As St. Louis CITY SC continue construction of their stadium scheduled to open with the club's 2023 MLS launch, commissioner Don Garber stopped by this week to tour the venue in its current state and meet with ownership and front office staff, including the team’s CEO Carolyn Kindle Betz.
The club released images from Garber's visit on its official Twitter account on Thursday.
The stadium, which is slated to have a capacity of 22,500, is the centerpiece of a wide-ranging Stadium District that will expand into the surrounding area, where the venue is under construction in downtown St. Louis.
"St. Louis City SC's Stadium District will be a destination unlike anything seen across sports in this country and will help re-energize the entire St. Louis Region," Garber said on Thursday.
“It’s just spectacular,” Garber added. “There’s nothing better than seeing the vision of an ownership group come together and watch it develop over a number of years. And every aspect of it, they’ve overdelivered on, from their commitment to diversity in the community, to the size and scope and the depth of their investment, to the creative deliverables, about trying to have this facility, and its connection to the brand help this city sort of its plan for a rebirth and re-energize and almost a reimagining of what downtown St. Louis can be."
Originally scheduled to join MLS for the 2022 season, St. Louis CITY had that date out back a year due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. And both Garber and Kindle Betz said that the delay will ultimately prove to be a huge benefit to the project.
“There was probably about 10 minutes when we were a little sad about it,” Kindle Betz said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “But I think overall we quickly realized it was going to be a blessing to the team and everything that we were trying to accomplish.”
