ST. LOUIS — City officials looking for ways to raise the money needed to finish a long-delayed convention center expansion can cross another idea off their lists.
Officials were considering a plan to raise some $45 million by imposing a $2-per-night fee on every hotel stay in the city.
But the plan ran aground this week when officials realized that it would contradict state law.
“My understanding is that we cannot move forward with the current proposal,†said Yusuf Daneshyar, a spokesperson for Aldermanic President Megan Green.
The conclusion leaves the city once again in an awkward spot.
The $240 million convention center expansion is supposed to ensure the region can continue attracting big groups of visitors, filling downtown hotels and restaurants, and burnishing its national brand. But it has been beset by delays and cost overruns. And now, deadlines are approaching: Conventions scheduled to come here next spring have been promised new features will be in place when they arrive.
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Daneshyar said Wednesday he couldn’t say what other funding ideas are under consideration.
“At this point, it’s too early to discuss what legislative solutions are on the table,†he said.
Conner Kerrigan, a spokesperson for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, said the mayor’s office is looking into some ideas but doesn’t know if any of them will work.
Bob Clark, the prominent developer and Clayco chief who has criticized the project for years, said the project needs an audit.
“The fact that they can’t pour another $40M into this failed project is a blessing,†he said in a statement. “No one should spend another dime until we have a full, transparent accounting of the money they already have received.â€
Officials have been working on the expansion since at least 2018, when St. Louis and St. Louis County leaders came together to back a plan they said was necessary to keep the America’s Center complex, on Washington Avenue, competitive with rivals in cities like Indianapolis and Nashville, Tennessee.
The project called for 92,000 square feet of new exhibit space along Cole Street, a 65,000-square-foot ballroom along Ninth Street as well as a public plaza with green space on what is now a parking lot.
The city and county initially agreed to split a $210 million expansion cost, using hotel tax revenue freed up after the retirement of debt issued to build The Dome at America’s Center, where the NFL’s Rams played before moving to Los Angeles in 2016.
But the project hit turbulence before it even took off. The city took months longer than expected to issue bonds for its half of the cost while leaders gauged the pandemic’s impact on city finances.
County officials delayed until April 2022 to green light their own bonds.
All the while, costs skyrocketed amid inflation in the construction market. When the city’s Board of Public Service, which is overseeing the project, requested bids for the expansion, it got one for the first half that was roughly $40 million over budget and none at all for the second half.
The first phase, which includes a new wing with additional exhibit space and loading docks, went ahead in May 2022.
A few months later, however, convention center chief Kitty Ratcliffe said the second phase, with the ballroom and the public plaza, couldn’t go forward without additional money.
Leaders initially responded by setting aside $30 million from the $790 million Rams settlement to help with the project.
But Ratcliffe said last month an additional $30 million to $40 million would be needed to properly build the new lobby and plaza between Ninth and 10th streets — and the new ballroom would cost even more.
Officials floated legislation to provide an additional $20 million through interest earned on the city’s share of federal pandemic aid and the Rams relocation settlement. Green, the aldermanic president, said a temporary fee on visitors could cover the rest.
But St. Louis has already exhausted the tourism levies state law allows.
Aldermen are still considering the appropriation of federal pandemic aid. A bill with $15.3 million for the convention center project could pass later this month.
But they didn’t want to use the Rams money just yet.