Tony Messenger on St. Louis Soccer Stadium
If you aren’t a regular reader of Tony Messenger’s column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, please take a moment to read his latest piece about the proposed soccer stadium in St. Louis. In it, he writes,
The current St. Louis soccer stadium proposal is hands down better than the last one, in that the ownership group . . . are seeking significantly less from city taxpayers than the previous effort. [New York-based journalist Neil] DeMause agrees with that.
“The latest plan is arguably less onerous for the public than lots of other stadium projects out there — and certainly better than the previous soccer proposal for St. Louis,” deMause says. “But that’s damning with faint praise, because the median in stadium deals is ‘pretty awful.’”
St. Louisans were told last year that the deal before them was the best they could hope for. It wasn’t. There is no reason to believe this latest deal is the best, and every reason to think we can do better.