Original St. Louis stadium design.

With Montreal all but given an expansion key to Major League Soccer there is still one bid that will be up for grabs, that lovely 20th spot. St. Louis is hoping to be that city that finally gets into MLS. While they already had one stadium option in their initial proposal to MLS, they now seem to have another couple options coming up.

According to Tim Logan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, two more sites are being discussed along with the Collinsville stadium. One site includes a stadium that is with another developer that isn’t even associated with Jeff Cooper and his group that was heading the St. Louis to MLS drive.

Gateway Real Estate Partners recently submitted a proposal to Richmond Heights to build a $395 million mixed-use project, centered around a new 18,500-seat stadium, along Hanley Road south of Highway 40. It’d also include housing, hotels, retail, office space and perhaps a movie theater.

It’s on the site known as Hadley Township, where Richmond Heights and Michelson Commercial Realty and Development worked for three years to try and craft a workable project. That effort ended in February, and Richmond Heights officials sought new proposals.

Interesting that some random developer wanted to build a new soccer stadium. Maybe he was watching Field of Dreams or something and thought if you build it they will come. Cooper released a statement regarding the proposed site saying he is still focused on Fenton (at the St. Louis Soccer Park) and Collinsville.

Ryan Woods approached me with his plan some time ago, but none of our discussions have been serious.  In the meantime, earlier this year we acquired the St. Louis Soccer Park from Anheuser-Busch and are committed to exploring that site as a potential home for a new, state-of-the-art stadium for professional soccer.  Also, we continue to work with Collinsville, which has been a terrific partner to date.  The Richmond Heights proposal is not one that has our attention at this time.

Apparently things are still early in the development stages for everything here but from what it sounds like this new location would be a good fit for a soccer team in St. Louis. Most would agree that it is better than Collinsville, which is a good drive outside of St. Louis.

I think St. Louis still has a long way to go here to get a MLS club. As badly as MLS wants to be in that city they need to focus on getting the right money in their corner for an expansion bid. But seeing a couple new plans for stadiums gives some signs of hope in the Gateway City, small hope but hope nonetheless.

Going back to Friday’s thoughts about the 2009 edition of SuperLiga, I realized that maybe one thing to help improve the tournament’s ability to reach people may be to do what happened in St. Louis this past weekend.

For those who don’t know the city of St. Louis hosted an opening round game for Kansas City since their current stadium was a bit busy with minor league baseball this past weekend.

St. Louis stepped up and hosted a game in a slightly smaller stadium that holds just over 6,000. It turns out that the final number of folks that were there was just a shade over 5,200.

One has to wonder if putting more games in random towns like St. Louis to test out potential MLS markets would work for SuperLiga. One also has to wonder in St. Louis’ case if they would be able to handle a MLS club full-time based on the numbers they pulled in this weekend for the SuperLiga contest. Some have said that even though the announced final attendance was pretty good for the stadium size that there were plenty of noticeable empty seats in the stands.

What do you make of St. Louis as a MLS market now that you’ve seen a fairly big game there? For me I still believe the league needs to be in that market. I know Don Garber agrees still with that even though the money just isn’t there still for a potential owner.

So what do you make of the potential with St. Louis? Also do you believe SuperLiga would be good in other markets that don’t currently have a MLS club? Would that rasie the level of interest any for this tournament?

While one expansion race is possibly set to end this week, another will kickoff shortly after the final announcement of the 18th club. MLS commissioner Don Garber was in Vancouver today to announce Vancouver’s inclusion as the 17th team in MLS, but he also revealed an interesting nugget on MLS expansion. Garber revealed that MLS plans to expand to 20 teams by 2012.

Yeah, 20 clubs by 2012. It’s something that really doesn’t shock me in the least bit because I think the league has dropped some hints at this in the past that few have picked up on.

So who will be in the mix for this next round? Easily we have to believe that if Portland is really being announced this week that this quick expansion round means that the league is giving another pass to St. Louis to get their stuff in order. It only makes sense that they are doing this to me for St. Louis alone.

Sure it means only cities like Ottawa and even recent expansion dropouts Miami, Atlanta and Montreal can re-try their hand at MLS. Though on Montreal I kind of get a feeling that Montreal may have a problem leaving the USL first division now that Portland and Vancouver are getting out. They may see themselves as a top dog there.

What doy you make of this announcement by Garber? Good for the league? Too much too soon?

Editor’s note: This is the second column but Geoff Reid. As mentioned before Geoff will be writing on WVH from time to time. Today he tackles the fun that has been the 2011 expansion race.

With the 2009 MLS season about to kick off this week and everything that’s happened the week gone by, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the future regarding our league.

Last week we saw drama from the Pacific northwest to the Gateway City. The fact that the vote in Portland on Wednesday would not only dictate how far their own bid would go, it would also influence the Ottawa bid and especially the St. Louis bid. However, even before all this 11th hour drama began, what looks like the one certain lock has been the quiet, yet steady bid the whole time since all original bids were announced back in the fall. Continue Reading…

Wow. If Major League Soccer was looking for a serious deep pocket for the St. Louis bid they may have gotten it. Today Anheuser-Busch has joined Jeff Cooper and his group to get a MLS club in the Gateway City.

“It’s huge. It’s a turning point,” Cooper said. “This commitment brings a lot of credibility to our bid, and shows the league how serious we are.”

“This is the best situation we could have hoped for,” Cooper said. “Whether it throws us over the top, that’s up to the MLS.”

Of course it all depends on the vote in Portland today. St. Louis is hoping to hear good news out of PDX later tonight. The league has already stepped up and posted a report on this matter.

I guess if things go well in Portland tonight St. Louis will turn to the USL for a club. Right? More than likely. Its kind of weird to think that they don’t already have USL-1 team right now anyways.

Hey, that’s right some actual (maybe even decent) news from the Gateway City today. Jeff Cooper, the man leading the St. Louis charge spoke to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch yesterday about the bid’s chances now that Miami is out of the race.

“Obviously I’ve always felt good about where we sit with this,” he said from San Francisco, where he was at WPS league meetings. “We’ve got a lot of good things going. At end of the day, do I feel like we’ll get it? Yes I do.”

“What I do know is, we don’t have the problems Miami has in terms of bids,” he said. “We have a stadium that’s revenue controlled. It’s going to be a good run for us over the next few months.”

Cooper even mentioned that economic reasons have not troubled the bid.

“We stand as ready as we’ve been,” he said. “Nothing has deterred us. I feel good about our bid and where we stand. Personally I think it’s a shame Miami is out, it’s a great city, and I thought the same about Montreal and Atlanta. They need to be in the league. But the league needs to come to St. Louis first.”

Yeah, even though Miami is out you gotta believe Cooper is loving the fact that the big dog is out of the running here. I still have a feeling he and the league are meeting a lot these days to discuss a deal to get the city a club before long. If Cooper can get an expansion fee at a discounted rate like what Miami and Montreal have been reported to trying to do.

As much as I really want to see St. Louis in the league, at this point I just feel like they’ve been passed up here by the two cities in the Pac-Northwest.

We started with seven and now with a couple weeks left before the league’s decision on expansion we have four cities in the running. With today’s news about Miami getting dropped from consideration one has to wonder which of the final four will the league go with?

For weeks I had said that since the league didn’t go a head and grant Miami a bid like most had thought they would before today that something was going wrong. A few months back most expected Miami to already be planning for 2010. But instead there was a delay and that delay ended today as bid died.

Sorry Miami fans, it just wasn’t in the cards for you after all. And to be real honest it is a smart move on the league’s part to not try that market just yet here. One day down the road for sure but definitely not now.

I liked the passion some people had about the Miami bid. Believe me there were plenty of commentors on here about how Miami would get a club in 2010 and that good news was around the corner for the bid. Turns out their wishful thinking was just that.

Today all we will see is a flood of Miami bashers out there and a slew of Miami fans that will just be upset more than anything.

In the end we have four left on the floor to pick from. Portland, a strong bid that is close to getting the public support that it needs to get a bid; Vancouver, a well-backed bid in a city that would probably handle a MLS team pretty well; St. Louis, once seen as a front-runner is now probably more of a dark horse than anything today; and Ottawa, the most laughed at bid in the bunch.

I am still hopeful that St. Louis can get it done in the end but money has and will probably continue to be an issue with them.

My money today, just like it has been for the last several months is on Portland for one bid and now more than ever I believe Vancouver is the other. We will see in a couple short weeks.

Where do you see the league going to now? Miami, the bid seen as a front-runner for months is gone…so who is now in line to take the bids?