St. Louis Resident Ryan Woods Interested in AC St. Louis
IMS has confirmed with numerous reputable sources that St. Louis resident Ryan Woods has interest in purchasing or investing in the USSF D2 Pro League team, AC St. Louis, from St. Louis Soccer United (SLSU) which is partially owned by Jeff Cooper.
Last weekend Selby Wellman of the Carolina RailHawks and Aaron Davidson of Traffic USA and Miami FC spent time in St. Louis going over Wood’s financials. The NASL representatives are being careful in vetting Woods knowing the USSF will meticulously examine his financial documents with the new D2 standards.
Ryan Woods
The 35-year-old is a real estate developer, owns numerous companies and is involved with several ventures. He is currently partnering with Chris Dornfeld of St. Louis with a company called United Plaza LLC. Woods was a founding partner of the Clayton-based St. Louis office of Lee & Associates, a national commercial real estate corporation. He founded Gateway Real Estate Partners in 2003. United Plaza is an affiliate.
Woods and Dornfeld presented an RFP to Richmond Heights for redevelopment of an area called the Hadley Township neighborhood. Richmond Heights Public Relations Coordinator Irene Johnson told IMS the city issued a request for proposals on the redevelopment in early 2009 and United Plaza was the only respondent.
According to Johnson and an article in the St. Louis Today dated August 2009, a soccer stadium was added to the project plans. Jeff Cooper, current owner of AC St. Louis, who is said to be a long-standing friend of Woods, was quoted as saying he was approached by Woods to build a stadium.
“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.”
Richmond Heights soccer stadium rendering
The article says Woods was quoted as saying he’d discussed his proposal with Cooper and that Cooper “was considering it among any number of other options.” But the project is still in very preliminary stages. “I’ve thought that area of the county would be an ideal spot for a soccer stadium,” said Woods.
Cooper’s interest faded and the stadium was taken out of the proposed plans. According to the city of Richmond Heights, on August 16, 2010, a soccer stadium appeared again in the plans. Johnson emphasized that the plans for Richmond Heights have yet to be approved.
In yet another article by St. Louis Today, the newspaper reported that: The 57-acre site lies immediately south of Highway 40 (Interstate 64) and east of Hanley Road. The development would be one of the largest and highest value mixed-use office and residential developments in recent years in the St. Louis area. The cost of the first phase is expected to exceed $400 million.
Last week it was rumored that Woods would also purchase AB Park from Cooper. The facility was given to Cooper and his ownership group SLSU by Anheuser-Busch in 2009 when Cooper made an eventually-failed bid for a Major League Soccer team. The estimate of the soccer complex, which includes a 6,000 seat soccer stadium with natural grass, two grass exhibition fields, a practice field and two artificial turf fields, is valued at $8 million or more. The facility also has meeting and banquet rooms.
One St. Louis soccer insider told IMS that AB Park has become run down since Cooper took over and he’s not made good on promises to the Scott Gallagher youth soccer club who also use the facilities.
Jeff Cooper
It’s believed that if Woods becomes involved with AC St. Louis it would be under the name of Gateway Sports. Woods owns Gateway Global, which in turn owns Gateway Sports. IMS was told that St. Louis resident Steve Sowers, a friend of Woods, will be the day-to-day manager of Gateway Sports with a minority ownership interest in the team. Sowers was contacted by IMS on Thursday and stated he couldn’t comment on the situation. When pressed and asked when he could comment, he replied, “I guess when I’m given clearance.”
IMS talked to Woods on Saturday and confirmed he has shown interested in investing in SLSU. “We initially started discussions with Jeff Cooper about AC St. Louis being a user in the Richmond Heights project,” said Woods. “We have expanded that into possible investment in SLSU.”
Woods, who grew up in Cape Girardeau, MO, playing soccer and traveling to St. Louis for tournaments, still follows the professional game closely.
It’s unknown whether Cooper will stay involved as a minority owner or if he will sell the entire team. Not long ago Jeff Cooper was looked upon by some as a hero who had brought soccer back to prominence in St. Louis. But as one well-known St. Louis soccer personality told IMS, “Cooper has done far more damage to St. Louis soccer than he has helped.”
Comments are closed.
I don’t know…something just doesn’t seem right. To be honest, I really don’t see any difference between D2 soccer in the US and the real estates speculators from a few years back. Something stinks….
Have you ever been to AB? If you have, and I doubt that your “insider” has, then you have a drastically different definition of “run down” than any other rational human. That makes me wonder about the rest of the article…
This sounds promising. Let’s hope this brings some stability to AC St. Louis.
Is Ryan Woods the “deep pockets” potentially needed for MLS that has been rumored or is there someone else?
In any case it would just be nice to have the team back next year.
I think its a wee bit on the funny side. Cooper is a bit of a jumper. He can’t sit still and it concerns me because it’s not good for the game in St. Louis.
The point is he has interest in keeping soccer alive in the US. Where is the equivalent in MINNESOTA?
I’m not so much concerned who owns the team (in fact rumors had been started that I was the one buying it). I’m more concerned with how the team will be run. Soccer is not big business and any owner or potential owner who thinks they can run a club like a business-let alone a big one-will ultimately be disappointed and will only run the club into the ground.
A Soccer club needs to be run like a non-profit (or even better-a charity). It isn’t against the law to actually make a profit with a non-profit (and Illinois even has a “low-profit” LLC designation that can be organized).
Let’s hope that whoever owns/runs/manages the team decides to heed my advice.
I sure hope that Mr. Woods is able to afford play-by-play/color commentators and a video camera tri-pod for their teams WWW broadcasts.
Ok, so let’s get this straight. This guy Woods is worth $20,000,000 and understands that D-2 teams lose between $750,000 to $1,250,000 on average, so he not only will buy the team, but also buy A/B park, which will have additional operating expenses on top of the team expenses?
Cooper got the park free of charge from Anheuser Busch. So Woods thinks that by paying Cooper money for the park, he can do better?
I realize that one man’s treasure is another man’s trash, and that competitors always think they can do one step better than the other guy, but this just is not rational.
I havent been to STL in a long time but is is the land around A/B park desireable? with Woods being a real estate guy prehaps he sees the land that AB park is on as the ultimate deal and the team is just one of the things that come with it.
No the land is prone to flooding but is close to the closed Fenton auto plant
Mikey:
The A-B Soccer Park has no additional land around it, except on the west side. The Meramec River runs on the east side, Interstate 44 runs on the south side, and there is a St. Louis County park on the north side. The Soccer Park did inquire about the County park on the north side when A-B owned the Soccer Park, but to no avail.
Interesting to note is that there is a huge tract of land formerly occupied by a Chrysler assembly plant about a mile west of the Soccer Park. That land is for sale. However, there are businesses occupying the land between the Soccer Park and the former Chrysler plant. An ambitious developer might be able to snap up all that land, provided the businesses between the Soccer Park and the old Chrysler plant want to sell.
And, in response to “AB,” I believe IMS was referring to the Soccer Park, not to the Anheuser-Busch brewery itself. Having spent much time at the Soccer Park since the mid-1990s as a youth coach, I can confirm that the Soccer Park indeed has become run down since A-B gave the Soccer Park to Cooper’s group. The scoreboard did not work for an AC St. Louis game this summer, and the park is nowhere near the cleanliness standards it had under A-B’s ownership.
I really hope they can make a soccer-specific stadium happen at this location. Unlike any of the other proposed locations, this one is well-served by public transit, making it easy for fans and hard-core supporters to come to games.
Hey Scoop 88,
The scoreboard didn’t work for one game(not all summer). Don’t be overly dramatic to try and prove your point. Soccer stadium is on the “books” with Richmond Heights so I doubt Woods is looking at A/B long term.
Hi Matt:
Read carefully, my friend. I wrote the scoreboard did not work for one game this summer, not all summer. And if you are out at the Soccer Park as much as I am, you would have seen tables at night after youth camps this summer that had not been cleaned off. You would have seen shrubbery untrimmed and bathrooms that needed cleaning. The Soccer Park requires a lot of upkeep. This sort of stuff was always up to snuff when A-B owned the park, due largely to the fact that August A. Busch III was there frequently and demanded that everything was first class, just as he did at every facility owned by A-B. But, of course, A-B had the money to do those things.
That said, give Jeff Cooper a lot of credit for trying hard to bring MLS to St. Louis, and for bringing WPS and men’s Division 2 teams to town. Sure, the Athletic went out of business, and sure, AC is struggling. But no one else cared enough to do what he has attempted. Whether he went about it in the right way or not can be debated, but I don’t see any other so-called “soccer people” in St. Louis joining in. I hope Mr. Woods and company can do the sport justice in St. Louis.