Courtesy of HOK
The proposed riverfront stadium
If you’re a fan of building a new NFL stadium in St. Louis with the help of a half a billion public dollars, you’ve got a real problem today.
Six state legislators have filed a lawsuit to block Gov. Jay Nixon from using the existing authority of the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority (STLRSA) to issue $250 million in state revenue bonds to support the project. This is not to be confused with a pending lawsuit over whether city voters should vote on local funding. This is far more serious.
The little-known STLRSA was established in 1988 through legislation signed by (of all people) Gov. John Ashcroft to provide a funding and ownership mechanism for expanding St. Louis’ Convention Center with a football stadium. The STLRSA owns the Edward Jones Dome, and it is the agency that issued the bonds that financed it—and eventually refinanced it—and those bonds are due to be paid off in 2021.
Nixon and his two-man “task force” of businessman Dave Peacock and attorney Bob Blitz have been counting on having the STLRSA simply extend the bonds—with no legislative action or approval—so that another $250 million can be raised to help finance a proposed $985 million NFL stadium. It’s the lynchpin of their funding plans.
I’m no legal scholar, but it’s hard to imagine that they can withstand this lawsuit. The intent of the statute was clearly to fund one football dome, not a series of football stadiums. It’s as clear as day in Missouri State Statute 67.650-67.658 RSMo:
“...any stadium, complex or facility newly constructed by the authority shall be suitable for multiple purposes and designed and constructed to meet National Football League franchise standards and shall be located adjacent to an existing convention facility.” (Emphasis added by me.)
The proposed new dome on the Mississippi River would be at least a 10-minute walk from the front of the Edward Jones Dome. That doesn’t qualify as “adjacent” by any common-sense definition. Still, I’ve been told by lawyers that the subject of “adjacency” is a matter of considerable case law and that if the issue boils down to that simple word, Nixon and other stadium proponents might prevail. Call it the legal equivalent of football’s “tuck rule.”
But there can be no denying one simple fact: The effect of using the STLRSA to fund a new stadium would be that Missouri state taxpayers would be obligated to retire more than $250 million in new debt service—for decades to come—for a new St. Louis stadium whose financing was not approved by any legislative process.
That’s not exactly democracy in action.
It wouldn’t take an activist judge to put an end to this plan. And if that happens, it’s curtains for a new NFL stadium in St. Louis, unless Nixon can persuade the state legislature—presumably in special session—to approve the financing directly. My guess is that if this were a political possibility, Nixon would have run the project through normal legislative channels in the past session.
Personally, I don’t think the stadium is happening in any case, because I doubt Rams owner Stan Kroenke will fail in his quest to return his team to Los Angeles to play in his proposed $1.8 billion palace there. And even if he’s denied by a competing plan in Carson, California, proposed by a partnership of the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders, Kroenke would still retain nine one-year options for the Rams to play at the Edward Jones Dome on the sweetest lease in the league.
But if this lawsuit prevails, none of that will matter.
