professional and amateur levels in Greater St. Louis. In 2007, St. Louis was considered a possible destination for Real Salt Lake after the club founder announced he would sell the club if a new stadium was not built. Despite approved plans to build the $600 million Collinsville Soccer Complex, MLS was unimpressed with the St. Louis ownership group’s financial backing.

In September 2018, St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson confirmed that a new group was trying to bring a team to the city. St. Louis's MLS bid was effectively re-launched with Carolyn Kindle and other Enterprise Rent-A-Car family members. This bid did not seek public funding through taxes or from the city, so a public vote on the stadium wasn’t necessary. On November 28, 2018, the Board of Aldermen's Housing, Urban Development, and Zoning Committee voted 8–0 to approve the stadium plan.

Two days after MLS announced it would advance discussions with the Sacramento and St. Louis bids, the St. Louis group released renderings and more information about their proposed stadium. A collaboration between HOK and Snow Kreilich Architects produced the 22,500-seat stadium's design. The group also promised that every seat would be within 120 feet of the field and that a canopy would cover the stadium.

On August 20, 2019, MLS approved St. Louis as the league's 28th franchise, with play expected to begin in the 2022 season. The ownership group is the first female majority-owned team in MLS. In the announcement, Don Garber said, "St. Louis is a city with a rich soccer tradition, and it is a market we have considered since the league's inception. Our league becomes stronger today with the addition of the city's deeply dedicated soccer fans, and the committed and innovative local ownership group led by Carolyn Kindle Betz, the Taylor family, and Jim Kavanaugh."

To date, construction of CITYPARK tops $458 million for the stadium and surrounding area, and it looks like more will follow.

In 2021, Purina became the club's first jersey sponsor and founding partner, and shortly thereafter, Together Credit Union became the club's second founding partner and the official banking partner. Rounding out the team, former South African International and New York Red Bulls assistant coach Bradley Carnell was named as the team’s first head coach in January 2022, although secretly many were hoping for Ted Lasso.

On a recent behind-the-scenes media tour of the stadium, Lee Broughton, CITY SC’s Chief Brand Architect and former VP of Global Branding for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, (who happens to be the husband of Chrissy Taylor, the president and COO of Enterprise Holdings) said, “St. Louis doesn’t spend much time talking about its future, but it does spend a lot of time talking about its past. We were trying to think of all the things we could bring together to start projecting toward the future.”

St. Louis CITY SC is a big idea that St. Louis has waited 120 years to have. By connecting parts of downtown from Union Station to the south, Schlafly to the north, and tying together many parts that haven't been connected before, CITYPARK is the epicenter of a new and dynamic sports entertainment district.

“You can literally see the arch down the Gateway Mall to the east and then south you get an overlook of our entire sporting district including 32 acres, three practice fields, our pavilion, and then our eventual team headquarters, which is underway down next to Interstate 64 that will house 150 of our team employees for work.,” said Broughton.

Broughton commented on the details that went into the design of the stadium. “We thought a lot about the porosity and you'll notice that the corners (of the stadium) are all open. That was really intentional. We didn't want to create something that sat in a space and blocked out the sun for the neighbors. We didn't want it to feel exclusive as you walk by - that you couldn't be a part of it. So you can get glimpses of the pitch (field) while you're walking around the edges when it's not in use, or if there is a festival put on and there isn't a match, it doesn't feel like it's completely closed off.”

A team store is inside the stadium and another across the street on Market Street called CITY Pavilion. It's about 9000 square feet, two stories tall, with a cafe on the first floor with plenty of seating for fans.

“Food is one of the ways that we really wanted to showcase some of the best that St. Louis had to offer. So our ownership group reached out to local James Beard award-winning chef Gerard Craft, and brought him into the circle to help us curate a food story that is pretty remarkable and comprehensive. We'll have 52 different food and beverage experiences in the stadium – the most in Major League Soccer – that will include more than 25 local partners. There are no big franchises that are in the stadium, but in the club level in particular is where Gerard's his own restaurants will be. So it's a bit of a stamp of approval for us to make sure that Gerard was not only helping us curate other restaurants, but that, you know, our equipment and the service and the technology was good enough for him to put his own name behind some of those other brands,” commented Broughton.

St. Louis CITY SC previously announced Balkan Treat Box, BEAST Craft BBQ Co., Steve’s Hot Dogs and Niche Food Group would be among the food lineup at the stadium. “There was an overwhelming sense of regional pride when we announced our initial CITY Flavor partners last month, which showcases how much our community cares about our local restaurants,” St. Louis CITY SC president and CEO Carolyn Kindle said in the press release. “Now, with additional restaurant partners revealed, fans get a true sense of how every match will feel like a food festival with St. Louis’s diverse culinary scene represented.”

Other local food partners recently announced include: Anthonino's Taverna, Bold Spoon Creamery, Chez Ali, Crown Candy Kitchen, DD Mau, Dewey’s Pizza, Farmtruk, G&W Sausage and Meats, Ices Plain & Fancy, Kaldi’s, Malinche, Mayo Ketchup, Nudo House, Padrinos Mexican Restaurant, Pie Guy, The Block, The Fattened Caf, The G.O.A.T. Brand, and Wally’s.

There have already been 40 events in the stadium ranging from corporate functions to a wedding planned for 2023. One of the coolest things is the ceiling which is made up of millions of LED lights. The idea here is that it can really be synergistic to what's going on around the stadium. So it feels like it's all one big show, whether it's the ribbon boards or the scoreboard or whatever it is. If you have a private event, you can take over all the signage with content of your own, you know, whatever is relevant to that occasion from a starry night or advertising or employee messaging or whatever it is you want to do. And then, obviously the visual from Market Street is really cool as well.

With wifi everywhere, digital billboards everywhere and even mobile ticketing and payment, CITYPARK is a hi-tech wonderland. “What our fans told us is that they want everything to be frictionless, fast, and easy.” Unlike other stadiums where you have to wait in line for ten or more minutes for food or a drink, these hi-tech vending markets will get fans in and out in under 30 seconds. This type of technology flips the model, both in terms of speed, but also staffing because these markets don’t require staffing.

As soon as season tickets went on sale, they sold out. Single game tickets are available to those who join the club’s myCITY+ membership program, so there is still time for you to be a part of the season. For a city that never had a team before – and perhaps because we don't have the NFL – St. Louis is all about this soccer team. Wherever you turn, there are people walking down the street in CITY gear…even a baby I know wears a CITY beanie in her home of Chicago. With a lot of historical soccer fans, families involved in youth leagues, high school and college, and a burgeoning international soccer base who have moved to St. Louis in recent years, the demand has already outstripped the seating.

Broughton reflects, “Much of the insights from the work that culminated similarly to the end of the completion of the Arch Park Foundation was serendipitous in that it gave the Taylor Family an opportunity to think about what was going to be the next thing that they were going to do for St. Louis - whether it's organizing the business community, whether it's being involved in the civic community, or whether it's philanthropic giving. So we were trying to think about what could be the next big initiative to continue to move St. Louis forward. The focus became a little bit more about our future. So, what could be something that really does that? And there's a lot of ambition to continue the success of the bio,agricultural and geospatial technology industry sectors here. And how to attract and retain international talent. A lot of the employees coming to those things are international. We have a big Bosnian community. We now have a big Afghan community. We now have lots of South Americans, all of whom know soccer is the number one sport in the world.”

“As we got talking, the idea of a Major League soccer team really started to add up for us. . It's this idea that it is a symbol of where St. Louis is now going. It's an opportunity to put St. Louis on an international playing field with a sport that has been at the grassroots of St. Louis for over 100 years. If you look at the demographics of MLS, it skews much younger and international. Soccer’s popularity is continuing to grow. And with this new Apple streaming deal, games will reach a whole new audience. Now I think this is the time to start thinking about our future.”

“I think all those things are a testament to the Taylors' vision and their passion for St Louis. And it's been amazing to see how the business community has stepped up to support us, either via sponsorships or purchasing suites and tickets. We were so excited when a local company, Purina agreed to sponsor the jersey.We also created a tribute honoring Mill Creek Valley, a story we want everyone to know more about a historic black neighborhood located in the central corridor between 20th Street and Saint Louis University – with the work of a local artist.

People are going to talk about St Louis this year because of this. And St. Louis CITY SC wants this to be a centrifugal kind of pull into placemaking in the city. This district is beyond just the stadium campus. They’re working with the residents and the businesses to figure out how else things can get activated off of the back of soccer.”