ST. LOUIS • It was well after 11 p.m. Tuesday and the Regency Ballroom at Union Station had cleared after hosting hundreds of soccer fans to watch city election results.
About a dozen somber fans remained to talk about how the losing campaign to build a Major League Soccer stadium could have ended differently. ºüÀêÊÓƵ FC owner and MLS investor Jim Kavanaugh sat outside the room scrolling through his phone and nursing a beer.
“We were going all out for this campaign effort,†Kavanaugh said of the $1 million political campaign to secure $60 million in public stadium financing. “We actually did what we thought we needed to do.â€
Specifically, consultants told the ownership group they would need more than 20,000 “yes†votes to succeed. They got more than 27,000 and still lost by about 3,300 votes.
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Almost 60,000 city voters cast ballots Tuesday — the highest turnout for an April city election in decades. That’s also about 3,000 more than in the March 7 primary, the election that ostensibly settled the biggest race on the ticket when Democrats nominated Lyda Krewson for mayor. And Tuesday’s turnout was more than twice as many compared to the last mayoral election, in 2013.
Map by Walker Moskop
About 9,600 votes went to third-party mayoral candidates this week, compared to 500 in 2013. Jeff Rainford, the ownership group’s political consultant and former chief of staff to Mayor Francis Slay, said that shows the election attracted people disaffected by Democrats and the GOP, groups also likely to oppose stadium financing.
“While those independent and third-party candidates never had a chance to win, they obviously brought people to the polls,†Rainford said. “Four years ago there was no third-party candidate and there wasn’t an open seat for mayor.â€
“Even though we lost and it has not been an easy thing to accept, it’s kind of gratifying to see that kind of voter turnout,†said political consultant Jeff Rainford, who worked for the local MLS ownership group SC STL. “I don’t know if that’s happened since around World War II when Republicans were still competitive in the city.â€
Rainford said the stadium campaign struggled to appeal to older, more conservative voters as well as black voters. It had success with younger voters, voters with young families and a cohort of Democratic supporters.
It also did well among Catholic voters, he said.
ºüÀêÊÓƵ Hills says yes
Proposition 2, a use tax on businesses to help fund a soccer stadium, passed in eight wards in downtown and south and western parts of the city, and lost by slim margins in another eight wards. The most support the proposal got was 59 percent in the 16th Ward, which largely consists of the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Hills neighborhood in south city.
That ward had the highest turnout in the city. It also had more voters opposed to Prop 2 than in any north city ward that rejected it.
Citywide, 20 of 28 wards voted down the proposal, despite Proposition 2 not facing any organized opposition and a $1 million political campaign to get supporters to the polls. The strongest opposition was in predominantly black north ºüÀêÊÓƵ wards.
Map by Walker Moskop
ºüÀêÊÓƵ voters gave strong support to Proposition 1, a companion measure to raise the city’s sales tax by one-half cent on every dollar. About $12 million a year of that money will go toward planning and engineering for an 8-mile north-south MetroLink expansion.
The sales tax will trigger a corresponding increase in the city’s use tax paid by businesses on out-of-town purchases. Proposition 2 would have directed some of that money toward building a soccer stadium. But Propositions 1 and 2 each had to pass for local soccer dreams to come true.
It’s unclear the extent to which stadium supporters drove up support for Proposition 1. It won easily, with over 60 percent of the vote and at least a majority in 23 of the 28 wards.
The sales tax measure received more votes than the stadium measure in every ward, in some cases by a wide margin. That was most prominent in the 15th Ward, south of Tower Grove Park, where 69 percent of voters supported Proposition 1 — 30 percent above their support for subsidizing a stadium.
‘A heavy lift’
The MLS has not formally ruled out ºüÀêÊÓƵ’ bid, but a league spokesman called the vote “a significant setback.â€
Would a collaborative effort between the city, county and state have helped make the stadium possible? Yes, SC STL investor Dave Peacock said, but polling suggested a campaign in the county would have cost three times as much and might have faced more opposition than in the city.
Peacock said a poll done eight months ago showed a stadium proposal was slightly less popular with ºüÀêÊÓƵ County voters than those in the city. Investors met with some county elected officials last year and came to a “mutual understanding†about the difficulties of passing it in the county, Peacock said.
“Voters would ask how the county benefits financially if it’s located in the city,†Peacock said. “It’s a heavy lift, given that we’re not going to reunify the county and the city in a day.â€
ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Executive Steve Stenger reiterated Wednesday that the county was never asked for help nor given a proposal to evaluate. Stenger said Tuesday’s vote doesn’t speak to whether the city-county relationship is strained and holding back economic growth.
“We’re always looking for ways to collaborate and coordinate that are in the best interests of our region,†Stenger said.
Stenger noted other major projects that the county and city have collaborated on, including America’s Center and the Dome in downtown ºüÀêÊÓƵ, funding the five institutions of the Zoo-Museum District, Great Rivers Greenway and the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Economic Development Partnership. He said city-county collaboration also helped land the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency campus in north ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
The county charter would have required a public vote on stadium funding, but Stenger wouldn’t speculate on how county voters would have responded.
“Investors made an analytical decision not to proceed in the county,†Stenger said. “I am not here to judge whether that was the right way to proceed.â€
Last year, SC STL had planned on $40 million in state tax credits to help with the project. Gov. Jay Nixon was involved in that arrangement and even met with MLS Commissioner Don Garber.
But incoming Gov. Eric Greitens sank the tax credit proposal in December before taking office when he called it “welfare for millionaires.†The ownership group pulled the request to the state.
No Plan B
Investors said there was no secondary financing plan, and they don’t expect one to materialize. Kavanaugh said the investor group was “breaking up,†though some individuals may consider investing in other Major League Soccer teams.
ºüÀêÊÓƵ is one of 12 regions with ownership groups vying for four MLS expansion franchises. Two of them will be announced later this year and will have to pay $150 million to the league each to get a team.
MLS spokesman Dan Courtemanche called the vote “a significant setback†for ºüÀêÊÓƵ’ bid, but the league hasn’t explicitly ruled out ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
Public financing plans are still coming together for some of the ownership groups around the country. On Tuesday, supporters of bringing an MLS team to San Diego said they would put the issue on the November ballot, an option ºüÀêÊÓƵ investors declined because they said the league wouldn’t wait that long for clarity.
A city-county partnership in Charlotte, N.C., for funding a stadium hasn’t come together. In St. Petersburg, Fla., voters will decide on a lease agreement for a stadium in a referendum May 2.
The league hasn’t set a timeline or expansion fee amount for the next two franchises. However, ºüÀêÊÓƵ investors have said they expect the fee to be much higher and likely out of reach for investors in a market the size of ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
There’s also the issue of David Beckham’s maligned MLS franchise in Miami. The league already has awarded a franchise to Beckham’s group, but continuing struggles to finalize a stadium plan have strained that relationship.
“It’s a kick in the pants,†Kavanaugh said on election night. “But it’s reality.â€