{"id":454530,"date":"2026-02-05T02:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/454530\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T02:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:05:08","slug":"preparing-for-olympic-soccer-in-2028","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/454530\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for Olympic soccer in 2028"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) &#8211; As the city plans to host Olympic soccer matches in 2028, local officials are looking ahead at the improvements needed to prepare St. Louis for the world stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The excitement centers around Energizer Park, just blocks away and the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstalert4.com\/2026\/02\/04\/st-louis-selected-2028-olympics-soccer-venue-continuing-citys-olympic-legacy\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.firstalert4.com\/2026\/02\/04\/st-louis-selected-2028-olympics-soccer-venue-continuing-citys-olympic-legacy\/\"> future site<\/a> of Olympic soccer matches in 2028. Just a few blocks away at The Biscuit Joint, owner Elliot Brown said his restaurant\u2019s proximity could be an advantage for the popular breakfast spot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI\u2019ve lived in Midtown for like 7 years I\u2019ve seen it grow. In the last couple years it\u2019s been really rapid,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen all these people coming and developing these older buildings. I think we need to continue building excitement over downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Over the next two years, the city will be preparing downtown and Midtown for global attention, improving infrastructure and encouraging development in some pockets of Midtown that have not seen the same growth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Alderman Michael Browning said city officials are already talking about putting the city\u2019s best foot forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe want St. Louis to shine,\u201d Browning said. \u201cWe need to prepare, but not overprepare. We won\u2019t get the big matches like LA, so we need to take what we have and work with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Browning brought up issues surrounding short-term rentals. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstalert4.com\/2026\/02\/04\/st-louis-waits-courts-weigh-old-law-boa-members-seek-short-term-rental-tax-legislation\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.firstalert4.com\/2026\/02\/04\/st-louis-waits-courts-weigh-old-law-boa-members-seek-short-term-rental-tax-legislation\/\">He had sponsored a BOA bill that passed in 2023 that contained a series of regulations for AirBNB and VRBO units.<\/a> But its implementation has been paused due to a lawsuit in 2025. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI want to see those regulations in effect,\u201d Browning said. \u201cWe want people to have a good time, but we want to protect people who live here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Matt O\u2019Leary, founder of Downtown Forward, a new organization working on public safety improvements, said perceptions about the city need to improve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cPeople want to see downtown organized,\u201d O\u2019Leary said. \u201cCrime stats are going dramatically in the positive direction for downtown, so we need to continue that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">O\u2019Leary pointed to progress already happening, with homicides downtown falling from 11 in 2024 to just one in 2025, and total shooting incidents falling 38 percent in the same period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe need to activate downtown because people make places safe. Having the soccer stadium has helped with that on the west side of downtown,\u201d O\u2019Leary said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He identified addressing chronic homelessness as the next challenge. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe have to have a unified approach to chronic homelessness. It\u2019s our greatest challenge,\u201d O\u2019Leary said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 KMOV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) &#8211; As the city plans to host Olympic soccer matches in 2028,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[186695,49,48,33921,24889,3306,20026,561,82,14577],"class_list":["post-454530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-186695","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-downtown","tag-midtown","tag-olympic","tag-preparing","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-st-louis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}