ST. LOUIS (AP) - A proposed open-air football stadium that backers hope will persuade St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke to keep the team from returning to Los Angeles will likely require voter approval of its public financing component.
A St. Louis municipal ordinance and a St. Louis County charter amendment each prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars on pro sports stadiums without the consent of voters, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
A two-man team appointed by Gov. Jay Nixon last week unveiled details of a 64,000-seat stadium along the Mississippi River downtown that would cost as much as $985 million. Up to $350 million could come from extending bond debt used to pay off the Edward Jones Dome, the Rams' current home.
Additional details about the financing plan have not yet been released. And while both former Anheuser-Busch president David Peacock and current Edward Jones Dome attorney Robert Blitz emphasized the plan would not involve new taxes, it does depend on the infusion of an additional $12 million from the state, $6 million from the city and $6 million from the county each year, the same amount now provided from bond payments set to expire in 2021.
"It's going to be tough to argue that a vote is not required," said Peter Salsich Jr., a retired St. Louis University law professor.
Peacock and Blitz said last week that they didn't know whether a public vote would be required to dedicate the payments of the old loan to the new one.
Their plan calls for as much as $250 million from Kroenke, $200 million in National Football League loans to the team, $55 million in state support and tax credits and $130 million in the sale of personal seat licenses, which allow fans to buy season tickets.
Kroenke has not publicly commented on the proposal, and city officials said last week that the billionaire developer wouldn't return their calls, so they plan to work directly with the NFL on efforts to either keep the Rams or lure another team to St. Louis.
Kroenke is part of a joint venture that has announced plans for an 80,000-seat stadium in the Los Angeles suburbs, a move that could soon return the NFL to the nation's second-largest market and the home of the Rams from 1946 until they moved to St. Louis in 1995.
The move would have to wait at least a year; the NFL has said no team moves would be allowed in 2015.
The St. Louis ordinance on local stadium spending was approved in 2002 with 55 percent of the vote.
St. Louis County voters endorsed a similar measure two years later by a far more decisive margin.