JEFFERSON CITY • Members of the Missouri Development Finance Board on Tuesday expressed their excitement for an NFL stadium project in St. Louis, but the group took no vote on a request to issue tax credits to help pay for it.
This project “is an opportunity for us that we rarely have to participate in something that has the capacity to have this kind of economic impact for the state,†said Marie Carmichael, board chairwoman.
Former Anheuser-Busch President Dave Peacock and lawyer Bob Blitz — appointed by Gov. Jay Nixon to a task force to keep the NFL in St. Louis — presented to the board a request for $50 million in tax credits, spread over three years, to help raise money for the open-air stadium that backers want to build on an 88-acre riverfront site just north of downtown St. Louis.
The St. Louis Regional Convention and ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Complex Authority is requesting $15 million in state tax credits this year and $17.5 million in credits next year and in 2017 for a total of $50 million.
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Because the request is over the finance board’s $10 million cap, it also will require special approval from three of Nixon’s cabinet members: the commissioner of the Office of Administration and the directors of the departments of Economic Development and Revenue, according to Amy Susan, a spokeswoman with the Missouri Department of Economic Development. The finance board is an agency of the department.
Without mentioning the Rams specifically, the application says tax-related contributions and tax credit issuances would be contingent on showing that an NFL team would occupy the football stadium.
Carmichael said the board likely would vote on the request in the next month or two.
