What would it take to make the Rams’ stadium top flight?
The St. Louis Rams’ lease at the Edward Jones Dome requires that its facility be maintained as a venue that ranks in the top 25 percent of the NFL. If it’s not, the team can break the lease and move.
Our story for the Friday Post-Dispatch says that job may get tougher as newer — and very expensive — stadiums are rolled out around the league.
Bill Coats’ story says, “The NFL stadiums under construction in Indianapolis; Arlington, Texas; and East Rutherford, N.J., are “going to be the cream of the crop, and they’re going to be no more than five or six years old” by 2015, (Convention and Visitors Commission chairman Dan) Dierdorf said. “What do you do to a 20-year-old building to make it the equal of a brand new $1 billion stadium?”
The dome is undergoing $30 million in upgrades, including new video boards and an as-yet-undetermined way of getting more natural sunlight into the building. Those slightly tardy improvements will satisfy requirements to keep the facility in the top tier at the first 10-year segment of the 30-year lease.
What would it take to bring the Rams’ stadium up to where it needs to be? What improvements would you like to see in the venue? How much would you be willing to support taxes for the improvements — or would you insist that private money finance any upgrades?
Or, would you care if the Rams up and left?
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
I keep hearing I don’t want my tax dollars to go to a new stadium or fix up the old one.
The money used to build the current one came from a public vote in the city and county. The tax is on hotel rooms and rental cars. There was no increase in sales tax, personal property or real estate taxes to pay for the dome and convention center. I don’t know why this fact is always over looked by the media. If you stayed in a hotel or rented a car in St Louis City or County then you payed the tax.
The arguement that the money would go along way to help pay for schools, roads and reduce crime is an invalid one unless you put a proposal on the ballot to increase taxes to pay for it and that probably won’t happen. The taxes on the hotel/rental cars is ear marked for tourism and projects that bring conventions/tourists to the area. This is the way the tax proposal was written and it currently law and cannot be changed. The money the county put into the baseball stadium came from this fund. The money was just piling up sitting there and the county could not do anything with it because it had to be spent for a specifice purpose.
If a new stadium or improvements would be paid for by a similiar tax on hotels/rental cars and/or a tax on restaurants in “enterainment zones” (see Dallas Texas) I would vote yes tomorrow.
However, if it is a tax on personal property or my real estates taxes then no I will not vote for it. My monthly mortgage payment went up $70 this month because my St Louis County taxes went up $840 last year, I am tapped out on taxes.
Bottom line is that St. Louis needs to keep the Rams. This will require a new stadium. An NFL team provides significant exposure around the country to our city. However, this debate is somewhat silly. The city will not let the Rams walk. The team will stay and we’ll be better off for it.
All major league sports are legalized extortion operations, I’m sorry to say. Most markets lose money and the only way for billionaire owners to make a profit is through public subsidies, i.e. taxpayer funding. If I owned the Rams, I would play that game, too. After all, it’s perfectly legal!
Why doesn’t LA have a football team? It’s so other teams can threaten to move there if the taxpayers don’t pay up.
Can a city buy a team to keep it from moving? Nope. The league won’t allow that. They don’t want any other Green Bays out there playing at old cheap stadiums.
The whole deal is about socializing risk and privatizing reward. We won’t be able to keep playing this game and neither will the good folks of Indianapolis or Dallas, since their new billion dollar stadiums will be out of date in another fifteen years or so just like ours (supposedly) is now.
It’s time to stop letting sports teams hold cities hostage. If the Rams need a new stadium every 20 years, then let them go. If the baseball Cardinals need a new stadium in 18 years, then let them go. You can’t afford to take your family to these places any way so why build a new stadium.
As far as I know the Rams ownership have not made any threats to move the team if the team don’t get a new stadium.This seems to be something put on by the local media to stir up a hornest nest.I support the Rams,but if they need a new stadium,let them pay for it out of their’s own pocket.The city taxpayers have been shafted long enough by the area’s sport teams.PS-I been a citizen of St.Louis City all my life.(50 years)
Im just glad to be a Cowboy fan
For starters, St. Louis needs an outdoor stadium or least one with a retractable roof. I think football is best played outdoors and crowds are better when it is outdoors. While crowds have been great in the dome, they still don’t compare to those rowdies at old Busch (a baseball stadium). St. Louis needs a new stadium an outdoor one, build it and they will come.
Build a glorious new stadium like they are doing in Indy and Dallas! I loathe the Rams, yet I will happily help pay for it with my tax dollars or whatever. I am from the east coast and before ever coming here, I had always heard of St. Louis being one of the greatest American cities. Upon arriving here, I found a city struggling mightily to keep up with it’s historical image. Although it’s a small piece of the puzzle, I believe an NFL franchise is needed to be seen as one of the key American cities. That may be an unfortunate reality, but the Cardinals are certainly a key reason why St. Louis is known around the world. That Dome is awful, and many people have felt that way since the moment they laid eyes on it. Use it for conventions, WWE, Promise Keepers, or whatever. Build a brand freakin’ new stadium. A true NFL stadium, and keep that team in St. Louis.
kdunlap - Taxes, to use an economics term, are fungible - there’s a finite supply of tax dollars that people are willing to pay. While the current stadium is primarily funded by taxes paid by tourists (mostly because there’s a convention center attached to the dome), there’s no reason to assume that a new one would be financed the same way. The other reality is that if the millions of dollars now being collected from tourists weren’t being spent on the dome/convention center complex, the same revenues could be used on other, potentially “more-worthy” projects that would have a greater positive impact on local residents. Bottom line, a tax is a tax, whether it’s dedicated to a defined use (Police salaries, Metrolink or a stadium) or if it’s general revenue given to the politicians to distribute as they see fit - it’s still money out of all of our collective pockets!
2 Questions - 1. Who was responsible for the lease provision about keeping the Dome in the top 25% of stadiums in the league? Did they not expect at least 8 new stadiums to be built in 20 years?
2. In the business that I work in, contracts and leases are re-opened an re-negotiated all the time. Couldn’t that clause be re-negotiated so that what would be required would be major overhaul of the Dome, rather than a complete re-build (probably the only way to bring it up to a top 25% venue?