Walter Lee Metcalfe Jr. (born December 19, 1938) is a lawyer based in St. Louis, Missouri.
Noted for his roles in the purchase and sale of professional sports teams and in numerous civic improvement projects, he has been called "perhaps the region's most important" dealmaker by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper.
[1] Metcalfe has helped negotiate many high-profile deals in St. Louis and beyond, including the agreements that led to the construction of the Scottrade Center hockey arena, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation museum, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, and the Edward Jones Dome football stadium.
[1] He also wrote the contracts that sold the New England Patriots to James Orthwein, an heir to the St. Louis-based Busch brewing family; and then to Boston businessman Robert Kraft.
[4] Beginning around 2007, he drove a $380 million renovation of the Gateway Arch grounds, drawing the participation of a half-dozen agencies and designing regional sales tax and fundraising campaigns to fund it.