urbanSTL

No one is questioning the $88 million in the bank.

I just question if $150 million is enough for a building that needs a new roof altogether. An ETFE roof would make the Dome better. I think we probably need $300 million.

I would be intrigued to see if HKS could still do some parts of the plan that the City rejected when the Rams proposed it. The retractable roof was a bit much but other parts of that plan could still be implemented. But what we will likely get is a kick the can down the road. Not that it’s a bad thing but bigger decisions will need to be made down the line.


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I don’t get the love affair now with a see-through roof. It used to be an opening roof that teams rarely opened. I agree with more bright-as-day light in the dome. But I think we can get that with LEDs instead of a patch of blue sky. And we keep the option of a summer blackout dome like we had for Pink, Stones, & Beyoncé as needed for concerts.


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It's crazy that the Superdome was built to be a better building before the STL Dome was ever built. 

Their renovations are $500 million, but they host bigger events and they also have a three way partnership where their team is interested in helping, they have a competent convention and dome authority, and a state that is supportive. Three conditions that I'm insanely jealous of since they never existed here. 

Our city failed on massive levels.

The Superdome cost $200 million more in 2023 dollars than our Dome ($750 million vs $550 million), then got next to no upgrades for many years. It's really a testament as to why you don't cheap out on massive stadiums like we did with the Dome. Now we have a sizeable fraction of people who actually think we'd be better off without the Dome (or a size-equivalent stadium) with no regard to how many big events it still attracts and how much it does help the local economy.

With that being said, New Orleans is also in a very different position than us. NO is a city that's actually in decline and is facing problems that are genuinely unfixable. They pump hundreds of millions into tourist attractions because their economy is fairly reliant on tourism, far more than ours is. So that investment makes more sense from their POV.

New Orleans' economy is really struggling right now. St. Louis has been performing fairly well on the latest jobs reports; New Orleans has not. 

I will not be surprised if New Orleans eventually loses their NBA franchise. 

RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

Aug 29, 2024

New Orleans' economy is really struggling right now. St. Louis has been performing fairly well on the latest jobs reports; New Orleans has not. 

I will not be surprised if New Orleans eventually loses their NBA franchise. 

I was just in New Orleans last year. Interesting place, but man that place is rundown. All the money they make on tourism and their infrastructure is about 50 years behind ours. Extreme poverty and homelessness everywhere too.

Recall the local news channel 5 story on New Orleans and St. Louis?
https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/st-louis-searching-for-solutions/new-orleans-st-louis-can-learn/63-2a7543d0-b5bb-48e2-a04d-1d170a493515

2017-2022 real GDP growth for St. Louis is 8.3% while New Orleans is 0.8%. We don't need to be looking at NO for advice on pretty much anything.

It's also sad.  While I understand the love for Nashville, it will never have the character, soul or vibe that has been the fabric of NO for so long.

Auggie wrote: ↑

Aug 30, 2024

2017-2022 real GDP growth for St. Louis is 8.3% while New Orleans is 0.8%. We don't need to be looking at NO for advice on pretty much anything.

I'm not denying New Orleans having issues, but let's also realize that a lot (most) of the GDP growth here is from St. Louis County and the surrounding counties in Missouri and Illinois, and not so much out of the City that still has declining population. 

St. Louis City's GDP has grown from $28.9 billion in 2017 to $35.3 billion in 2022 or 22.1%. When adjusted for inflation, that's 2.7% despite apparently losing ~25k residents.

Orleans Parish GDP has grown from $23.8 billion in 2017 to $27.3 billion in 2022 or 14.7%. When adjusted for inflation, that's -4.7%.

While St. Louis City's GDP Growth has been bad and we need improvement, it's still positive despite population loss and it's way better than New Orleans.

I don't think anyone here would say that the city is "thriving", but we are in a very different boat than New Orleans.

We didn’t lose 25,000 residents, no data supports that other than the census annual guesstimate that counts us as a county and county guesstimate is first derived by state total and each county is assigned a % of that.

Voter registration, personal property records, water accounts, and latest SLPS enrollment go again 25,000 lose, as evident by the GDP number. Did we lose some? Maybe but not 25,000

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Aug 30, 2024

We didn’t lose 25,000 residents, no data supports that other than the census annual guesstimate that counts us as a county and county guesstimate is first derived by state total and each county is assigned a % of that.

Voter registration, personal property records, water accounts, and latest SLPS enrollment go again 25,000 lose, as evident by the GDP number.  Did we lose some? Maybe but not 25,000

I agree that's why I said "apparantly"

-RBB

dweebe wrote: ↑

Sep 05, 2024

rbb wrote: ↑

Sep 05, 2024

-RBB

Apparently this new turf plus equipment will allow it to be rolled up so that it is more easily stored. Plus this will enable quicker setup and breakdown.

I’m pretty sure the old one was rolled up also. I remember seeing videos of it being rolled out of that same thing.

I didn't realize (according to Wikipedia) America's Center is the 7th largest convention space in the country.  I am not sure what the total space will be once complete.  For now, the total space is twice that of Indianapolis, and over 3 times the total space of KC.  Man, McCormick place is a BEAST and about 3x the total space as America's center.  Anyway, I hope this can increase more events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... sular_area

^But it falls to 27th if you look at "exhibition" space. And a that's including a hundred thousand square feet of dome floor per the convention center's own literature. Man, there must be a lot of space wasted on things like . . . seats. Which is fine for a sporting event, but not really useful for a convention. I'm not advocating getting rid of the dome, mind you, but there aren't too many conventions that need a stadium sized meeting room that can seat sixty thousand people. If they use it most conventions would just use the floor. I think that exhibit space probably is the important figure. Now, 27th isn't terrible. And there are some great cities that don't do even that well. (Like Boston and Seattle.) But there are also cities that have several convention centers on the list. (Like Las Vegas, that has three in front of us with more than four million square feet of exhibit floor space between them.) Maybe those other square feet are useful. (I suspect the theatre is another bit of other space.) But conventions are about pipe and drape, and you can't really do that on bleachers. The truth might be somewhere between seventh and twenty seventh in terms of who you call first for your giant meeting, but I expect it's closer to the twenty seventh end.

Does anyone have info on what the expansion will mean for exhibition space?  I tried to look online as at best i see adding 72,000 square feet but it seems like it has to be more that that?   I can't recall if the garage on 7th is also being converted to convention space?  May be I should go back in this thread.

STLCityMike wrote: ↑

Oct 16, 2024

Does anyone have info on what the expansion will mean for exhibition space?  I tried to look online as at best i see adding 72,000 square feet but it seems like it has to be more that that?   I can't recall if the garage on 7th is also being converted to convention space?  May be I should go back in this thread.

https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/d ... garage.cfm
 July 30, 2021
"Plans for the site are in development, and CVC anticipates demolition of the garage in the near term, with additional plans announced at a later date."
https://explorestlouis.com/wp-content/u ... y-2023.pdf
February 2023
"Demolition of the garage is complete, the surface has been leveled, and it’s awaiting asphalt paving, which will make way for staff and contractor parking in the near term during construction."

https://explorestlouis.com/wp-content/u ... r-2023.pdf
October 2023
"On the east side of the complex near the Convention Plaza Entrance, construction is completed after demolishing a circa 1962 privately owned parking garage and converting it into a paved and gated lot for staff parking."

Google search can't find anything newer.

Thanks for taking to time to gather that all in one place!  I will have to drive down and check out the changes.