ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – There are four items the St. Louis NFL Task Force is working on achieving when it comes to a new football stadium in downtown St. Louis: Securing land, designing a facility that works for a club and contributes to community, and doing so with a reasonable budget, providing an appropriate level of public support without generating incremental tax burden on the state and city, and demonstration of corporate support.
This according to Dave Peacock, a member of the task force and a guest on the Mark Reardon Show on KMOX Wednesday.
The goal is to get those items accomplished this fall, prior to a December or January vote on the “Los Angeles situation.”
If one looks at the actions of the St. Louis Rams, “they’re pretty focused on LA,” Peacock said. “I do understand that they need to keep their options open, because we haven’t accomplished our task, yet.
“… We’ve really tried not to get too focused on what’s going on in Los Angeles, or San Diego, or Oakland, because all we control are the four things I talked about. And if we do those four things, and we communicate with both league staff and owners, I’m confident we’ll have a team here.”
As far as land acquisition goes, Peacock says he’s “confident the land will not be an issue.”
The recent ruling that no public vote is needed when it comes to the use of public funding for a new stadium is important, but not because of the desire to move away from public, he said.
“Our issue is time, and the time it takes with a public vote. And the timeline is not dictated by us,” Peacock said. “The timeline is dictated by events that have unfolded with the league as it relates to Los Angeles, so we need to move quickly and take away the uncertainty of financing.”
The ownership of an NFL team would have to put up $250 million toward a new stadium, and that amount of money, based on initial estimates, is financeable, Peacock said.
“Realistically, they can borrow those monies to invest into a stadium,” he said.
A stadium is beneficial from an economic standpoint, and the team is more valuable with a stadium project underway than not, Peacock answered.
As for Rams owner Stan Kroenke, Peacock said, “I don’t think he wishes ill on St. Louis at all.”
“As an owner, while he has not spoken, and I know that has frustrated people – he’s also never lied to us; he’s never pandered to us. He has invested on the field.”
The task force’s plan calls for a little under 40 percent in “traditional public money,” Peacock said, and the average stadium built over the last 20 years has been closer to 56 percent.
A new stadium in St. Louis would be a public asset, Peacock said, providing a space that can be used for everything from concerts to tractor pulls to soccer – “absolutely,” he said. It would also free up the convention center, allowing it to be more competitive.
Peacock said the Rams are a team on the rise, and it would be great to see the team on a new stadium.
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