CLAYTON — After months of delay, the St. Louis County Council on Tuesday voted to advance a measure to pay for the county’s share of the America’s Center expansion, but only after Council Chair Rita Days succeeded in adding $40 million to pay for a new recreation center in north St. Louis County.
The council, at Days’ request, voted 5-2 to give first-round approval to the bill, which amends a $105 million county bond issue for the convention center project by adding another $40 million for the new facility in Days’ district.
Days had postponed council action on the convention center bonds since last fall until the rec center matter was addressed to her satisfaction.
A final vote could come as early as the council’s next regular meeting on March 22. But Days declined after the council meeting to confirm when exactly she would ask for a final vote, saying she would honor the request by other council members for a hearing on the project first.
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Days also refused to answer other details about the project, including naming the person who had come up with the $40 million estimated cost. She has been working with a group of outside advisers and “volunteers†to come up with plans, most of whom she has declined to identify.
“I’m very pleased with where we are now, and once that is in place, then we will come out with everything that we need as a committee of the whole and then we will move forward from there,†Days said.
Both Councilman Ernie Trakas, R-6th District, and Councilman Mark Harder, R-7th District, opposed the move.
Trakas said the bill was “incomplete†and lacked details that are necessary to make the issuance of bonds successful in the first place, including a preliminary plan, architectural drawings or a memorandum of understanding with a landowner for a location for the center.
“To go forward without that, at a minimum, will likely increase the interest will have to be paid on the bonds if they’re even marketable to begin with,†he said.
Harder said he supported a rec center for North County but had too many unanswered questions about the proposal, including who would own it and fund it after it was opened.
Days said she has refused to discuss details of the project publicly to fend off opposition.
“I have been reluctant to say a lot about what is happening with this because I know that there are several people that do not want this to happen. A lot of people have been volunteering their time and their efforts to me, and they’re not willing to come forward at this time and say, ‘I am involved in this.’
“But I will say this, we are further along than probably many of you believe and think ... but I do not want this project sabotaged. ... I want to make sure it is right and it is correct and that we move forward.â€
Despite the county’s delay, the $210 million convention center project is already underway, in large part because the city of St. Louis already met its commitment, and issued its half of the bonds.
The idea of a North County rec center was hatched by Days’ predecessor, the late Hazel Erby, who secured an agreement with the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission to back the facility in exchange for her support for the convention center bonds. Under the agreement reached in 2019, money for the new rec center was supposed to come from a percentage of excess, or unobligated, county hotel-motel taxes.
But County Budget Director Paul Kreidler has told the County Council that there won’t be any excess hotel tax revenues for at least three years because of the pandemic, which cut hotel revenues and tax receipts beginning in 2020.
CVC President Kitty Ratcliffe has said the agreement was only to help fund the facility, not design and build it. She said the agency went above and beyond when it paid for a study, released in September, that suggested an indoor track facility. Ratcliffe did not return a phone call requesting comment Tuesday.
The study, which was released two years after the 2019 agreement, proposed an indoor, 200-meter track facility that could host multiple events, including NCAA-level tournaments, year-round for 4,000 to 5,000 spectators.
The plan did not make recommendations for other details, including a proposed site, architectural concepts or estimated cost. The Post-Dispatch previously reported that the University of Missouri-St. Louis was under consideration as the site for the potential recreation complex, and that Days had privately sought for the county to issue as much as $80 million for the project.
Days said after the County Council meeting Tuesday that she intended to follow the CVC’s recommendation for a college-level track facility but would include facilities designed for general public use.
“It’s not just going to be a track and field,†she said.
Gateway Studios
The council on Tuesday also voted unanimously to approve a year’s extension to a $130 million bond issue for Gateway Studios, which is building a 32-acre rehearsal, studio and hotel complex in Chesterfield on Spirit Commerce Drive.
The council originally approved the tax incentives last year, also allowing 10 years of 50% property tax abatement for the new facility and an exemption on sales taxes for construction materials. The project was expected to open in 2023.
But the bonds didn’t close before the end of 2021 because of shortages in building materials and interruptions to the supply chain attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Rodney Crim, CEO of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership.
The project completion date now moves from Dec. 31, 2023, to Dec. 31, 2024.
Crim said Gateway Studios’ project will create 100 full-time jobs.
The project last year drew unanimous political support, including from Gov. Mike Parson, St. Louis County Executive Sam Page and Harder, who sponsored the plan.
The Missouri Department of Economic Development has also committed $2.9 million for the project.
Originally posted at 9:52 p.m. Tuesday, March 8.