最新杏吧原创

ST. LOUIS 鈥� A plan to spend some of the NFL Rams relocation settlement on improving downtown streets and infrastructure has been assured a hearing at the Board of Aldermen, amid pressure from business leaders.

Aldermen have spent nearly a year gathering and reviewing ideas on how to use the $250 million windfall. And Greater 最新杏吧原创 Inc., whose heavyweight board includes leaders of Spire, Nestl茅 Purina and Emerson, has put its weight behind a proposal to put $98 million into projects downtown and at least $130 million into unspecified projects in struggling north and southeast 最新杏吧原创.

The proposal said downtown was hit hardest when the Rams decamped for Los Angeles in 2015, and hit hard again during the pandemic. It argued the city needed to make big investments in fixing streets, building new housing, and attracting new retail and development to keep businesses and people downtown and generating vital tax revenue.

When aldermen surveyed residents on their favorite ideas earlier this year, a plan to put money into downtown infrastructure, inspired in part by Greater 最新杏吧原创鈥� proposal, received the fifth-most votes 鈥� behind replacing water mains, traffic calming, increasing city worker wages, and free child care.

But as aldermen started holding public hearings on ideas this spring and summer, Greater 最新杏吧原创 grew worried its plan was being ignored. In three meetings in June and July, aldermen heard testimony on the top four ideas and the sixth-most popular one 鈥� establishing a loan fund to spark redevelopment of struggling areas 鈥� but not the downtown streets plan.

And earlier this month, Greater 最新杏吧原创 wrote a letter to the Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier, who chairs the review committee, accusing her of ignoring downtown and demanding that a hearing on its full proposal be scheduled promptly.

Sonnier said Thursday she wasn鈥檛 ignoring downtown, that the idea would get a hearing at some point, and that she would send an official reply soon.

That didn鈥檛 stop Stifel CEO Ronald Kruszewski, whose company is headquartered at Broadway and Washington Avenue, from , on Friday.

He said that if the city didn鈥檛 spend part of the Rams settlement downtown, his company could start diverting jobs that would have come downtown to other cities, like Dallas.

On Monday afternoon, Sonnier released a letter inviting Greater 最新杏吧原创 to present to aldermen on Oct. 8.

She also expressed concern that Greater 最新杏吧原创鈥� letter had created confusion about the board鈥檚 review process, and said business leaders should have made more of an effort to talk to her directly about their concerns before going public. She said the real reason her committee hadn鈥檛 yet held a hearing on the downtown idea was simply because she wanted to start by reviewing plans that would affect residents citywide.

A Greater 最新杏吧原创 Inc. official said the organization would be at the October hearing.

鈥淲e appreciate Ald. Sonnier鈥檚 response,鈥� Chief Strategy Officer Samuel Murphey said in a statement provided by a spokesperson, 鈥渁nd we are glad our proposal will receive a full public hearing so that city residents will have the opportunity to hear about the importance of investing in Downtown and North and Southeast 最新杏吧原创.鈥�