The question of who can authorize taking tax revenue currently going to pay off the Edward Jones Dome and using it to fund a new St. Louis Rams stadium has gotten ultra-crazy, with these latest developments in the state legislature:
- The state senate passed a bill banning using the money to pay for a new stadium.
- House leaders got the funding ban stricken from the bill in conference committee.
- Senate leaders said the governor would go ahead with selling bonds based on the Jones Dome money at his own risk, because “we’re not technically obligated to pay” and could just refuse to appropriate funds to pay off the bonds, and bondholders wouldn’t like that much, now would they?
The plan to use the Jones Dome payments for a new stadium is in plenty of trouble as it is, because then somebody would still have to pay off the Jones Dome, and in the governor’s current plan that somebody is the city of St. Louis — which has a law prohibiting new stadium funding without a public vote, and lawyers willing to sue to enforce that provision. But state senators threatening not to pay the governor’s IOUs are a nice added touch. At this point, Nixon might want to just hold a referendum already, and pull out all the stops trying to win it — though it’d undoubtedly help if Rams owner Stan Kroenke were showing any interest in helping to do so, since he’s the guy with the money for a big-bucks ad campaign. What’s the world coming to when you can’t even count on the local billionaire to buy votes?
First off, I love your site. I just stumbled upon it recently and it’s super-interesting. Awesome work!
I frankly don’t know what to say about this Rams debacle. Talk about a failure to learn from mistakes: The Jones Dome was in financial trouble before the Rams decided they didn’t want to be there any more. The predictions of income never came anywhere close to expectations and they were well on their way to eating through all the cash reserves that were supposed to keep the stadium running. Now, without that white elephant even being paid off the push is on for an even bigger one?
You can always do what the fine folks of Cincinnati ended up doing… take the money away from schools.
We don’t need those anyway… carry on.
The “Edward Jones Dome” is not in financial trouble. Bond payments are easily made and as part off the America’s Center , the STL convention business is going strong. A number of bonds were recently refunded to take advantage of lower interest rates too.
Hi STLer,
You mean re-funded vs refunded, right?
“The “Edward Jones Dome” is not in financial trouble.”
Care to share any details of that great news? The Post-Dispatch ran numbers predicting it’d be $62 million in the hole within a few years. The bond funds they’d been getting are set to expire in a few years meaning they’d need to fully financially viable by then except they’ve been eating into the saved funds that were supposed to provide for long-term upkeep.
I think that’s refinanced as apposed to refunded.
The Jones Dome will cease to be the moment the Rams leave for a different stadium. All the money from the naming rights went straight to the Rams and Edward Jones won’t owe anything if the Rams leave. And anybody who believes they’ll continue to be able to sell bonds for upkeep costs when there is no tenant is living in a fantasy land. Want to see the future of that place? Google “Pontiac Silverdome.”
@ Thomas – They aren’t selling bonds, they are extending them which is similar to a HELOC refi. The dome is being paid off with money from dedicated tourist taxes that expire when the bonds are paid off. The Dome is used as convention center space which has caused the CVC to lose $10s of millions a year due to the Rams scheduling priority.
All of your claims are false. I’m guessing you are a BBTLAR fan.
Re: St. Louis making more money by scheduling the dome for conventions if the Rams leave: Not so much. See:
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2015/01/09/8334/st-louis-stadium-task-force-lets-throw-450m-at-kroenke-to-get-rams-to-stay/#comment-26157
And they would have to sell new bonds for the Jones Dome, since the whole idea of Gov. Nixon’s plan is to take the state revenue streams that have been paying off the dome and redirect them to pay off the new stadium, while having the city take over bond payments on the dome. Those would have to be backed by some kind of city revenue, not dome revenue — since the city doesn’t run the dome, and the dome doesn’t really have any revenue anyway — so they could sell, but it’s hardly just a simple refinance.
I see several references to convention money with the Jones Dome. If the Rams leave town entirely then possibly they could build upon that revenue. But if a new stadium were built anywhere in the metro region they’d likely lose a huge chunk of that convention traffic to the new building. That Silverdome comparison up above is pretty accurate of what happens when a new stadium is built. Cities struggle to fill dates with one 70,000 seat stadium and very few places have a need for two facilities of that size.