Lots Of St. Louis Soccer Stuff

The effort to get an MLS team into St. Louis (or at least Collinsville) is getting into high gear.

You can check out the AP story here. Or you could look at the Post-Dispatch's take here. Or you could look at Jeff Cooper's pitch at the new St. Louis Soccer United website.

From the PD:

Efforts to bring professional outdoor soccer back to St. Louis will enter a decisive phase on Monday when a prominent Metro East lawyer will propose a $100 million stadium complex in Collinsville that he intends to be home to a Major League Soccer franchise.

The Collinsville City Council will hear a presentation from East Alton attorney Jeff Cooper about a 400-acre development project that would include an 18,900-seat stadium, a hotel, at least two restaurants, about 1,000 single-family homes, several youth soccer fields and nearly 500,000 square feet of office and retail space.

While the complex would be a destination point in the Metro East area, it would not come without risk; Collinsville would have to sell about $20 million in bonds to get the project started. The City Council is expected to vote Sept. 10 on the project, which would be located at Interstate 255 and Horseshoe Lake Road.

"When I saw it," said Collinsville Mayor Stan Schaeffer, "I was expecting a stadium — and I got a suburb." Schaeffer and the four Collinsville City Council members make up the five-person panel that would vote on the proposal. He said the city has been working since January last year to make this happen.

The PD has a nice flash presentation of the stadium proposal to look at here.

I wish them luck in their efforts. It is a nice looking stadium.

I wonder if the team (if granted to STL) will elicit the support of Southlandish (an Illinois born & bred Cardinals fan)?