Carolyn Kindle Betz, who is leading the ownership group trying to bring a Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise to St. Louis, has a long-term, big-picture argument for why this would be good for St. Louis – and put no unfair burden on overstressed taxpayers in a city with a lot of problems more pressing than the absence of professional soccer. But she also wants to be clear about the short-term, small-picture perspective.
And that is: the St. Louis group – led by the Taylor family of Enterprise Holdings and Jim Kavanaugh of World Wide Technology – has not yet filed an application for an MLS franchise and won’t until the City of St. Louis acquires the land intended for the stadium (which is near Union Station) from the Missouri Department of Transportation. Those talks are ongoing, she said, and could be finalized by the end of the year. Their application would follow immediately.
Further: the St. Louis Board of Aldermen passed a resolution welcoming the project, but it’s only a non-binding resolution. Enabling legislation will await the land transfer, application and MLS interest.
But Kindle Betz said the ownership group will pursue minority inclusion in the project from stadium design through vending at a completed stadium, and Tom Shepard, chief of staff for Lewis Reed, president of the Board of Aldermen, said that the city ordinance mandating inclusion of minorities and women on projects with public subsidy would be enforced on the project.
As for the long-term big picture, Kindle Betz said, “It would be good for the overall city for St. Louis to become a more international city.” In a Nielsen global survey from 2017, 43 percent of people said they were “interested” or “very interested” in soccer, the highest percentage for any sport; basketball – another sport where St. Louis sorely lacks a professional franchise – scored second with 36 percent.
She also argued that an MLS franchise in downtown St. Louis would be another high-profile amenity to help the region retain and attract promising young talent. “Hopefully more of our graduates coming out of our great colleges and universities would be influenced to stay in the region to raise families and continue careers,” she said.
As for the payoff to the local black community, Kindle Betz responded to The American in the key of “all lives matter,” rather than “black lives matter.” She said, “The ownership team believes the team must be a part of the community, all of the community, so anyone working with youth soccer in any kind of community, we want to help make that activity happen.”
This was both candid – though an international sport beloved in Africa, soccer has never been a particularly black sport in St. Louis – and reflective of her apparent lack of political cunning. The senior vice president and executive director of the Enterprise Holdings Foundation, the charitable arm of Enterprise Holdings, Kindle Betz is making her first public foray into local politics in leading the MLS franchise effort. If anything, her apparent lack of guile is refreshing.
She also was upfront about the public benefits that the ownership team would receive if the proposal currently on the table moves forward. In addition to three 1 percent user taxes levied only on people who come to the soccer stadium, the ownership team would benefit from the city acquiring the land and owning the stadium, after it is built with the $390 million in private investment. “The city owning the stadium and land would alleviate the property tax bill,” she said.
Stephen Conway, the chief of staff for Mayor Lyda Krewson, agreed with that summation of facts, but he pointed out that the city already is earning zero property taxes from the unused piece of the land where the stadium would be built. Conway said the city projects that it would take in $1.5 million a year in new local taxes from stadium events – and “not one city penny is going in, no general revenue.”
The city owning a soccer stadium evokes bad memories of the little-used football stadium that the city owns, but Conway said the soccer deal reflects having “learned from bad experiences.” In the lease, he said, “the ownership group will be on the hook for all repairs, all maintenance and improvements” and they will pay 2.5 percent into a reserve fund for the city. So, Conway said, if all these grand plans go belly up a few years down the road and the city ends up with another empty stadium, “we will have the funding to tear it down.”
