ST. LOUIS — The chief of the downtown St. Louis convention center said on Tuesday that the agency does not have enough money to pay for the second half of its $210 million expansion.
Kitty Ratcliffe, president of the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission, said she had to tap funds earmarked for the second phase to use for the first half of the project. Costs had skyrocketed due to higher construction prices and rising inflation as the St. Louis County Council for months delayed signing off on $105 million in bonds for the project.
“We have funds to complete (phase one) and will be able to complete it, but it ate into funds for project two,” Ratcliffe said during a meeting of the St. Louis Municipal Finance Corp., the city agency that issues bonds for large projects. “We don’t have enough funds for project two.”
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The funding shortfall could set up another battle with St. Louis County over how to pay for the expansion. A spokesman for St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said the county has no plans to contribute more to the convention center, a project whose initial price tag the city and county planned to split 50-50. County Councilman Ernie Trakas, who has long opposed the expansion, said the shortfall raises doubts of Ratcliffe’s credibility.
“At best it was disingenuous on her part to even attempt to represent they had enough funding given the state of the economy at the time and the concerns with labor and supply chain issues,” Trakas said. “This was easily predictable in keeping with Ms. Ratcliffe’s history of, shall we say, ambitious representations.”
A rendering shows the redesigned western side of the America's Center Convention Complex downtown, as part of the second phase of the facility's expansion. The area is currently a wall along Ninth Street.
Spokespeople for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and Comptroller Darlene Green, whose office chairs the coordination team for the expansion, did not respond to requests for comment.
The convention center expansion was first proposed four years ago, and calls for a major reconfiguration of the complex, which fronts Washington Avenue. The first phase looks to add 92,000 square feet of exhibit space along Cole Street; the second phase calls for a 65,000-square-foot ballroom along Ninth Street, as well as a public plaza on what is now a parking lot.
Visitors commission officials are in a rush to complete pieces of the expansion by late 2023 to accommodate conventions and groups it has promised the space to.
But the project has faced resistance at nearly every step, from political squabbling in the city, to the coronavirus pandemic, to the dispute over a deal for a north St. Louis County recreation center. Clayco founder Bob Clark also launched a campaign to kill the expansion, arguing it was ill-conceived and would run into rising construction costs. He has a financial interest in the adjacent Bottle District, which he proposed using for a larger convention center, though he has said that has nothing to do with his opposition to the current project.
The convention center expansion is expected to get an additional $30 million earmarked for the project from the Rams settlement. But officials do not know how much the second phase will cost in total until they go out for bid again. No companies submitted a bid for the second half when officials initially sought bids earlier this year.
And it’s not clear what other sources the expansion could tap.
Ratcliffe on Tuesday told the Municipal Finance Corp. board that the visitors commission had applied for a $1 million grant from the state of Missouri to use for the expansion’s park, which architects estimated to cost $3.7 million.
The grant would come from $14 million of the state’s American Rescue Plan Act funds that will go toward tourism destinations in St. Louis, Kansas City, Branson and Springfield.
But Ratcliffe said the convention center faces competition from the St. Louis Zoo, Gateway Arch Park Foundation, Sheldon Concert Hall, the city of Pacific and the National Blues Museum, located just steps from the convention center.
The state is expected to make its decision next month, she said.
Jacob Barker of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
A new park and public plaza between 9th and 10th streets contemplated as part of the second phase of the expansion of America's Center (rendering via the Convention and Visitors Commission, Fentress Architects).
A rendering shows a new lobby, looking west over a planned park, as part of the planned second phase of expansion for the America's Center Convention Complex downtown. (Fentress Architects).
MEETING MONEY: St. Louis' convention center is having trouble staying within budget for its expansion. Jim Gallagher calls it a boondoggle, and David Nicklaus says leaders will probably have to find more money or scale back the project.
Steph Kukuljan
Steph Kukuljan covers real estate and development for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She is a St. Louis native.
