Downtown St.Louis still has a huge unsightly hole in the ground just outside it's beautiful new baseball stadium.  The future is supposed to hold a mixed use 'Ball Park Village' with shops and condos and a movie theatre and a Hall of fame, etc.  Rumor has it funding is in a funk and all tied up waiting for more public contribution.

There has also been publicity about a proposal to build a soccer stadium in Collinsville, IL which would play home to an MLS team.  Personally I think this would be doomed to failure in granduer of that joint use airpoirt in O'Fallon, IL.  What professional athlete would want to live in Collinsville?  Who's gonna drive over to Collinsville from west county for a mediocre soccer team? 

I haven't measured but it looks to me like we could fit a soccer stadium in the vacant hole.  Maybe not the grandest stadium in the world but a nest of a stadium; a trial 10 year stadium.  The location alongside Busch would brew undoubtable interest amongst the baseball freaks and subconciously legitimize the relavance and sincerity of a fledgling sport.  The metro area is saturated with soccer fans frustrated and baffled with the America's ultimate snubbing of soccer.   Bring it Downtown.  Grow some green grass and put up a romantic facade in concert with the new Busch architecture.  Just add beer.  For baseball heaven's sake if we could just win right away...what an awesome addition to downtown and the local culture.  Not to mention the world wide publicity we'd recieve after we defeat the Galaxy.

We've got plenty of condos.  Let's get soccer instead.  Who's with me?