Cardinals, Cordish open Ballpark Village office building, name new tenant

The St. Louis Cardinals and development partner Cordish Cos. on Wednesday officially opened the PwC Pennant Building, part of the $260 million, 700,000-square-foot second phase expansion of Ballpark Village.

In addition to a holding ceremonial ribbon cutting, developers named Fox Sports Midwest as the 11-story office building’s third tenant. Fox Sports Midwest, the television partner of the Cardinals, is expected to move into the facility in Spring 2020. The building’s other occupants are anchor tenant PwC and investment banking firm ButcherJoseph & Co.

“Today’s ribbon cutting is the start of opening season for the Ballpark Village phase two,” said Nick Benjamin, vice president of development at Cordish Cos.

Tenants in late October began moving into the office building, which is the first component to open in Ballpark Village’s second phase. The rest are scheduled to begin operations in a staggered time frame. Onelife Fitness, which will anchor the expansion’s three-story retail pavilion, is expected to open at the start of 2020. A Live! by Loews hotel is planned to start operation in the first quarter of 2020, and the project’s 29-story apartment tower is slated to open in the second quarter of next year.

“I’ve just been one of those kids like on Christmas morning recently," said Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III. "I just get excited to come down here and look at the progress every day. Even by the time I get to work, there’s stuff that’s been done in the early morning."

The PwC Pennant Building’s newest tenant, Fox Sports Midwest, currently operates out of an office at 333 South 18th St., near Union Station, and also rents control room space in Midtown. The move to Ballpark Village will allow its roughly 40 employees to operate out of a single location, said General Manager Jack Donovan. The office also will include a new studio, which will be in addition to the studio the network has in Ballpark Village's first phase.

“The question we’re asked frequently is why move here. And it’s pretty simple. We’ll be across the street from the ballpark and the executive offices of the Cardinals, minutes from the Enterprise Center and the St. Louis Blues,” Donovan said. “Secondly, we are really going to have some state-of-the-art technology in these facilities, giving us a capacity to produce lots more programming, much better programming, to just make for better television."

PwC, ButcherJoseph & Co. and Fox Sports Midwest will occupy about 65% of the Pennant Building, said Benjamin of Cordish Cos. The Cardinals and Cordish Cos. plan to name additional office, restaurant and retail tenants in upcoming months. The two parties have said that Ballpark Village’s 75,000 square feet of second-phase ground floor dining, entertainment and retail space is currently more than 90% leased. A wave of ground floor tenants were announced last week, including bar and restaurant Sports & Social St. Louis, Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse and retailer Baseballism.

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