urbanSTL

gary kreie wrote: The debate is: Will the Rams and new stadium return to the PUBLIC all the money the public is being asked to contribute over an ironclad 30 year span.

Let’s go back to 1989, when the drive was on to build what is now called the Edward Jones Dome...

The deal called for selling bonds to borrow $258 million to raise the money needed to build the stadium. The state pitches in $12 million a year for 30 years. The city of St. Louis gives $6 million a year for 30 years and St. Louis County also gives $6 million a year for 30 years. The total cost to retire the bonds will be $720 million when the last payment is made in 2021...

Their charts showed that in the very first year of debt payments, the state, St. Louis and St. Louis County would realize $13,794,000 more in revenue than they paid in debt retirement...

By this year, 2015, according to their estimates, the state, St. Louis and St. Louis County are collecting $89,337,000 more than they are paying to retire the bonds. A 5 percent annual inflation rate was assumed in the calculations. Has anyone seen all this revenue?

http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/do ... 41ec5.html

and here we are only 26 years later, promoters' overblown projections didn't come to fruition, the old bonds aren't paid off, and we're considering taking out more loans to build another one that won't last the 30 years on which all the new (but really the same) projections are based. insanity.

gary kreie wrote:But that is not what the debate is about.

i very much disagree. this debate includes whether or not the stadium as planned, seeking to occupy prime real estate with a rarely-used venue and a sickening amount of surface parking, and to the benefit of a private enterprise owned by a billionaire, is the best use for the north riverfront in terms of promoting economic development downtown.

If this area is such prime real estate, then why has it sat mostly abandoned for 50 years?

Why do some call it blighted while others call it prime?

Why do some say this is a great opportunity to revitalize the north riverfront while others say it's a waste of prime riverfront?

Why is St. Louis so hard to understand?

Why? Why!??

I think putting a stadium there is better than doing nothing, but it's also a lot more expensive than doing nothing, so it looks like a wash.

OH. MY. GOD! YES! YES! YES!! We have just hit the STL Holy Grail!!! (Panting now....)

I think putting a stadium there is better than doing nothing, but it's also a lot more expensive than doing nothing, so it looks like a wash.

"Doing something is better than doing nothing, but it's also more expensive than doing nothing, so it's a wash!"

YESSS!!!! I FEEL SO FREE!!

I COULD DIE NOW!!!! WE HAVE REACHED STL NIRVANNA!

And it doesn't matter. Stadium or no stadium. It doesn't matter!

We have reached inner peace. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....Hmmmmmmmmm!!

Well I mean, we could try to do something that provided a positive return on investment.

You said it yourself. It could be better than doing nothing, or something, either way, it's probably a wash.

Isn't this not so much about proving one financial question or another, but rather proving to ourselves and the rest of the country/world, that STL is a "big league" city, and not a Mississippi River back water town?

Losing the NFL - twice - makes us a two-time loser, a national embarrassment, and just won't do.

We want our football!

Isn't that a lot more important than whether the deal pays a return?

And thus, why this chain of thought fits perfectly under this UrbanSTL topic heading.

Without an NFL franchise, St. Louis falls into a lower tier of US cities.

Agreed?

Northside Neighbor wrote: Without an NFL franchise, St. Louis falls into a lower tier of US cities.

Agreed?

Absolutely not. How many posts are there on this forum about people pining for a St. Louis that is as well-regarded as e.g. Austin or Portland, neither of which have NFL teams? Whatever the secret sauce is that makes a city great, it isn't the NFL.

I agree with doing something, but ideally it would be the something that has the highest bang for the buck, not just whatever is in front of us. Philosophically, I would prefer something less beholden to a cartel of billionaires, as well. Retaining an NFL team is at least politically expedient, so that's something. But if it's not shooting ourselves in the foot to buy a new stadium, it's not exactly a home run for StL, either, so I won't be losing any sleep over it either way.

People aren't coming to Saint.Louis because of the Rams they are coming here because of the history good entertainment historic neighborhoods conventions the beautiful Arch & soon the Blues museum . We need to capitalize off our assets which we have many . Mississippi River is our biggest however its still damning that the city is now realizing by ignoring the river has done us more harm then good. Now people will & are coming here for the Cardinals and that's a completely different subject they have so much of a tradition that people are willing to travel thousands of miles to be a part of that. Just think of what a completed BPV would be like? I feel the Rams have done nothing but sucked the heart out of Saint.Louis. We can and will be a lot more successful without them. I'm tired of hearing about Austin & Portland on how we should replicate them. Those cities are nice however Saint.Louis has a much better foundation to work from to make it a even greater city.. We need to find our confidence aka swagger.

On this thread, I'm glad to see that the discussion has transitioned to cultural and development questions about keeping the Rams in the city, rather than financial. So now we can get to the real objection folks have -- is the site north of the Arch the best for the stadium, or should it be built somewhere else in the region. Will we transition to a Portland or Austin trajectory if we let the Rams leave? Or are Memphis & Omaha more realistic models.

Might be the wrong thread for a Rams/Stadium-centric discussion.

gary kreie wrote:On this thread, I'm glad to see that the discussion has transitioned to cultural and development questions about keeping the Rams in the city, rather than financial. So now we can get to the real objection folks have -- is the site north of the Arch the best for the stadium, or should it be built somewhere else in the region. Will we transition to a Portland or Austin trajectory if we let the Rams leave? Or are Memphis & Omaha more realistic models.

Every city is a different animal, so I feel like this is a very difficult question to answer. Out of all those cities, we definitely look the most like Memphis demographically, and our history (how we got to where we are today) tracks most closely with Memphis. I also think the same problem plays the biggest role in holding both cities back (poverty, largely as a result of a history of racist policies). So I guess if I had to pick, I'd say Memphis is a far more realistic model.

That said, St. Louis isn't Memphis; there are key differences. STL metro is significantly larger than MEM metro, and there's more money here/resources/ability to get things done.

I would argue Austin and Portland are largely highly unrealistic models. For one, Austin is a state capital and therefore enjoys unique advantages from a state-wide policymaking standpoint. Both of those cities (Austin and Portland) are growing rapidly and are larger than they've ever been, they're both in highly desirable places geographically/climate-wise, and also frankly both of those cities are much whiter than St. Louis... therefore, a much smaller portion of those cities' respective populations have been marginalized by a history of segregation/redlining/other racist policies, so the cities themselves don't have as much of an issue with large-scale urban poverty and crime like St. Louis or Memphis does. It's also far easier to advance public policy in places where the population is more homogenous: people are generally a lot more willing to pay taxes and approve public policies if they know the policies are geared toward, and the tax money is being spent on, services that benefit people who look like they do, talk like they do, and have more similar life experiences in common with them.

That's not to say some things that work in Austin and Portland can't work here. But overall, in terms of the challenges each respective city faces, and what each respective city needs to do to stimulate growth, encourage investment, and therefore become more desirable places to live and work, St. Louis has far more in common with Memphis.

So with the Rams gone, St. Louis's image would definitely track more closely with Memphis than with Portland or Austin, if we're doing it among non-NFL cities. As it is, St. Louis is probably more often conflated with places like Memphis than Portland or Austin anyway, even with the Rams here.

Let's face facts. St. Louis is "all in" for the north riverfront as the one and only location for a new NFL stadium in St. Louis.

If it's not there, it's game over for the NFL in St. Louis. The days of debating whether the stadium belongs on the site of the old Chrysler plant in Fenton, or in Riverport, or on the east riverfront are over.

It's the north riverfront now or nothing at all. The die have been cast.

Is an NFL stadium the "best use" for that site? Irrelevant. The game is on now for the NFL stadium to go there. If that deal dies, then there are all sorts of other ideas about what to do there, and they look pretty good - if they ever happen. Call them "eyewash" today.

“How railroads, highways and other man-made lines racially divide America’s cities”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... as-cities/

I've always found St. Louis is a reasonably easy city to show off to people who are adventurous, open-minded and inquisitive, provided that you know where and what time of day to take them. For instance, taking someone to the Grove on a Friday or Saturday night will leave them of a much more positive opinion of the Grove than if you take them there on a Sunday afternoon.

The trouble is selling St. Louis to people who aren't that way, which in my experience includes most people.

The trouble is selling St. Louis to people who aren't that way, which in my experience includes most people.

Takeaway? Most people are dull.

They said, "you guys have no idea what you have here."

I disagree. I think people do indeed know what we have here. A lot of them just don't value it that much. Besides, they're obsessed with things like crime, race, keeping taxes low, the quality of their own personal school district, etc.

We are a highly fragmented, parochial community - with a lot of cool, under-valued, stuff.

Had an interesting conversation with a local this week. She pointed out that one of her greatest concerns is the way young people don't feel connected to St. Louis. So when given the opportunity, they're ready to bolt to other regions.

This person makes a great point. What do we need to do to make people in our community feel more connected to each other and this place? If we could start doing that better, then maybe folks would *appreciate* more what we have here.

Until then, they just don't really care that much. They don't feel a sense of connection.

Which is sort of weird since many people think one of our greatest qualities is our sense of community and Midwestern hospitality. I guess it all depends on personal experience and whether you attended a prep school.

A lot of folks come to town with nobody from here to show them around. So they judge the city only by what they find downtown. I was in downtown Seattle and downtown Portland recently. Seattle was impressive because of the new skyscrapers there along with the view of Puget Sound and an easy walk to Pike Place market. Portland was more walkable downtown with large street-side shade trees and a futuristic flair due to the continuous crisscrossing of downtown by streetcars and light rail. And Portland kept many of its older buildings, like St. Louis, and had several new hotels designed to look like they were refurbished old buildings when they were actually brand new.

On the downside for Seattle, the traffic was unbelievable. Parking is bad and you have to use valet a lot. I didn't find downtown Seattle particularly walkable, but it was easy to walk or bike to from nearby surrounding homes, condos, and districts. Both Portland and Seattle had a lot more homeless folks downtown than St. Louis. In Portland, downtown reminds you of St. Louis in that it fronts a working river that varies a lot in river height. Their solution was a grassy park along the river, but the river itself is visible only from a tall river wall. In St. Louis, folks want to be able to go right down to the water of the great river, which is a lot better. In Portland, the Wilmette river doesn't attract that desire. Portland had a block square building with Macy's in it that looks almost exactly like the Railway Exchange building in St. Louis. Powell Bookstore is a couple of blocks off downtown. And food trucks ring some empty parking lots. Downtown is easily accessible and is in the center of the metro area making it more accessible than our downtown. There is a lot of shopping, business, and therefore people walking around downtown, and it appears to be safe. Neither city seems to have the integration challenges we have here, which is not surprising for relatively young cities with little history of discrimination. Seattle's airport was unimpressive, except for a nice big new restaurant zone with tall windows looking out onto the tarmac inside security. (How hard would it be to add something similar to either terminal in St. Louis? That would be such an improvement.) So what I'm doing, with these cities, is what visitors to St. Louis do when they only have a day or two and only see downtown.

I was coming from Bellville and drove across the Eads bridge today for kicks. I hadn't driven in downtown for a while but holy smokes... The timing of the stoplights is horrendous! I know traffic is supposed to move slower on a city grid but I spent about a minute every single block waiting for NO traffic. I've never experienced this in other cities to the extent I have here. Anyone know if there's a plan to at least time the lights better? Or get some traffic sensors?

LOL, St. Louis has destroyed its grid and the Arch project has made traffic downtown (in the CBD) even worse. The street grid no longer functions because it's so totally broken.

4th and Broadway are packed during the weekday evening rush, as are all the "back ways" of of downtown, while most of the other streets around them are deserted because of the stupid one way streets, closed streets etc.

The timing of the lights at Washington and 4th, Washington and Memorial causes unnecessary backups daily, esp. now that the King bridge is closed and they've closed the exit onto 44 at Spruce. They didn't retime the lights after they completed construction, so the lights are timed for the amount of traffic that went through that intersection 2 years ago.

The lights are timed for the way things used to be, not the way things are and I have no confidence the situation will ever change, no matter how many CSB reports are filed.

I know this doesn't address your comments, but there are 2 extremes in downtown traffic, which I think shows how f-ed up transportation in D-town is.

I just got back from a few days in Detroit--partially for work and part to explore with friends who live nearby and happened to be in town at the same time. A few observations:

Downtown Detroit, at least this summer, was a surprisingly hopping place. And I have been keeping up somewhat with the stories of the city's revival. For someone going in who only thought of the city as a punch line it must be quite the surprise. There are still some big empty buildings downtown, and even some that are in use are in states of serious disrepair (a bar we ducked into during a thunderstorm was in the bottom floor of a 3 story building and there was a leak in the ceiling dumping water on the bar for example).

The downtown area is a bit bigger than ours so there are definitely some dead spaces between areas of high activity (Campus Martius, Greektown). In this respect I feel revitalizing our downtown seems to be a bit easier as filling in just a few spots can make STL's core seem a lot busier.

The only other areas I really saw were Midtown and the area around the Motown museum which is just a little past midtown(a must visit for any music fans). Again while there are definitely some cool developments going on there a city of 140 square miles built by and for the car has some empty spots now that there are only 700,000 people as opposed to 1.8 million.

I'm sure being there in summer makes a more positive impression. The river walk is pretty nice with free concerts, fun runs, a marina and plenty of pleasure boats out on a surprisingly clear Detroit River. Winters are probably pretty dismal there.

Everyone I talked to was pretty bullish on stuff going on, even those who lived in the burbs. One bartender said he really wanted to come to STL and visit the City Museum, saying how jealous he was that Detroit didn't come up with something like that first.