I’ve never been to a football game of any sort. That is saying quite a bit considering I did my undergrad work at the University of Oklahoma where football is seemingly important to everyone. Upon finishing at OU I moved to St Louis in 1990 just in time to catch the city trying to win an expansion team and finally getting the Rams from LA a few years later. I’ve never been to one of the few home games because frankly the sport bores me greatly. Baseball is an interesting game to watch in person, football is not.
Still I recognize the many fans the sport has. I also recognize what major sports can do for a region. Although we must accept the long standing history the baseball Cardinals have in St Louis. The Rams, I’m afraid, do not have the same strong ties to St Louis or the taxpayers, er, the fans.
Out of desperation in the early 1990s we gave the Rams a sweet deal to lure them to St Louis — that over the 30 year lease on the then new dome we’d make sure it stayed in the top 10% in the NFL, reviewed every 10 years. If we don’t keep up, the Rams are free to graze in other pastures. As the Post-Dispatch reminded us recently, the last review point, at the 20 year marker, is in 2015 — just seven years away.  The P-D also had a rundown of some new stadiums coming online. They are, in a word, expensive. Try a billion dollars.
Last time the city, county and state all found a way to fund the dome (even without a team). But the billion dollar question is this — at what point does keeping the Rams in St Louis get too expensive? At what point does the cost far outweigh any real or perceived benefit the community gets in return for the investment of public dollars. A billion dollars can do a lot for a region if leveraged properly. I’d personally put the billion into a low cost per mile streetcar system and run it through an area prime for new construction with new zoning with some hefty density requirements. I think dollar for dollar return would be far greater and longer lasting than with a new football stadium.
The second question I have is this — assuming we think the Rams are worth keeping and that building a new billion dollar stadium is just par for the course — where should it be built and what do we do with the old dome? Baseball fits nicely into an urban context but football fans have the tailgate tradition that requires acres of surface parking. For this reason I don’t think football belongs in a downtown setting, especially given the few times per year they play home games.  Locating a new dome on the East side of the river could be a nice gesture toward the idea that we are all part of the St Louis region. There is also plenty of land available, transit access and by then a new bridge across the river for fans that can afford tickets and gasoline.
Another option is to place the new dome near downtown — in the old Pruitt-Igoe site. Tie in a downtown streetcar circulator system running to the new dome and we might just get new development along the line. The area around the new dome wouldn’t become village probably but the zoning of the area we set the stage for what it would become. The village might end up being on the way to the dome.
Other options include far flung suburban locations along an interstate highway. Ug, boring.
And finally we have the issue of the abandoned dome. Do we keep it around as addition space for the convention center? No, get rid of the big thing so we ca repair that part of downtown — restoring streets lined with buildings oriented to the street. Currently the convention center and dome acts as a large barrier between downtown and the residential areas to the North. We need to do what we can to reconnect the city to downtown.
To recap the questions are as follows: Is it worth a billion dollars to the region to keep the Rams in town? If yes, where should a new dome be built? And lastly what do we do with the old dome?