urbanSTL

andrewarkills wrote:Per Casey Nolen with KSDK, a bill to renovate Scottrade will be unveiled today.


I'm hearing that this will be Industrial Revenue Bonds, which are issued by the City, backed and paid back by the Blues. City holds the title until the bonds are paid back, and it keeps the City's credit rating intact.

If this is true, I'm wondering why these aren't an option for the SC STL group.

Probably because SC STL doesn't want to pay anything back? They want that $80 million on condition that they'll stay for 30 years.

welp, Blues also are counting on state help for Scottrade.

They report Scottrade cost $170M to build. Sounds kind of high. Wikipedia says $135M without citation. The dome didn't cost all that much more considering how much bigger it is. Any thoughts?

StlToday - City, business leaders want millions in renovations for Scottrade Center

Citing current tax revenue and spending attracted by Scottrade Center, city leaders and St. Louis Blues executives said taxpayers should help fund an extensive renovation project.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metr ... 3eef7.html

^ don't really know about original costs, but my concern is that we're basically being asked to fork over the large majority of the tax benefits we received to pay for the requested upgrades; that'll be another hit to the budget. As Messenger says, we really need regional support

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/colu ... user-share

I'm fine with helping pay for the TD Ameritrade Center. Thing that pains me is why aren't other parts of the region being asked to help like St.Louis County St.Charles County and Jefferson County you can throw in Madison & St.Clair Counties as well .. This always seems to be a city responsibility which isn't right.. I do think the Blues are going about it the proper way unlike the folks for the soccer stadium although i still think theres a chance it gets built maybe the north riverfront is looking like a better viable option? Anyways the Blues have my approval at the end of the day all these facilities are going to need upgrades whether TD Ameritrade Center The Dome Convention Center etc no matter how much we bemoan the cost

^The ask becomes a lot less onerous if you spread it out amongst the City and County. Or those two plus St. Charles and Jefferson Counties.
I feel comfortable saying that the majority of the usage of the facility is not done by residents of the City. These are regional amenities, the region should help finance them. Tax revenue benefits could be shared as well if there is a positive ROI. It's not difficult to do, except when the majority of politicians in the region have no interest in speaking to one another, much less collaborating on something large like this.

St.Louis1764 wrote:I'm fine with helping pay for the TD Ameritrade Center. Thing that pains me is why aren't other parts of the region being asked to help like St.Louis County St.Charles County and Jefferson County you can throw in Madison & St.Clair Counties as well .. This always seems to be a city responsibility which isn't right.. I do think the Blues are going about it the proper way unlike the folks for the soccer stadium although i still think theres a chance it gets built maybe the north riverfront is looking like a better viable option? Anyways the Blues have my approval at the end of the day all these facilities are going to need upgrades whether TD Ameritrade Center The Dome Convention Center etc no matter how much we bemoan the cost

To play devil advocates or follow your logical, you would be fine if Blues decided they wanted a new arena in Chesterfield or St Charles and city should be expected to be contribute to that move on top of having an underutilized Scottrade Center?

I think your point about how Blues/Scottrade proposal is being presented is right on as well as it is very doable for the city and ownership to make it happen. To me the city is by far benefitting immensely relative to the rest of the region with Scottrade whether it be the influx of Blues Fans, the multiple NCAA events/concerts that draw in people out of the region to downtown to the fact that the Peabody came back. Yes, I can see where some of the hotels outside city gained bookings but that is small amount.

I also believe that TD Ameritrade Center upgrades should be a much higher priority for the County. Without some reasonable expenditures and upgrades I can't see St. Louis competing with other regions in the near future. That will hurt across the board. This also seems like a no brainer for the business community who should be knocking heads together on both sides of the county & city line.

Obviously this issue goes way, way beyond St. Louis and the Blues, but why must every pro team all the sudden play in a stadium that's in great shape, that's been built or refurbished in the past 20 years?

Obviously structural issues should be addressed. But this need for every seat to be shiny and lacking any sign of wear, every luxury box patron to feel as if they're being fully pampered, it's a new phenomenon.

Up until the 1990s, the nation was OK with pro teams playing in dingy stadiums. I mean, Scottrade is showing its age, but making the seating look less aged doesn't help patrons better watch a hockey game or concert. You're not looking at your seat when you watch an event.

It's kind of parallel to the increasing size of American households. We can try and keep up with the Joneses' new McMansion, or we can put our foot down and say our house is good enough as it is.

Are there any renderings for what is proposed?

eee123 wrote:Obviously this issue goes way, way beyond St. Louis and the Blues, but why must every pro team all the sudden play in a stadium that's in great shape, that's been built or refurbished in the past 20 years?

Obviously structural issues should be addressed. But this need for every seat to be shiny and lacking any sign of wear, every luxury box patron to feel as if they're being fully pampered, it's a new phenomenon.

Up until the 1990s, the nation was OK with pro teams playing in dingy stadiums. I mean, Scottrade is showing its age, but making the seating look less aged doesn't help patrons better watch a hockey game or concert. You're not looking at your seat when you watch an event.

It's kind of parallel to the increasing size of American households. We can try and keep up with the Joneses' new McMansion, or we can put our foot down and say our house is good enough as it is.

We certainly could just put our foot down and say it's good enough, but that's essentially acknowledging that you're going to let the city's asset fall behind it's peers in other markets. To do that, you need to be prepared for the amount of tax revenue generated from the building to continually decrease specifically from non-hockey events (i.e. NCAA events, concerts, etc). I think the improvements run a lot deeper than just replacing the seats.

I view the Scottrade situation as a fairly straightforward real estate scenario - you own a property and you can either continually invest in it to keep it competitive within the market (in this case, the market being comparable arenas in surrounding cities) with the payoff being the steady and potentially increasing stream of revenue that comes with it, or you can stay status quo, collect your rents/tax revenue with the understanding that your position in the market is getting weaker and your revenue will eventually begin to reflect that.

The other benefit that you have in a situation like this is that you have an active tenant who is willing to spend a significant amount of money to participate in the upgrades. That's not always the case. If/when KC's Sprint Center needs to be updated to remain competitive - and it will eventually - they won't have the luxury of having an NHL team pony up some of the capital needed for the improvements.

In the end, how that revenue is generated by the city/state is up to the city/state, but it appears Stillman has laid out a fairly reasonable proposal using tax revenue from the events held at Scottrade/Peabody.

100 events were hosted at the arena in 2015, including 51 Blues games and events, 20 other sporting events, and 32 entertainment events.

Besides NCAA threatening to leave do we think the other 32 entertainment events wouldn't occur there? Concerts and other traveling events would still occur there because there is a market for it in St. Louis that those events wouldn't pass up for revenue. So how much lost revenue are we really talking about? I would be okay with structural repairs and modernizing some things but I'm not really sure that much money is really needed

^ yeah a lot of that is typical bluster of "oh my god the sky is falling if we don't throw millions at it"... sure, we can't let the place rot but on the other hand it is going to be the premiere event venue for the 3M person region unless someone else wants to build a new one. It's far from an emergency issue and what's important is to slow walk this thing and scrutinize it thoroughly to ensure its a good deal and the best one for the city.

Wouldn't the Blues include parking the $6 million a year the city receives from the events? Seems like that would be a substantial amount

dweebe wrote: The city of St. Louis owns the Kiel Garage and like 5 other lots/garages around the Scottrade Center and receive all those monies. The Blues get no parking revenue from anywhere and even their employees have to pay to park in the Kiel Garage. T

even City employees have to pay to park at Kiel Garage, it was $72 a month when i worked at city hall 2011-2013

dweebe wrote: The city of St. Louis owns the Kiel Garage and like 5 other lots/garages around the Scottrade Center and receive all those monies. The Blues get no parking revenue from anywhere and even their employees have to pay to park in the Kiel Garage. They city of St. Louis gets all of that revenue.

So those of you who don't want any public money going into the Scottrade Center, explain to me what the City is supposed to do if there are fewer events or if the Blues were to move elsewhere in the metro area?

I don't have an issue with a clear-eyed examination of city parking receipts directly generated by the Scottrade and I think you raise a great question about an alternative arena... it isn't going to happen! The issue ultimately is what is a reasonable city contribution to the region's premiere event venue, which I think just about everyone understands needs some upgrades but also is far from a dire situation and certainly won't be replaced elsewhere in the region for years. City leaders just need to keep calm and carry on with smart planning.

joelo wrote:Besides NCAA threatening to leave do we think the other 32 entertainment events wouldn't occur there? Concerts and other traveling events would still occur there because there is a market for it in St. Louis that those events wouldn't pass up for revenue. So how much lost revenue are we really talking about? I would be okay with structural repairs and modernizing some things but I'm not really sure that much money is really needed

I don't want to weigh in on the proposal per se, as I'm not really familiar with it. It's been a long long time since I was backstage in that space. It was a darn good venue then, but . . . times change.

As to events moving, it's certainly possible. There are several other venues in town, two of which could probably compete with Kiel directly for events. Both the St. Charles Family Arena and Chaifetz Arena seat around ten thousand with a roughly comparable floor. I'd guess they probably don't load quite as nicely, and obviously the seating is about half what you get at Kiel, but if you can put the Ice Capades or Nine Inch Nails in the Hearnes Center or the Mizzou Arena (and you can) then I see no reason why you couldn't put them in comparably sized (and newer) halls here. So yes, competition is at least a minor consideration. Not cross state, but inside the region. Not that this necessarily means we need to throw money at the thing thoughtlessly.

STLrainbow wrote: what is being proposed now would mean that the city takes a hit from the general budget as it would take the majority of on-site taxes currently aiding the general budget and hand that back over to the arena.

Seems like this may not be the case after all as I was under the impression that the increased sales tax was going to pay for separate upgrade work not covered by the city bonding... but apparently it will go to cover bonds. So I guess the question is how much that is expected to generate.[/quote]

Yea if it's to the point where it's risking the credit rating to the city, it's not worth it. I'm with the comptroller, the additional tax is one thing as that's new revenue so it shouldn't be an issue