The shape of the city that the Rams left behind is still visible if you stroll through downtown St. Louis on a weekday afternoon. Located at the northern border of the central business district, the Edward Jones Dome—now known as The Dome at America’s Center—serves mostly as a silent memorial to a specific type of civic treachery, but it occasionally hosts conventions or college games. After ten years of leverage games over stadium funding, Stan Kroenke relocated the team to Los Angeles in 2016. One of the biggest settlements for sports relocation in American history resulted from the subsequent litigation. The funds have been coming in gradually. The city has been unable to come to a consensus over its destination.
Anyone who has followed St. Louis politics over the last three years is already familiar with the math. The city’s portion of the $790 million settlement was deposited into interest-bearing funds in late 2022. The money has continued to accumulate without any stringent expenditure constraints, and current estimates place it at close to $300 million. For a city with the population and tax base of St. Louis, that amount is significant enough to actually change the course of several long-overlooked objectives. Predictably, it’s also the type of sum that leads to intense internal disputes over who gets to determine what is a priority in the first place.
Aldermanic President Megan Green and Mayor Cara Spencer’s latest approach aims to thread a challenging needle. North St. Louis will receive $110 million from the plan, of which $79 million will be used to recover from the devastating tornado that hit the region earlier this year. An additional $65 million is allocated for citywide infrastructure, specifically water-related projects and outdated public works.
$55 million is allocated to downtown regeneration in an effort to alleviate the slow-motion catastrophe that has intensified since the pandemic cleared out office space and left vast portions of Washington Avenue and Olive Street with unsustainable vacancy rates, according to local business groups. There is a $25 million reserve set aside for unforeseen circumstances. The sum of $230 million is significant, but the current parliamentary cycle leaves about $70 million unaccounted for.
Speaking with those who follow municipal politics gives the impression that the idea is both politically susceptible and structurally sound for the same reasons that make these allocation disputes challenging. Residents of North St. Louis, especially those who are still rebuilding after the storm, believe that the $79 million is insufficient considering the extent of the devastation and the decades-long neglect of the area’s infrastructure. That discontent has been vividly illustrated by protests outside City Hall. The total tornado recovery component should be increased, according to several locals. Others have noted that merely allocating the funds does not ensure they reach the families in need, and that financing for disaster assistance tends to slowly vanish due to administrative friction.
By bringing a lawsuit to reroute $67 million of the settlement toward public safety initiatives, the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners has added another level of complexity to the conflict. The argument has a convoluted procedural structure. In St. Louis’s unique municipal organization, the Board of Police Commissioners has maintained a level of state supervision that other major American cities have long since eliminated.
According to the lawsuit, the settlement monies should appropriately include funding for the security infrastructure that underpins the city’s wider operations since they are partially compensation for the loss of an economic asset. It’s unclear if the courts will concur. Meanwhile, the lawsuit itself has hampered the legislative schedule of the Board of Aldermen in ways that the mayor’s office has attempted to handle delicately.
All of this is based on a deeper philosophical argument. A big downtown anchor, a thorough North St. Louis revitalization plan, or an overhaul to the city’s water system are just a few of the transformative projects that some politicians have said should receive the majority of the funding in order to create noticeable, long-lasting change. Others contend that in order to alleviate structural neglect in historically underinvested neighborhoods, the money ought to be allocated more widely.
There is merit to both arguments. Clearer responsibility and quantifiable results are produced by the focused strategy. Although the scattered method covers more residents, it runs the risk of dilution, which has resulted in settlement spending that no one can precisely pinpoint ten years later in many other cities.
The final settlement might resemble the current plan with a few minor changes to appease the most involved parties. The police lawsuit may also alter the situation to the point that the legislative route becomes more controversial. In this instance, the deadlines that often influence a settlement expenditure decision aren’t very strict. The funds are in accounts that yield interest. It keeps expanding. The funds’ expiration does not create political pressure to take action. It originates from locals who have seen their own districts continue to degrade while the city hoards money.
