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St. Louis voters choose tax increases, but scuttle soccer stadium funding

A rendering of how a new riverfront stadium for a professional soccer team would look.
Courtesy of HOK
A rendering of how a new riverfront stadium for a professional soccer team would look.

St. Louis’ professional soccer hopes may have died Tuesday. City residents voted for sales tax and use tax increases that’ll go toward city services, but turned down Proposition 2, which would have funneled the use tax toward a new stadium.

Proposition 1 puts the half-cent sales tax increase will go toward expanding public transportation and providing public safety equipment; the tax increase that businesses pay on out-of-state purchases will go toward affordable housing, public safety and public health. The proposition passed with 60.39 percent of the vote.

 

Prop 2, which about 53 percent of voters rejected,would have directed that use tax increase — about $50 million — toward the stadium’s construction; up to $10 million from the sales tax increase could have been put there, too.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising and visits by national soccer figures didn’t sway St. Louis voters, who again made it clear Tuesday they don’t want taxpayer money to be poured into a professional sports stadium.

 

"We didn't end up accomplishing what we wanted," said Jim Kavanaugh, the vice chairman of the ownership group, SC STL. "Take it as a great experience, not a great result."

SC STL chairman Paul Edgerly said people "worked hard" and that the group was "disappointed for St. Louis."

Opponents had argued the stadium shouldn’t be a priority for a city facing economic and public safety issues, and that a team wasn’t likely to benefit residents in struggling neighborhoods. The rejection also comes after the city’s Board of Aldermen didn’t bother putting up to public vote a plan to build a riverfront stadium for the now-departed St. Louis Rams, knowing the support wasn’t there.

SC STL had purchased TV, billboard and direct-mail advertisements for the ballot measures. And the city and SC STL had signed a community benefit agreement, instituting minority hiring programs and youth soccer initiatives.

Follow Jason on Twitter: @jrosenbaum

Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.

Since entering the world of professional journalism in 2006, Jason Rosenbaum dove head first into the world of politics, policy and even rock and roll music. A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Rosenbaum spent more than four years in the Missouri State Capitol writing for the Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri Lawyers Media and the St. Louis Beacon.