Ballpark Village, a dining and recreational venue for fans of the St. Louis Cardinals, is set to open this month. Designed by New York-based Jeffrey Beers International (JBI), the multi-level complex celebrates the history of the Cardinals baseball team while paying homage to a locally based beer company Anheuser-Busch.
JBI based its model for Ballpark Village on an urban plan, taking inspiration from classic piazzas and town squares in Europe. The center of the complex is the Live! Marketplace, with two levels, multiple bars, retail stores, and a 30-by-16-foot screen flanked by four 90-inch LED TVs.
Anchoring one side of Live! Marketplace is the Budweiser Tap House, a four-level dining and lounge area inspired by the Anheuser-Busch brand. The first floor features a traditional beer hall with a turn-of-the-century industrial aesthetic. The space’s color scheme plays off Budweiser’s colors with classic red, white, gold, and a muted dark green, which was a signature color of Budweiser bottles prior to the 1940s. Upstairs, the upscale design draws from the Budweiser gold crown logo. Tall barrel-style tufted booths, a backlit bar, and clusters of studded leather lounge seating fill the space.
The third and fourth floors of the Budweiser Brew House, as well as the roof, overlook the Cardinals’ Busch Stadium. Directly outside the Live! Marketplace is an outdoor beer garden. In another nod to the beer company’s culture, JBI installed a tree in the garden of the same species from which Budweiser barrels are made. A custom teak banquette curves around the tree, which spans 14 feet in diameter.
While one side of Ballpark Village is dedicated to beer, the other-Cardinals Nation-honors the St. Louis Cardinals. The first floor feels like a baseball dugout, with a ceiling installation of LED lights that is reminiscent of the red stitching on a baseball. A restaurant and bar, hall of fame museum, as well as some retail also occupy the space, which is adorned with sports memorabilia. The color scheme is bright and playful, with a punchy red and a canary yellow that reflect the Cardinals’ logo.
The second floor’s elevated dining area takes after the Gashouse Gang-a name applied to the Cardinals team of the mid-1930s and 1940s. Recalling the earlier time period, the second floor features a pressed tin ceiling, Edison bulb-inspired light pendants, and leather dining seating.
