ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — St. Louis County lawmakers moved toward ending a standoff over funding an expansion of the convention center in downtown St. Louis, as they advanced legislation Tuesday that would fund that project but also add money for a North County recreation facility.
St. Louis County Council Chair Rita Days has held up approving the issuance of bonds that would cover the county's half of the convention project, at $105 million. She has said that Explore St. Louis, the tourism agency that operates the America's Center convention complex, in exchange for the funding had promised to build a recreation center in North County. Explore has said it cannot build such a facility, and merely allowed that money from a motel-hotel tax may be used for it. But the county has said that no such funding currently exists because of the pandemic.
Days has said previously that she's eyeing settlement money from the National Football League to help build the track-and-field facility, which could be built in her district at the University of Missouri-St. Louis at a cost of $12 million to $68 million. But the county, city of St. Louis and the entity that owns the Dome at America's Center have not yet decided how to split the roughly $500 million settlement.
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