A Ballpark Village Already Exists (And it is having little trouble attracting tenants)

{Stan stands poised to send a liner straight up Spruce Street - image by Ben Evans}

When the designers of the new Busch Stadium looked at the designated site for the new facility, they had little trouble determining where the "front door" should be. They looked up Spruce Street and saw the existing structures of Cupples Station and the Metro Link station and knew that this was where they should put the main entrance to the ballpark. This is where the stadium would interface with the historic Cupples buildings, which were designated St. Louis Landmark No. 28 in 1971 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. The designers looked at the Westin Hotel and at other buildings on Spruce Street and integrated some of the brick detailing into their design. They carefully specified brick and mortar that would blend with the existing urban fabric. They did their job well.

While walking east on Spruce, toward the ballpark, one almost feels that Busch Stadium could have been a component of the original fabric of Cupples Station. The scale is right, the materials are right and the feel is right. And upon arrival at Busch Stadium, Gate 3 welcomes you as its main entry. The connections to other St. Louis landmarks and the historic neighborhood are clear. You can't miss the nod to Eads Bridge with the heroically scaled arch, and it is no accident that Gate 3 is flanked by two massive brick towers explicitly derivative of those seen on buildings in Cupples Station. The gate is the formal expression of the historic interdependence between the new stadium and St. Louis's historic past.