Members of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen inched forward in the considerations of two bills with different visions for how to spend $277.2 million, which the city received from its settlement after the Rams football team moved to Los Angeles.
Over the course of a nearly seven-hour hearing by the board’s Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee, members received updates to some of the questions raised in last month’s hearing on the Transform STL Act, sponsored by Ward 7 Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier.
It was the first time board members heard expanded details on a proposal by Ward 13 Alderwoman Pam Boyd that would allocate the funding to repairs and improvements to streets and similar infrastructure, the rehabilitation of decayed “high-impact buildings” and housing improvement and retail support specifically in north St. Louis, southeast St. Louis and downtown. It also dedicates $50 million to citywide water infrastructure.
“We have in front of us the two visions of how we can use these once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity funds and look at how they could be generational,” said Ward 14 Alderman Rasheen Aldridge.
Board members, including Boyd, viewed the hearing Tuesday as an opportunity to further discuss a shared vision and not necessarily adversarial sides. Boyd repeatedly emphasized the need to make good on commitments to parts of the city that have experienced long-term disinvestment.
“For decades, my constituents and the residents of north and part of southwest St. Louis have been promised investments that never came to fruition,” she said. “And for decades, we have watched as buildings in our downtown, the heartbeat and economic engine of our city, have fallen in disrepair.”
The provisions in her bill drew support from many who packed the small hearing room, including some who wore stickers telegraphing their support for the bill. There were more than a dozen public comments in support, including those of Amy Gill, who strongly advocated for the city to spend the funding rather than keep it in an interest-bearing account.
“Some of the proposals saying we need to save our money is like what you would tell your kids,” she said. “I would not tell my kids that if they had a home where the roof was falling in, and that's the situation that we're in in the city right now.”
Gill argued that concentrated money in an area, like what Boyd’s bill lays out for north city, Dutchtown and downtown, will drive development similar to what happened with the Grove neighborhood or around St. Louis University.
“Get some of these large projects going so that they expand exponentially out,” she said.
Boyd’s bill is also backed by the business-promoting organization Greater St. Louis Inc. and funnels just under $100 million to the Downtown and Downtown West neighborhoods. It’s a part of the city that some boosters argue needs more financial support to help the city and region thrive.
Over the coronavirus pandemic, the assessed value of property downtown dropped from $1.1 billion to $641 million, said Kurt Weigle, senior vice president and chief downtown officer of Greater St. Louis Inc. He added that the figure has rebounded to above $700 million.
“That goes to say that downtown can produce more for the city,” he said, adding officially that Greater St. Louis Inc. investors were committed to matching the $100 million allocated to downtown with $200 million in private investment.
“We’ve got to get downtown back on track to be the generator of tax revenue for this entire city,” Weigle said. “To be quite candid, the future of the city really depends on this. That commitment is real.”
But this commitment also drew pushback from Aldridge, who, after questioning Weigle, confirmed Greater St. Louis Inc. investors weren’t yet committed to matching investment in north city.
“I’m not saying y’all gonna forget about the other part, but I’ve seen how legislation gets done and once people get what they want, they walk away,” he said. “I don’t want [the] north side to get forgotten about.”
Both bills at Tuesday’s hearing included updates and amendments to their language.
“We have talked to our colleagues, and we have made sure that we listened to their concerns, and so we made some amendments to it,” Boyd said.
The amendments to Boyd’s bill lay out in more granular detail how the legislation allocates the funding, primarily placing most of the money into interest-bearing accounts until the projects or programs they pay for are ready for implementation, she said.
The bill anticipates the funds would be available for expenditure over the latter half of this decade.
Sonnier’s legislation also incorporated updates, notably a provision to prioritize investments in the same areas that are highlighted by Boyd’s bill.
Committee members noted how both bits of legislation are borrowing ideas and language from each other.
“They seem to be coming closer together, and I think that is a reflection of the conversations that aldermen are having with the sponsors and the community that is giving feedback,” said Ward 1 Alderwoman Anne Schweitzer.
Sonnier also noted this and pushed back on characterizations that her bill and Boyd’s were adversarial.
“There’s a narrative of either downtown or this, and that’s so unfortunate because all of these things are interconnected,” Sonnier said. “Let’s be leaders, let’s get in a room, and let’s have a conversation because we have mutual interest. [It] is possible that these bills could merge.”
Neither Boyd nor Sonnier asked for their bill to be moved back to the full board. The Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee hosts another hearing at 5 p.m. Wednesday for public input on how to spend the Rams money.
