By Doug Moore
STL Post-Dispatch
12/17/2003
Computer generated rendering of the interior bowl of the new SLU Arena.
(ILLUSTRATION COURTESY ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY)
Sneak Peak
St. Louis University officials will announce Thursday that a $70 million arena will be built near Laclede and Compton avenues on the eastern edge of campus.
University and city leaders will hold a news conference this morning under a heated tent on the parking lot of the shuttered Waring School, which the university recently bought from St. Louis Public Schools for $1.25 million. The 63-year-old school would be razed to make way for the 13,000-seat arena. Tennis courts and at least some of the Grand Forest Apartments used for student housing also would be taken out by arena construction.
The Rev. Lawrence Biondi, president of SLU, and Mayor Francis Slay are among those expected to speak at the ceremony today.
On Wednesday, Slay said the arena is "one more major step" in making midtown "a great place to live, work and play."
The arena would be home to the university's basketball program. University officials want it open for the 2005 season to coincide with the university's switch to the Atlantic 10 conference, which has a higher profile than Conference USA.
The university's athletics program is largely supported by men's basketball, which has made more than $17.5 million for the university in the past eight seasons. Biondi has said having an arena on campus will increase game attendance by students and help with recruitment. Basketball games are currently played at Savvis Center downtown.
Building the arena within view of Highway 40 (Interstate 64) should help when it comes to soliciting naming rights, Biondi said. University officials provided few details Wednesday, but a university spokesman said new renderings would be made public at the ceremony. Some representations are already on the university Web site, www.slu.edu.
The university-owned site was chosen for an arena over a location in Grand Center, just north of campus. Biondi said it was becoming too expensive to acquire the properties in the nearly 11-acre area bounded by Olive Street, Washington Boulevard, Theresa Avenue and Leonard Avenue.
The city created a tax incentive for the arena to be built north of Lindell Boulevard and in Grand Center, the city's arts and entertainment district. By building there, about $15 million in new taxes from development in the district would have been contributed to the arena project.
The arena will still be in the taxing district. But SLU stands to get only $5 million because less money is needed to acquire property. Still, university officials said, the additional $10 million would not have covered the costs to buy property.
The university has raised $10 million of the $40 million in private funding for the arena with an accelerated fund-raising campaign to begin next month.
The university plans to borrow about $25 million to be paid off with revenue generated by the arena. In addition to basketball, the arena would be used for concerts, circuses, rodeos and boxing matches as well as small exhibitions.
Former Mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr., executive director of the nonprofit Grand Center Inc., said the new arena brings welcoming challenges to the arts district.
They include more parking and the additional traffic that will come into that part of town, especially when events in Grand Center such as a show at the Fox Theatre are scheduled at the same time as a Billikens basketball game at the arena.
The group is working with a Chicago urban design firm to help Grand Center and SLU "feel more like one," Schoemehl said.
Alderman Mike McMillan, said the new arena, which will sit in his 19th ward, would draw people to a part of town they would not normally visit, "which is, of course, an added benefit." As well, the new arena could spin off other development such as restaurants, adding more vibrancy to the area, he said.