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St. Louis proposes $15M more for convention center expansion

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More money is needed to cover expansion costs at America’s Center in downtown St. Louis, and a new board bill introduced at a city Board of Aldermen meeting Friday could provide an additional $15 million from pandemic relief funds to help cover costs.Kitty Ratcliffe, President of Explore St. Louis sought help during a special board meeting on Feb. 15, sharing that they needed between $30 to $40 million in additional funding.“If we can find the money to move forward and we can do it fast, we can get that part done in time for these important events that we’ve got coming in, in May and June of 2025,” Ratcliffe said.Ratcliffe said last week that the $210 million dollars it obtained from the city and county previously for construction has been used up. The city of St. Louis owns the convention center complex and the Dome is owned by the Regional Sports Authority, which is made up of the city, county and the state of Missouri. Explore St. Louis is contracted to manage both.The coordination team leading the construction project includes the Board of Public Service, representatives of the comptroller’s office, the city and county. The Dome is currently not a part of expansion efforts, according to Catherine Neville, a spokeswoman for Explore St. Louis.In the initial Rams settlement agreement, $30 million was put toward convention center expansion efforts, and that money is now being used to cover rising construction costs at the center. After taxes and attorney fees, $519 million in settlement funds were split between the city, county and sports authority in November 2022.St. Louis Alderwoman Cara Spencer of Ward 8 introduced a new board bill on Friday that would provide $15.3 million in accrued interest from American Rescue Plan Act funds to help with costs. This could help cover nearly half of the additional $40 million needed to complete construction.

Eric Lee

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St. Louis Public RadioSt. Louis Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, 14th Ward, convenes with Alderwoman Cara Spencer, 8th Ward, on Jan. 12 during a Board of Aldermen meeting at City Hall in downtown St. Louis.

A draft of the bill originally included $20 million in funding — $15 million from the pot of federal pandemic relief aid and $5 million in accrued interest from Rams settlement funds.The board decided to use ARPA funds because city leaders are still accessing community feedback on how to spend the Rams settlement money, according to Nick Dunne, a spokesman for St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office.“Unlike the Rams settlement funds, ARPA dollars have a deadline to be fully spent by 2026,” he said in an email.The convention center is located in Spencer’s district, and she said it’s not clear right now what the city would get from a $20 million or $15 million investment.“In order to fulfill promises the convention center made to folks, additional funding is required,” Spencer said. “The proposal for using the ARPA interest and Rams interest was put forth by the Mayor’s office. I don’t think the Board of Aldermen right now is in a position to support the $20 million, so we introduced the $15 million [in ARPA] recognizing that there’s support of the board for that, that’s why I introduced it.”She said the city was awarded its portion of Rams funds because the judge recognized a significant loss of revenue after the NFL Rams team moved to Los Angeles in 2016. Spencer said in light of this, she believes they should be using the settlement money to drive revenue for the city.“Our city is hemorrhaging people, we are losing population at a faster rate than we probably have ever seen in our city’s lifetime,” said Spencer, who is also budget committee chair of the board of aldermen. “Unless we’re able to create a reason for people to come downtown, live in our city or spend money in our city, I don’t see how the city is going to survive.”She said she’s not opposed to providing a portion of the Rams money for convention center expansion, but she’d like a clear project list to show what the $5 million in accrued interest of Rams funds would cover.The new board bill will soon get a hearing, but at this point it’s unknown whether it will get approved or even come to a vote.

Eric Lee

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St. Louis Public Radio The America’s Center Convention Complex on Thursday in downtown St. Louis.

Journey to expansionRatcliffe compared St. Louis’ convention center to the one in Indianapolis, which is on its sixth expansion and was built around the same time St. Louis’ complex was constructed in the 1970s. She also highlighted other centers in Denver, Milwaukee and Nashville as comparison points.Seattle just invested $2 billion into its convention center, Ratcliffe said. St. Louis’ convention center was voted the best in the Midwest in 2022, she added.“We have a great city and a great product, we just need to work on making it a little bit better because 30 years is too long to be able to compete with other cities,” Ratcliffe said.She touched on the impact of the convention center, which has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars and created numerous jobs in the city. In a recent survey, more than 90% of people had a positive impression of St. Louis after attending the convention center, she said, adding that it helps bolster the region’s economy by increasing revenue for the city.

Expansion efforts at America’s Center in downtown St. Louis are ongoing as of February 2024. Leaders are hoping to be done with construction in 2025, but say an additional $30 to $40 million is needed to cover rising costs.

In 2013, mechanical equipment like escalators, elevators, coolers and other aesthetics that include seating areas and artwork were renovated and added to the center in downtown St. Louis.Outside of that, there hadn’t been any major expansion to the structure of the convention center in 30 years. In December 2018, the board of aldermen passed an ordinance to fund half of the costs of the $210 million expansion and improvements to America’s Center, using hotel tax revenue that was freed up following the retirement of debt issued to build the Dome at the convention center, where the NFL’s Rams used to play. Four months after that, the county council did the same.“Unfortunately things got in the way of being able to issue the bonds in a timely manner,” Ratcliffe said. “By the time the county issued their bonds, we were full on in the middle of a pandemic which increased costs 40 to 50 percent as the supply chain issues materialized with goods not being able to be produced.“So we found ourselves in a position where, if we’d done it on time when we had planned to, it would have been a $210 million project. But it no longer is today.”The $210 million was supposed to cover the original project, which included adding a new exhibit hall to the west, a new lobby to access that hall, adding a new interior corridor connection to circulate people through the building, and a new pre-function space that would open outside to a new outdoor event space. It also includes improvements to the Washington Avenue entrance and conversion of two of the smaller existing exhibit halls into a new ballroom with a banquet kitchen, Ratcliffe said.However due to the delays and cost increases from the pandemic, the project was split into two pieces — Project 1 and Project 2. Project 1 began in 2022 and is nearing completion, Ratcliffe said. It includes doubling the number of loading docks, a new exhibit hall, the addition of a food farm and garden, and a new lobby at Martin Luther King Drive and 9th Street.The $30 million in Rams settlement funds is helping cover some of those costs, as would the $15.3 million in ARPA money if approved. The money would also go toward improvements to the outdoor plaza.Ratcliffe said they hope to complete the projects in time for events in 2025.

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Laclede’s Landing is moving from nightlife hub to neighborhood

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Laclede’s Landing has cycled through many identities throughout the history of St. Louis. Now, some people involved with its redevelopment in recent years hope the landing’s next one will be as a residential neighborhood.The small district tucked directly north of the Gateway Arch National Park has quietly undergone a massive redevelopment with more than $75 million pouring into the rehabilitation of many of the historic buildings at the landing.“We are starting to feel that momentum, especially in the last really 60 days. Things have drastically changed around here,” said Ryan Koppy, broker and owner of Trading Post Properties and the director of commercial property for Advantes Group.Advantes alone shouldered the rehabilitation of six of the historic buildings, which now sport a mix of apartments and retail or office space, he said. Four of those buildings are completed, and of the 119 apartments available, about 90% are filled, Koppy said.“It just shows you what kind of demand we do have for the area,” he said. “We’re separated from downtown a little bit, and for the tenants, their local park where they’re walking their dogs, it’s a national park.”

Sophie Proe

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St. Louis Public RadioInterior of the Peper Lofts at Laclede’s Landing on Aug. 16

Another 40 apartments are set to come online next year along with some retail space, Koppy said. He added he’s noticed a wide range of people who are considering and moving into the newly refinished apartments.“It’s very mixed, surprisingly,” Koppy said. “We have a lot of young professionals, maybe on their second job out of [university], we have some empty nesters too.”Part of the newfound momentum comes from a new market, the Cobblestone, and coffee shop, Brew Tulum, opening recently and bringing more foot traffic to the area, said Brandyn Jones, executive director of the Laclede Landing Neighborhood Association. She added that more apartments are set to come online within the next few months.“We have a great riverfront area here and so there are plans in the works to activate those spaces, bring people in,” she said.That could be more daytime events, like a farmers market, music festivals (one of which is happening this weekend) or just bringing in food trucks to Katherine Ward Burg Garden, Jones said. It’s a departure from the identity the district held a few decades ago as a hub for nightlife and entertainment.“That’s part of what connects so many people to Laclede’s Landing,” Jones said. “It’s important to tell the story of where we’re evolving. It won’t be what it was in the same exact way, but it will still be fun, and it can be fun early morning, midday or late night.”It’s a view shared by Koppy.“It’s grown up, it’s a bit mature,” he said. “We’re not going to have 3 a.m. bars here anymore because we have residents here.”Koppy added that Advantes is joined by other developers working to rehabilitate buildings in the district.“We all work in unison,” he said. “If I get a call and [a client is] asking for something and maybe the square foot doesn’t really match up with what I have available, but I know it matches up over there, they’re getting a very warm welcome and introduction.”

Sophie Proe

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St. Louis Public RadioRyan Koppy looks out the window of Brew Tulum Specialty Coffee Experience on Aug. 16 at the Cobblestone on Laclede’s Landing in downtown St. Louis.

This push toward making Laclede’s Landing a residential neighborhood also comes alongside broader conversations about the future of downtown St. Louis more generally as it looks to move away from a dependence on office space. While the city as a whole continues to lose population, downtown added about 1,700 people between 2010 and 2020, according to U.S. Census data.“It’s been wonderful timing to have all that going on, that stress that you’re not just in downtown to work has been critical to part of this rejuvenation and energy down here,” Jones said. “Sometimes people forget Laclede’s Landing is part of downtown, really the original downtown.”And success in the small district could spread beyond its small confines and potentially serve as a model for success, Koppy added.“My idea is, if we could get all the great things of St. Louis coming in through here, we can eventually spread that,” he said. “We understand we can’t change the whole world, but we’ll just make the effort to try and change the world around us.”

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St. Louis barbecue festival Q in the Lou canceled

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The largest barbecue competition and tasting festival in St. Louis, Q in the Lou, has been canceled. The event was planned for Sept. 6-8, but organizers decided to cancel it due to poor ticket sales and insufficient corporate sponsorship.The traveling festival had low attendance in Denver last week, said Sean Hadley, a festival organizer.“We made the tough decision to cancel Q in the Lou,” said Hadley. “We’re seeing a lack of support … it’s just not there.”The traveling event first came to St. Louis in 2015 and drew hundreds of people to downtown St. Louis for barbecue, live music and a “major party.”“It shut down out of the blue … I’ve gone every year,” said Scott Thomas, local chef and food blogger. “It’s brilliant. You could take a tour of some really amazing barbecue restaurants and competition barbecue guys all in one place.”In a late July news conference, city officials touted Q in the Lou as a significant tourism draw and a boost for downtown revitalization.“Bringing a signature national festival back to downtown St. Louis … is making us stronger,” Greater St. Louis Inc. CEO Jason Hall said then.Less than a month later, ticket holders from every festival stop learned they’d be refunded. On Monday, organizers privatized the Q in the Lou website and deleted its social media accounts.Conner Kerrigan, a spokesperson for Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office, said city officials are disappointed the festival won’t be back this year.“St. Louis knows how to throw a festival … bringing people together to celebrate our culture is one of the things we do best as a city,” Kerrigan said in a statement. “Should Q in the Lou try to come back next year or any year after that, they’ll have the support of the Mayor Jones administration.”

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Alton’s Jacoby Arts Center likely to relocate permanently

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The Jacoby Arts Center, a staple of Alton for many in the Metro East community, will likely permanently move out of its downtown building at the end of September.Its departure and relocation from the historic building that the arts center has called home for the past 20 years has created a tense situation for not only the arts center’s supporters but also the local development company working to revitalize Alton’s downtown that owns the building.“It’s an unfortunate situation,” said Chad Brigham, the chief legal and administrative officer with AltonWorks, the real estate company owned by another prominent local attorney working to develop the town. “I wish there wasn’t misunderstanding and disappointment in the community. It’s difficult sometimes to clarify that.”When news of the likely departure spread in June via a letter from the Jacoby Arts Center to its supporters, an outcry on social media quickly followed. Some assumed it would be the end of the arts center.“There’s a lot of feelings right now that I think are more about the building itself than there are about the Jacoby Arts Center,” said Valerie Hoven, vice president and treasurer of the nonprofit arts center’s board.For supporters of the Jacoby, moving from the building and likely never returning will be a sad affair. Exactly what’s next for the arts center remains unclear. However, Jacoby board members believe this will not be the end of the organization. It will likely look different though.

Sophie Proe

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St. Louis Public RadioThe Jacoby Arts Center earlier this month in downtown Alton

Sophie Proe

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St. Louis Public RadioThe Alton-based Jacoby Arts Center features more than 75 St. Louis-area artists and their work.

The history of the buildingFirst dubbed the Madison County Arts Council, the nonprofit arts center renamed itself after the Jacoby family gave it the current building in 2004. AltonWorks founder John Simmons purchased the Jacoby Building in September 2018, according to property records from the county.Managing the large building, at 627 E. Broadway, became too expensive for the Jacoby Arts Center. In 2018, the organization approached Simmons to purchase it, said Dennis Scarborough, a past president of the board and a downtown business owner.“Of course, it sounded really, really good,” Scarborough said of Simmons’ purchase. “He took over the insurance, property taxes, all those kinds of things that were really, really getting into our budget, and he rented it to us at a fair price.”The two parties entered into a lease agreement initially for five years. Since then, Simmons has spent more than $1 million in upkeep, taxes, insurance and more on the building. The lease has been extended twice until the end of September this year.Over the six years, Jacoby paid $1,500 per month, which covered a portion of the utilities.“It’s been wonderfully generous of AltonWorks,” Hoven said.Because the building is aging and needs repairs, Brigham with AltonWorks and those connected to the arts center have long known the Jacoby Arts Center would need to relocate — at least temporarily.

Renovations on the Jacoby building will begin this fall. They’ll include modernizing the aging building, repairing the old elevator and putting in apartments on the second and third floors.

News of the likely departure and controversyRenovations will begin this fall. They’ll include modernizing the aging building, repairing the old elevator and putting in apartments on the second and third floors.In May, it became clear that a preliminary proposal for the arts center to return to the building after renovations finished in 2026 would not work for them, Hoven said.She estimates the first floor and basement of the Jacoby Arts Building span roughly 20,000 square feet.

Chad Brigham is a business and legal adviser for AltonWorks.

AltonWorks’ initial idea floated to the arts center would only provide 2,553 square feet, according to both Hoven and Brigham. While the board calculated the price for the new space to be at least triple the current payment, Brigham said there was never a specific price discussed.“No discussion in terms of actual rent price,” he said.AltonWorks didn’t make a specific rent offer because the organization doesn’t even know itself, Brigham said.In addition to cash from John Simmons, there will be loans, tax increment financing and state tax credits to cover the $20 million in building renovations. The entities financing the cost of renovations will also help determine the rent when the construction is complete, Brigham said.Regardless, the price required to return will be too much for the arts center to pay, Hoven said. Also, the organization would like to maintain the many programs it offers to the community — a rentable event space, a dark room and a clay studio, for example — in the future.“For us to really meet the needs of the community and be sustainable, we need a space where we can offer some of those programs — the artists’ shop, and other spaces that offer some kind of income as well — so that we can continue to give money back to the community,” she said.AltonWorks offered at least two other locations as possible alternatives from their vast stock of buildings along Broadway to house the arts center during the roughly 18 months of construction. Those alternatives came with similar deals requiring the Jacoby to cover only utilities, Brigham said.“We did put in a great deal of work behind the scenes in trying to find an interim solution,” Brigham said. “We wanted to find a place for them to go, where it was easy for them to continue programming, whether it’s 100% of it or some portion of it, that would work for them.”Initially, the arts center hoped to keep the basement during the renovations, Hoven said. When it became clear the preliminary offer to return was for much less space than the arts center anticipated, the letter to the community was sent.“The letter that came out was merely showing our surprise,” Hoven said. “Don’t misinterpret it as panic. Don’t misinterpret it as desperation.”

Sophie Proe

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St. Louis Public RadioA smorgasbord of radios are displayed at the Jacoby Arts Center in Alton.

The commentary on social media was passionate. Some critics of AltonWorks said the organization has good intentions but hasn’t executed those plans. Others said Jacoby hasn’t planned well enough for the future.For Brigham and the AltonWorks team, some of the criticism has been disappointing.“I thought that there were some decent solutions. Were they perfect? No, but they were very, I thought, very good solutions,” he said. “And the fact that it has come to the point that it is right now is a bit hurtful.”AltonWorks remains committed to the arts, Brigham said. John Simmons remains one the largest donors of the Jacoby Arts Center, Hoven and Brigham said.“I don’t think there’s ever been a question of our support of that organization — of our affinity for that organization,” Brigham said. “While some of the events were unfortunate, some of them were encouraging. The entire community rallied around the Jacoby Arts Center. That’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to have a love for the arts like that in a downtown community.”Sara McGibany, the executive director of Alton Main Street, an organization aimed at preserving the town, said AltonWorks should be commended for its vision. In many ways, her organization and AltonWorks share a vision for a thriving downtown.Even though AltonWorks hosts public meetings, McGibany believes the current situation lacks true community engagement.“We really think that if AltonWorks can get past some of the communication hurdles — and harness the community’s passion and shift to more of a bottom-up decision-making process that centers on community input — then we can turn around the growing sentiment of distrust that’s happening now,” McGibany said.Scarborough, the past board president and downtown business owner, echoed the praise for Simmons and his support of the Jacoby Arts Center. With the Jacoby likely moving, the future looks bleak, though.“It’s a community arts center that does a lot of good work,” Scarborough said. “The community is going to suffer, and they’re going to be missed by the community if they’re not there.”

Eric Lee

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St. Louis Public RadioShalanda Young, director of the federal Office of Management and Budget, talks to Illinois U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, during a tour of a construction project by AltonWorks last April in Alton. AltonWorks, who is building the LoveJoy Apartment Complex is receiving over $1 million in federal funding.

What does the future hold?AltonWorks will continue forging ahead with its ambitious plans to revitalize Alton. The organization hopes to conclude construction on the Wedge Innovation Center, which will have a restaurant, retail and co-working space, this fall. Lucas Row, a mix of apartments and retail space, is scheduled to be completed next spring.The remainder of the arts and innovation district, currently named after the Jacoby, will also move forward.“I believe in two years it’s going to be a much different place,” Brigham said of Alton. “It’s going to be thriving. It’s going to be new businesses, new tenants — and it’s going to be a nice proof of concept for what you can do in a small community like that.”The Jacoby board recently formed a strategic planning committee. Its task: figuring out what’s next for the arts center. The committee will reevaluate what space the Jacoby needs, what programs it wants to offer to the community and how they want to make that a reality.Keeping the arts center is essential for board members like Hoven. In her experience, it’s been a place where local aspiring artists get their start.“Art is one of the only ways to show your true authentic self,” Hoven said. “And there’s more people than I realized who do not get that opportunity every day.”The Jacoby will shut its doors to pack over the next month. Hoven said she’s optimistic the board will have concrete plans by the end of September when their lease officially ends.“Alton is such a fabulous and supportive community,” she said. “We still have lots of great options, so that the Jacoby Arts Center will continue to thrive in Alton and beyond.”

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