Deal on Ballpark Village in St. Louis hits snag

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The Ballpark Village project in St. Louis could be delayed for more than two months, the result of a stall in negotiations between the city and the developer.

A City Hall hearing scheduled for Wednesday was canceled. The mayor's office attributed the holdup to haggling over legal language. But an alderman told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the delay was the result of significant changes sought by Baltimore-based Cordish Co..

Cordish is the development partner working with the St. Louis Cardinals on the project that calls for six blocks of condos, shops and restaurants in the area where the old Busch Stadium used to stand, just across from the new ballpark.

Five bills regarding Ballpark Village were submitted Friday to the Board of Aldermen as part of the effort to get more than $115 million in public subsidies for the $387 million first phase of the project.

City and Cordish officials aren't discussing the reason for the delay.

"Lawyers are still lawyering it," said Jeff Rainford, Mayor Francis Slay's chief of staff. "They are working on the lawyer language."

Blake Cordish, vice president of the developer, would say only that he expected talks with the city to be completed in "very short order."

A delay "is perfectly normal and expected for a deal of this size, complexity and importance to the city," he said.

Public funding for the project would include $59 million in city tax incentives, $27 million in state tax breaks, $25 million from the establishment of two special taxing districts in the village, and $5 million in bonds bought by Cordish and the Cardinals.

The Board of Aldermen's Housing Committee was to have heard the proposal Wednesday, a step that would have made the plan eligible for a final vote Feb. 9, the last meeting before the aldermen begin a nine-week spring recess. Instead, the bills were abruptly taken off the committee's agenda.

Alderman Fred Wessels, chairman of the Housing Committee, said the bills had been pulled because of changes requested by Cordish. He called the changes "substantive," but declined to elaborate.

Barring a special meeting, the earliest the proposal will be voted on is April 16.

Time is an issue for the Cardinals. The team wants ground to be broken in the first half of the 2007 season and wants Ballpark Village open by July 2009, when the new stadium hosts the Major League All-Star Game, the first in St. Louis in four decades.

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, www.stltoday.com.