Brendan Marks, Tue, 04 Aug 2015 15:30:00 GMT
St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Thomas Frawley on Monday voided a city ordinance requiring voter approval for any tax dollars used for a professional sports facility.
st. louis post-dispatch reporter david hunn has been covering developments surrounding the downtown stadium project, and went into detail on frawley’s ruling and 
what it means for the stadium in a report you can read here.
Hunn joined The Ryan Kelley Morning After on Tuesday to further discuss the implications of Frawley’s decision. We typed up some notable excerpts from the interview, which you can listen to in full below:
Do you think the ruling is a victory for those who want a new football stadium?
“I think if you’re a stadium supporter, this is a big step. I got a lot of feedback from both sides. People who wanted to vote on this were pretty darn upste. But at the same time, if you’re a stadium supporter…you can’t see this as anything but a big step in the direction of building a new stadium in St. Louis.”
Do you think the Mayor Francis Slay’s office will appeal the rule?
“My opinion is no. I think there isn’t time. And it would be a strange appeal. I don’t think they could get an appeal done quickly enough. They’d have to file an injunction to stop everything and I can’t see that happening. And the mayor’s a supporter of a new stadium. Even though he publicly said he wanted a public vote…he’d have to stop progress on the stadium in order to get an appeal. It’d be a very difficult prospect for him.”
Have they bought all the land?
“There’s still some landlords holding out, but they’re getting closer every day. They’re making progress. Regardless of how you look at the stadium…you have to give the stadium task force for slow, steady progress. Every time there’s a hurdle, they seem to work around it somehow.”
On the private money needed for stadium:
“If you look at the breakdown I wrote about…it’s even more private money than it used to be. It’s a $1 billion stadium. And of that, more than $600 million is private money. You’re looking at a lot of private money. That $450 million (after ticket sales) does not come through without a team. That’s money that’s going to be a loan from the NFL to a team owner. Or the team owner’s direct contribution. You can’t build the stadium without six-tenths of the money.”
Listen to the much more in-depth interview here: