Ball Park Village - What a Sell Job!

I personally am not real happy with the whole Ball Park Village deal we were sold on. I don’t hear KMOX or the St.Louis Business Journal or Post-Dispatch asking a lot of tough questions about this issue. Why is that? Now that the economy is bad, the promotion of this fabulous development is not in any paper, on TV, nowhere. Why is that? Maybe it has something to do with the power of the St.Louis Cardinals over the media? Oh yah the Dewitts/Cardinal ownership and Cordish evidently changed their minds. They only wanted to do this development, after getting the new Busch Stadium, under perfect economic conditions! So now they are going to do a $100mm versus $650mm development, really? BPV is capable of turning around the downtown business district forever. But they do not want to take on the risk they had already promised us they were going to take on. So the $650mm worth of development was not really something they were committed to? Maybe they did not hire the people who knew that sometimes there are economic downturns? They surely had the best finance, project consultants working for them, you think? We know what is going on. They don’t want to take any risk now what-so-ever in possibly losing any money at all. Cordish still has the whole beautiful HD story on their web site for some reason. Take a look at what the Cardinal's point man Mr. Lamping sold us on at www.cordish.com. "Bill (DeWitt Jr.) and his partners never let us consider anything other than success," Lamping said. "That was a great motivator in tough times. Bill is very focused on achieving results and knows the path is not always a straight line." Oh really…..so they actually can handle this economic downturn, this dip down and do the right thing, the entire development? "He understood what was at stake," DeWitt III said. "It was more than just going from Busch Stadium revenue-wise to a new stadium revenue-wise. We were really up against the clock on a couple of items. We needed all new scoreboards, all new seats, all new HVAC, and some seismic retrofitting needed to occur. Many were on the critical list to get done. We had already maxed out our economic position at Busch. Incremental ticket pricing was all we had left. That was driving some of the urgency." Oh really, how about Wrigley field or other older ballparks? Maybe the economic downturn that we all knew might be on the horizon motivated the urgency? I sat in the old seats and my $10.00 beer went down just fine. I thought the old scoreboard looks really cool. Most of fans do not sit in air-conditioned seating by the way. The Cardinals and Mr. DeWitt got what they wanted. But oh yah again, about Ball Park Village and what this means for the City of St.Louis, all the loyal fans, many who hold those labor jobs that need this work, the business community downtown, many who took some risk based on the plans for Ball Park Village, the other jobs in the restaurants, hotels, other businesses that might move downtown creating more tax revenue? This development was going to put us in competition with Clayton. What about that commitment that you made. But oh yah, the softball field looks nice after you were forced to do that. So is there actually going to be a $100mm development? The 2 acre verses 10 acre development? I will believe it when I see it because it doesn't look like the Cardinal organization and the DeWitt's want to take any risk now? I have one good idea for them, if they want to help their hard working fans and the city of St.Louis. Sell 50%, 60%, 70% of the Cardinals to raise hundreds of millions and do what you said you would do, a $650mm, 10 acre development, that will change the city and region in a very positive way. Maybe Stan Kroenke would like to step in? Bill give Stan a call, OK? You might have to take some risk, maybe lose a little money for a few years, but the results might change our city and region forever and that is What you promised us. Maybe us loyal Cardinal fans should stop being so loyal!!!!!

wonder what new promises we are gonna hear, when they want a new stadium. the cardinals have the luzury of their loyal fan base. time will tell, i guess.