CARDINALS PRESIDENT SHARES A VISION; NEW BALLPARK COMPLEX SEEN AS ECONOMIC BOON TO ST. LOUIS

St. Louis Cardinals president Mark Lamping traveled south Friday to talk about two of his favorite topics: slugger Mark McGwire and a proposal for a new downtown St. Louis baseball park.

He addressed a near-capacity crowd at the Cape Girar-deau Chamber of Commerce's First Friday Coffee at the invitation of state Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau.

Lamping said season home-run record holder McGwire's new agreement is a $30 million bargain for the Cardinals, but a new downtown stadium could be a great bargain for St. Louis and Cardinals fans everywhere.

Now he's trying to convince the rest of the state.

Lamping and the Cardinals are pressing Missouri policymakers to use the $4.8 million annual sales tax generated by Busch Stadium to help fund a new $340 million downtown ballpark built just south of the old stadium. The team would like to have the new stadium ready for the 2005 season.

"We need to get things started now for that target date," said Lamping. "We'd like to host the 2006 Major League All-Star Game, which would bring from $80 to $100 million to the city."

The selling point is simple, said Lamping. The state, by using its Busch Stadium sales taxes to help pay for the new stadium, would probably double the taxes generated by the ballpark.

And a privately developed, $380 million BallPark Village could generate up to $40 million annually in tax revenue for the state, up from the total $19.1 million the same area generates now.

The proposal includes:

* 1,900 parking spaces in the city in the largest underground parking garage in town.

* 120,000 square feet in an aquarium, a new Baseball Cardinals Hall of Fame and special- events space.

* 450,000 square feet of office space and 110,000 square feet of retail space.

* 400 rental and owner-occupied housing units in apartments and townhouses.

* 2,460 jobs additional jobs.

As for the stadium itself, Cardinals officials would put up $100 million, leaving roughly $240 million to be paid by taxpayers.

The project would cover six blocks, including where 34-year-old Busch Stadium and a parking lot is today. Under the plan, the area would be wide open for development once Busch is torn down.

Lamping said the Cardinals' owners would help get Ballpark Village developed. "We are not in the development business, but we would do whatever we could to get this to happen," Lamping said.

"This is more than just a new baseball park," he said. "It is an attraction that brings more than 3 million people a year to downtown St. Louis."

Busch Stadium is the fifth-oldest stadium in the nation. It was constructed as a multipurpose facility for baseball and football.

Lamping said the new field would have better seating -- including 15 percent more "cheap seats" -- with just over 49,000 seats. Busch seats 49,750.

"I'm optimistic that something can be worked out," Lamping said following the First Friday Coffee. "And we're ready to build the new stadium. This would be an investment in a century-old business in the downtown area.

"Let's do it."