[Elvis]

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt ... 47356.html

St. Louis stadium task force spent $16.2 million

By David Hunn, Nicholas J.C. Pistor

ST. LOUIS • When the last check is sent and the books close on the failed plan for a riverfront football stadium here, the public will have paid out more than $16.2 million.

The bills rose steeply over the last several months. The public agency that owns the Edward Jones Dome paid 22 companies, including architects, surveyors, bond attorneys, construction managers, geotechnical engineers, financial advisers and a minority workforce expert.

Local architecture firm HOK made the most, more than $10.5 million. The Dome authority’s attorneys, Blitz, Bardgett & Deutsch, have billed for almost $900,000. Thompson Coburn bond and financing lawyers charged $760,000.

And the effort spent $1.3 million on options to buy land on the north riverfront.

Gov. Jay Nixon’s stadium task force, which guided the Dome authority’s hiring, has faced some criticism in the process. Some of the contracts were awarded without bids, which the task force said weren’t required. The firm of task force co-chairman Bob Blitz was one of the largest benefactors of the effort. And many of the stadium contractors are also political donors.

Still, those who worked on the effort to build the $1.1 billion open-air stadium along the Mississippi River, and keep the St. Louis Rams from fleeing to Los Angeles, say they were frugal, followed all laws, cared deeply — and worked their tails off.

Blitz attorney Kevin Fleming spent over 1,000 hours coordinating the project’s legal and administrative business. He touched nearly every section of the task force’s NFL application. And he remembers, a few years ago, when the Rams won in arbitration and were free to leave town.

“I was a Rams fan. I’ve got a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old that I’m going to raise here in St. Louis,” he said. “And I remember thinking, is anybody going to stand up for us? Is this just going to happen, and we’re going to lose another company?

“I had no idea then that I’d be part of that fight,” he continued. “It’s been a life and a career highlight.”

The outcome was far from guaranteed. Everyone involved knew they had to produce a “viable” stadium plan — by National Football League standards — to have a hope of keeping the Rams in town.

Then, Tuesday, it all came to a sudden halt. NFL owners voted 30-2 to approve Stan Kroenke’s request to move the Rams to his proposed $2 billion football palace in Inglewood, southwest of downtown L.A.

Fans were furious, leaders insulted.

In the aftermath, it’s also clear that there are collateral losses: hotels, T-shirt shops, apparel makers, breweries and an army of workers at Sunday football games will all take a hit.

THE LOSERS

The city will lose at least $4.2 million a year in game-day dollars — $1.9 million in sales tax, $1.8 million in ticket tax, $300,000 from the 1 percent earnings tax on player salaries — plus an untold amount in parking, restaurant and hotel revenue.

The state budget will have to slice off about $10 million annually in state athlete and entertainer taxes, paid by Rams players.

The St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission, the group that books events at the convention center and Dome, will do without $300,000 to $500,000 from its lease with the Rams (though leaders say the team’s departure will eventually allow them to book more large conventions each fall).

And about 650 part-time Dome workers will miss earnings from the 10 football Sundays.

Other losses are less obvious.

The Rams Foundation gave more than $3.5 million to St. Louis area charities and causes since 1995, according to tax documents. It gave tickets and grants to nonprofit organizations and schools. It built six playgrounds across the region. It gave annual donations to the United Way of Greater St. Louis, the Fair St. Louis Foundation, the Magic House and others.

“For the holidays, it’s going to be tough,” said Ruby Jones, a senior director at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri. Jones said the Rams gave considerable time and money for a Christmas youth program where kids were able to buy presents.

Jeff Brewer, foundation treasurer, didn’t respond to requests for comment. A worker at Rams Park in Earth City said Brewer had been working at the team’s Los Angeles office “for a while,” and gave a number with a California area code.

CONTRACT WINNERS

The task force engaged more than 30 companies in total. The work ranged vastly in scope and dollars.

HOK earned almost two-thirds of the total. The company declined an interview with the Post-Dispatch on Friday, but the architects said earlier that 30 employees and 30 contractors were working on the proposal.

They envisioned an arena with plazas and gardens, bridges and bike trails, soaring glass sides, a wall of public art, a three-story brew pub and a 30-foot-wide observation deck stretching over the Mississippi River flood wall.

By December, they had nearly finished the first two stages of architectural work — schematic design and design development.

But the task force also worked with smaller companies, for smaller dollars. It paid consultant Darryl A. Piggee $75,000 to help build a minority workforce plan that officials deemed the deepest and widest ever assembled on a public project in Missouri. It paid the south St. Louis County industrial engineers Design Nine about $27,000 to work on moving the railroad tracks that cut through the proposed stadium’s footprint.

The task force even paid the Post-Dispatch — about $4,500 to advertise for contractors.

Most of the stadium work was awarded without bids. Fleming, the Blitz attorney, said the Dome authority is not technically a state agency and doesn’t have to follow state rules. In a few cases — for geotechnical work, environmental cleanup and construction management — the task force sought bids to get a better price.

‘STOP SPENDING MONEY’

Many of the contractors had political ties. Since 2011, the companies engaged by the task force gave more than $200,000 to Gov. Jay Nixon, and more than $300,000 to St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay. Blitz’s firm, for instance, gave more than $10,000 to both.

Nixon’s office and Slay’s campaign said their chiefs played no role in the selection of stadium contractors.

And task force co-chairman Dave Peacock said the team scrutinized contracts and double-checked rates with advisers.

In December, as the NFL vote neared, he told contractors to ramp down. “Stop,” he said. “Stop spending money.”

Blitz bristled at the suggestion that his firm took advantage of the public dime. He said he’s worked more than 1,000 hours on the project, paid for expenses out of pocket, and even stopped billing the Dome authority for its regular meetings. “I have not charged one dime to the task force,” he said.

He wasn’t the only one. Dome authority records show that neither Peacock nor Jim Woodcock, a partner at the public relations firm FleishmanHillard, were paid, either.

Asim Raza, general counsel for the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, said he and two of his engineers also put in hundreds of hours for free. When the task force asked about relocating the association’s tracks, “We jumped at the opportunity to be a part of a civic effort,” Raza said in an email.

Jim Shrewsbury, chairman of the Dome authority board, said regional and state leaders will figure out how to back-fill some of the $16 million.

The authority has new assets, he noted.

It owns Rams Park, where the team practiced. It can start marketing the Dome for fall conventions. And it has dozens of options on prime riverfront land.

Riverfront land owners have mixed feelings.

Pam Neal, owner of Al’s Restaurant, is happy the 90-year-old business will live another day. “We think there’s a bright future for the north riverfront,” she said.

Mark Schulte, co-owner of the long narrow Cotton Belt building, is still hoping the Dome authority will buy his land.

“I challenge our community not to waste our opportunity,” he said. “I’m so sick of people saying no. We can do this. We have the resources, we do.

“The question is, do we have the guts, patience and creativity?”

[dieterbrock]

Ouch

[bubbaramfan]

Folks from Misourri should be outraged. the Gov handing out no bid contracts to his buddies, Peacock and HIS task force buddies making boo-koo $$$ when they all knew damn well the writing was on the wall. then have the nerve to slam Kroenke for wanting to leave for greener $$ pastures. No vote for stadium, boy, talk about getting taken for a ride........

[den-the-coach]

Money well spent!

[Hacksaw]

Some St Louisans think they can sue the NFL for lying to the task force and causing them to spend $16M on keeping the Rams under the RICO Act.
Gawd, let it go.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. The RICO Act focuses specifically on racketeering, and it allows the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes which they ordered others to do or assisted them in doing, closing a perceived loophole that allowed a person who instructed someone else to, for example, murder, to be exempt from the trial because he did not actually commit the crime personally

[bluecoconuts]

Adding insult to injury, especially if the governor was handing out contracts to donors.

[Stranger]

And StL is mad at us

[den-the-coach]

And StL is mad at us

What do you expect from a politician with the surname of Nixon?