Efforts to finance a St. Louis riverfront stadium cleared another hurdle Tuesday when the Missouri Development Finance Board approved $50 million in tax credits for the project.
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The movement for a new stadium in St. Louis, designed to help keep the Rams in the city, comes as the NFL continues to pursue putting one or more franchises in Los Angeles, with the Rams, Raiders and Chargers all being teams that could potentially relocate. Rams proprietor Stan Kroenke has plans to construct a brand new stadium in Inglewood, California and transfer the group.
While $15 million isn’t that much money in the big scheme of things, it’s also a sign that they’re working, at a time when stadium efforts in Oakland and San Diego are going nowhere.
The board approved $15 million in tax credits immediately. The rest of the financing for the stadium includes $187 million in tax credits, $201 million in state and city bonds and about $160 million from the sale of personal seat licenses.
St. Louis stadium task force leader Dave Peacock was pleased to check off another box in the quest to secure about $388 million in tax credits and state and city bonds.
This is just the first step for the Missouri Development Finance Board toward approving $50 million over the next three years. That process remains up in the air because the current proposal still calls for a $250 million investment from an NFL owner plus another $200 million in the form of the NFL’s G4 loan. Board Chairwoman Marie Carmichael insists that the funds wouldn’t be delivered to new stadium planners until they were confident the tax credits were a good deal for the state. A stadium, coupled with the renovation of the Gateway Arch grounds to the south, “would transform the most visible downtown riverfront area and provide substantial economic benefit to the City and State”, Miserez wrote in his recommendation.
Of the 12-member board, only Kinder voted against the tax credits.
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“If you want to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars, you can not move forward on this proposal as it is presented”, Barnes told board members.
