Left to Right : CINCINNATI REDS FANS have Newport on the Levee, an entertainment and retail district in Newport, Ky., just across the Ohio River. Photo by Newport on the Levee Left, SAN DIEGO PADRES FANS will see more than $500 million worth of hotel, residential, office and retail buildings around their new stadium. AP Photo (P-D)

The St. Louis Cardinals' pitch for a new, publicly financed stadium depends heavily on the prospects for Ballpark Village, the adjoining commercial and residential development that would give the project more bang for the buck.

So why haven't the team's owners helped their cause by securing commitments from lenders and developers who want to make the proposed village a reality?

Although some retailers have inquired about Ballpark Village, the stadium project's long lead time and uncertain fate have kept bigger players from getting in the game.

"Until now, it's been, 'Call us when you have a new stadium,'" said Bill DeWitt III, a Cardinals' vice president.

The investor group that owns the Cardinals moved a step closer to that goal last week, reaching a financing deal with the city of St. Louis, St. Louis County and the state of Missouri that spells out the public and private funding for the $346 million ballpark.

Under the agreement, the city, county and state would cover $208 million of the construction cost. The Cardinals' share would be $138 million, including the value of the land under the stadium.

The political and civic leaders who support the project are betting that the tax revenues it will generate will exceed the debt payments on the bonds issued to build the stadium.

They also think that the project will help revitalize downtown St. Louis.

"The thing that really creates a compelling public purpose is the combination of the village and the ballpark," said Richard C.D. Fleming, president of the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association.

The Cardinals' current plan for the first phase of Ballpark Village includes 110,000 square feet of street-level retail and commercial space, 470,000 square feet of office space and 400 housing units.

It also would feature a 16,000-square-foot Cardinals museum and a 94,000-square-foot entertainment attraction, such as an aquarium.

The Cardinals have agreed to pay as much as $100 million in financial penalties if they fail to meet certain development targets for the mixed-use development.

But the ownership group thinks it will have little trouble completing either the first phase of the project or the second phase, which envisions more retail space, more office space and more housing - perhaps even a high-rise residential tower.

"There's nothing to lead me to believe that the full village isn't doable," DeWitt said.

Preparations continue apace

Even without a roster of partners for Baseball Village, the Cardinals are well along in their preparations, Fleming said.

As an economic-development executive in Denver, Fleming helped put together the downtown stadium package that helped that city win a Major League Baseball expansion team, the Colorado Rockies, in the early 1990s.

"At this stage of the process, we are far more definitive than we were in Denver, in terms of size and specific uses," he said.

What's more, nearly all of the 25 square blocks targeted for the new stadium and Ballpark Village are controlled by a single ownership group, a rare situation in an urban core, he said.

Pulitzer Inc., which owns the Post-Dispatch, and Michael E. Pulitzer, its chairman, are part owners of the Cardinals. Their combined stake is slightly less than 4 percent.

Ballpark Village would rise from the land now occupied by Busch Stadium. That means the first building could not go up until the stadium went down and the site was prepared, two tasks that could take until 2006.

To prepare for that day, the Cardinals have been checking out similar mixed-use developments around the country to get ideas of what would work best at Ballpark Village.

Possible models

The San Diego Padres are building a new publicly financed stadium that was sold to voters as part of a broader plan to restore a rundown section of that city's downtown.

A company run by Padres owner John Moores is responsible for developing more than $500 million of hotel, residential, office and retail buildings around the new stadium. The list of projects includes a 32-story Omni hotel and condominium building that will be linked to the ballpark by a skywalk.

Like the proposed stadium in St. Louis, the Padres' new stadium will have a public plaza beyond the outfield fence that joins the ballpark with some of the other buildings in the development, DeWitt said.

The San Diego project, however, has been bogged down by lawsuits brought by opposition groups. Work was halted last year on the stadium and adjacent hotel, but recently resumed. And some elements of the original development plan have changed, such as the amount of office space.

Another model for the Cardinals is Newport on the Levee, a 10-acre entertainment and retail district in Newport, Ky., directly across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.

Newport on the Levee is at the foot of a bridge that leads to Cinergy Field, home of Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds, and Great American Ball Park, the new stadium the team will move into next season.

One of the development's main attractions is the 100,000-square-foot Newport Aquarium, which opened in 1999 and drew more than 2 million visitors in its first two years of operations.

Dudley Taft, a Cincinnati businessman who is part of the Cardinals' ownership group, was one of the main investors in that aquarium.

Taft and the Cardinals are interested in making another aquarium part of Ballpark Village, to generate traffic during the months the Cardinals are idle. But plans announced last month for a rival project in Richmond Heights could force them to rethink their plans.

"We're not going to compete head to head with another aquarium in this market," DeWitt said.

Newport on the Levee also features a 456-seat IMAX theater, a 20-screen movie megaplex, a two-story Barnes & Noble store, restaurants, nightclubs and a retail building with mall staples such as Claire's and American Eagle Outfitters.

Plans for a $65 million second phase include a hotel, a 200,000-square-foot office building and luxury condominiums.

The entertainment district has been a hit with people on both sides of the Ohio River, said Michael Pizzuto, a manager at Shadowbox Cabaret, a theater company whose shows include one-act plays, monologues, comedy sketches and live music.

Shadowbox opened its 210-seat theater at Newport on the Levee in October and has sold out nearly every performance, Pizzuto said.

"We've had great, great crowds," he said in an interview at the development last month.

Other attractions are scheduled to open before spring, adding to the traffic.

"By the first of April, this should be a really hopping place," he said.

The Cardinals also are looking south for ideas, to Charlotte, N.C., and Jupiter, Fla., their spring-training home.

The ownership group has been keeping tabs on Gateway Village, a 15-acre mixed-use development in Charlotte's Uptown neighborhood.

Bank of America is one of the developers of the project, and one of the main tenants.

Plans for Gateway Village call for 1.35 million square feet of office space, with ground-level retail and commercial establishments, and more than 500 residential units.

Tenants in the development, which is about halfway completed, include a YMCA, a dry cleaners, a copy and print center, a Starbucks coffee shop and several restaurants.

The Cardinals also are watching the evolution of Abacoa Town Center, the development that abuts Roger Dean Stadium, which the team shares with the Montreal Expos.

"We've kind of been intrigued by the spin-off development there," DeWitt said.

The master plan and building designs were flexible enough that, even though Town Center attracted fewer office renters than expected, the developer still was able to fill the space, he said.

"They could pretty much swap residential for office on most of the floors," he said.

But Ron Carrico, a San Diego lawyer who has fought the stadium project there, wonders how many people really want to live near baseball stadiums, with their attendant crowds and noise.

"It's like fireworks every night," he said.

Nor are stadium projects a prerequisite for urban renewal, Carrico said.

"Downtowns are being redeveloped all across the country, even without ballparks," he said.


Reporter Christopher Carey writes about business for the Post-Dispatch.

Reporter Christopher Carey:

E-mail: ccarey@post-dispatch.com

Phone: 314-340-8291