ST. LOUIS, MO – September 24, 2026 (STL.News) Ballpark Village generated a substantial increase in tax collections in 2025 even as attendance at neighboring Busch Stadium declined, suggesting the downtown St. Louis entertainment district is building a business base beyond St. Louis Cardinals home games.
Tax collections in the Ballpark Village Community Improvement District increased 27.8% in 2025 compared with 2024, according to Missouri Department of Revenue data reported by the St. Louis Business Journal. The increase was the largest among the major St. Louis community improvement districts the publication examined.
First Alert 4 revisited the trend Wednesday, reporting that Missouri Department of Revenue data showed economic activity at Ballpark Village increased by nearly 30% from 2024 to 2025 despite declining Cardinals attendance. Business operators interviewed by the station pointed to restaurants, events, residential customers and entertainment offerings as reasons the district is attracting customers beyond baseball games.
The distinction between tax collections and corporate revenue is important.
The 27.8% figure should not be interpreted as meaning revenue for Ballpark Village’s developer increased by that amount, nor does it establish that every restaurant, bar or retailer in the development experienced identical growth. Instead, the Missouri figures measure taxable economic activity captured through the district’s tax structure.
Nevertheless, the increase provides a measurable indication that business activity inside the district strengthened considerably during 2025.
Ballpark Village grows despite weaker Cardinals crowds
The timing makes the increase particularly notable.
Cardinals attendance fell sharply between 2024 and 2025. Major League Baseball’s official 2025 attendance report lists St. Louis with 2,372,823 in attendance across 82 dates, averaging 28,937. Published attendance databases use somewhat different methodologies and produce different season totals, but they agree on the broader trend: attendance declined significantly from 2024.
That would ordinarily present a major challenge for businesses located directly outside a professional sports stadium.
Ballpark Village occupies the two-block area immediately north of Busch Stadium, generally bounded by Clark Avenue, Walnut Street, Broadway and Eighth Street, according to the city of St. Louis. Its Community Improvement District was established to generate tax revenue that can be used to reimburse development project costs.
Its location makes Cardinals traffic enormously valuable.
But the latest numbers suggest the development’s economic fortunes are no longer tied exclusively to how many people pass through Busch Stadium’s gates.
Tom Schmidt, owner of Salt + Smoke, told First Alert 4 that additional restaurants, attractions and events have made the area busier throughout the year.
“It’s not just Cardinals games. There’s something all the time.”
Schmidt’s observation offers one explanation for the numbers, although the tax data themselves do not establish precisely what caused the increase.
Ballpark Village has evolved beyond its first phase
Today’s Ballpark Village is substantially different from the entertainment development that initially opened next to Busch Stadium.
Developer The Cordish Companies says the district’s second phase represented a $300 million expansion that opened in 2020 and added a mix of residential, hotel, office, fitness, retail, and commercial uses.
That expansion included One Cardinal Way, a 30-story residential tower with 300 units; the 220-room Live! by Loews hotel; the 11-story PwC Pennant Building; approximately 100,000 square feet of additional retail space; and a Genesis Health Clubs facility.
Cordish also operates Spark St. Louis coworking space in the PwC Pennant Building.
The result is a major shift in Ballpark Village’s business model.
Someone attending a Cardinals game might visit the district several times during a baseball season. A resident, hotel guest, downtown office worker, or fitness-club member can potentially patronize its businesses throughout the year.
Cordish describes Ballpark Village as a year-round destination and says the development hosts more than 150 programmed live events annually. The developer says the broader district attracts more than 6 million visitors per year. Those visitor figures are Cordish’s own estimates rather than independently audited figures.
One Cardinal Way creates a built-in customer base
The residential component may be particularly important to the effort to reduce dependence on baseball.
Matthew Duffin, chef at The Clydesdale, told First Alert 4 that the restaurant has developed a relationship with residents of One Cardinal Way and that those residents regularly patronize its bars.
Duffin described Ballpark Village as increasingly functioning as an attraction of its own rather than simply a place for fans to congregate before and after games.
That represents a fundamentally different economic model for the district.
Restaurants supported primarily by baseball traffic face enormous fluctuations between home games, road trips, and the offseason. Residential customers, workers, hotel guests and people attending non-baseball events potentially provide demand on days when Busch Stadium is empty.
Ballpark Village’s 2025 tax performance suggests that diversification may be producing measurable results, although the available tax data alone cannot determine how much of the increase came from residents, individual restaurants, special events, tourism or other sources.
The Clydesdale targets more than baseball fans
The arrival of The Clydesdale provides another example of the strategy.
Chef and restaurateur Kevin Nashan told First Alert 4 that the restaurant was designed to serve customers seeking more than traditional game-day food.
Nashan said the restaurant can accommodate special occasions, business lunches and dinners while also serving families heading to Cardinals games.
That combination broadens the potential customer base beyond sports fans.
Instead of requiring a Cardinals home game to generate traffic, restaurants that can attract business lunches, downtown residents, tourists, and dinner customers have more opportunities to generate revenue throughout the week.
Retail continues to expand
Ballpark Village also continues to add businesses outside the traditional bar-and-restaurant category.
In April, CardVault by Tom Brady opened a location at 771 Clark Avenue, directly across from Busch Stadium.
The sports-card and memorabilia retailer said the St. Louis store was its 14th location nationally when it opened. The business also planned programming including trade nights, athlete appearances and special product launches, creating another potential source of non-game-day visits.
That type of experiential retail fits the broader effort to make Ballpark Village a destination rather than merely a collection of businesses benefiting from stadium crowds.
The numbers require some perspective
Ballpark Village’s 27.8% increase is encouraging for the development, but it should not be treated as evidence that all of downtown St. Louis experienced comparable growth.
Community improvement districts cover specific geographic areas, and Ballpark Village benefits from a concentration of restaurants, entertainment venues, residences, hotel rooms, offices, and major-event traffic that may not represent other downtown blocks.
Nor does one year of tax growth guarantee that the pace will continue.
Inflation can also increase nominal taxable sales and tax collections. Higher menu prices and other price increases can raise taxable dollar volumes even without an equivalent increase in the number of customers or transactions.
Those limitations make the contrast with Cardinals attendance more meaningful, however.
The development experienced substantial growth in tax collections during a period when the neighboring baseball team’s attendance was moving in the opposite direction.
That suggests something beyond increased baseball attendance supported Ballpark Village’s growth.
Ballpark Village offers a different downtown story
Downtown St. Louis continues to face significant challenges involving vacant properties, office occupancy, redevelopment and the performance of individual businesses.
Ballpark Village does not erase those problems.
But its 2025 tax numbers provide a useful counterpoint to a downtown narrative dominated by closures and distressed properties.
A development originally built around one of the city’s most powerful economic attractions — Cardinals baseball — appears to be generating more taxable activity even as that attraction draws fewer customers.
The combination of residential development, restaurants, hotel rooms, offices, fitness, retail and year-round events has created multiple reasons to visit the district.
That diversification was always important to the long-term viability of Ballpark Village. The latest tax figures provide measurable evidence that the district’s customer base is becoming less dependent on what happens across Clark Avenue at Busch Stadium.
For downtown St. Louis, that may be the larger significance of the 27.8% increase.
Ballpark Village isn’t simply benefiting from Cardinals crowds.
Increasingly, it is attempting to create its own.
Sources: Missouri Department of Revenue public taxable-sales data; City of St. Louis Ballpark Village Community Improvement District records; Major League Baseball attendance data; The Cordish Companies; First Alert 4; St. Louis Business Journal.
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