Arena Project

[Newberry]

I met the Asst. A.D.- Business and Finance(I forgot his name, kind of arrogant) for the SLU AD department, he said that we are no where close to building the arena. He said we need more donations and it doesn;t look like it will be built until 2008.

[billikenmetz]

Let's just put all the money into recruiting and screw the arena. Who cares. It will never happen. Renovate West Pine and the Simon Rec first.

[thetorch]

Yeah then lets go D-2 and play Wash U and UMSL.

Newberry either you are making this up or this guy is a jackass who needs to be fired immediately. That type of attitude is great for fundraising.

This thing will get done. Patience, Patience, Patience.

[Billikan]

Who are you and why do you lie to intentionally try to harm the program? You have spread lies on this site for several years. Have you talked to anyone on the Board of Trustees? Have you spoken with Cheryl or Father Biondi? This is an outright lie. There are so many lies, distortions and falsehoods that are posted on this board that the posters here seem to just take as fact that it truly amazes me.

[Billikenbooster]

and the first to respond in kind is the new, local, village idiot! Great.

mhg

[Billiken Rich]

A village is missing it's idiot.........

[billiken_roy]

while i dont believe either mark spencer or mark wright would have said this to anyone, one has to admit that unless a big fish or arena name sponsor emerges soon, it is doubtful the thanksgiving goal can be reached with just the likes of us small timers buying $500 bricks.

[billiken_roy]

p.s, i wouldnt count father biondi out on anything. and nothing would be finer than to be eating crow pie at thanksgiving.

[Box and Won]

No, Tom Bauer is accounted for.

[cheeseman]

Newberry has already said previously that he left the AD dept. because of Cherly - so he has an ax to grind. I agree - the project will get done just be patient.

[cheeseman]

Roy, you are probably too young to remember but the arch was substantially paid by pennies collected at all the area schools by and from children. Small donations are important.

[billiken_roy]

cheeseman, i agree it can get done that way, but not realistically by thanksgiving 2005. that is the point. we are told no shovel in the ground until there is $35 million in the bank and last i heard we were at $22 million. at the belleville reception it was said that the goal is to have reached the goal by this thanksgiving and i say that means they have to hit on something big. otherwise my math says $13 million = 26,000 new bricks!

[Billikenbooster]

Roy

If my memory is correct, SLU had accumulated $700,000 in bricks. The bricks thing shows the length and breadth of the commitment of the 'guy on the street'. It generates enthusiasm with the big donors to see how many folks are contributing. I see the number of contributors more important than the dollar value.

When I did cold calling with alumni at my sons' high school, they were most interested in increasing the percentage of the graduates who contributed. That percentage figure they took to the big money folks, and were able to generate big bucks there as a result.

mhg

[bonwich]

Roy's not "too young," he's merely too smart to believe such nonsense. From the JNEM web site:

How much did the Arch cost to build?

The total building cost of the Arch was $13 million. The $11 million cost of the Arch itself was made up of 75% Federal funds and 25% City of St. Louis funds. The $2 million Arch transportation system was financed by the Bi-State Development Agency.

[billiken_roy]

whew. thanks bonwich. i had this awful picture of young orphans standing on the cold wintery st louis street corners selling matches to pay for the arch and cervantes coming around in a limo to collect the pennies on a regular basis.

[thetorch]

Dogtown is now yuppieville. I'm thinking more along the lines of Arnold or Charlack.

[Billiken Rich]

The $2 million Arch

transportation system was financed by the Bi-State

Development Agency.

I think that was the last time Bi-State made a good investment.......

[cheeseman]

Bonwich - the money collected was given to the City - so you would not know where the revenue came from that the City put up.

[Major Majerus]

So there! A penny for your thoughts!

[bonwich]

For a penny, I'd note that cheeseman's math skills (75%-25%) are approximately equivalent both to his ability to define "substantially" and his ability to cite authoritative source data.

[TEE]

Don't hammer Newberry.

there are some serious issues here.

$13 million more to break ground, the name gift not included, which at one time the name gift was included, the Univ. has no idea on how defered gifts apply to the needed $35 million.

basically when Larry desides to break ground, he'll break ground,he'll have a gold shovel out there with a big smile.

it has come to the point where Univ. dollars need to be used to get a hole in the ground.

one word, ego.

this project is potentially going to lose whatever steam is left.

fight on!

[cheeseman]

Bonwich - the term substantially was never defined as which part. The St. Louis City's share was substantially augmented by the school collections. The source that said 75 - 25 did not reveal the source of the 25% the City came up with so nothing new has been provided to contradict. So, before you get yourself all tied up in a knot over this - suffice it to say, small donations did help in building the arch.

[bonwich]

That's all well and good, but I searched both the P-D archives and a couple of other sources, and I found nothing to validate your claim. (There was a story about donations of pennies to save the Eugene Field house, however.) So if you've got a source, please cite it.

[cheeseman]

The cite was from my own personal experiences as a student then and the movie about the construction of the arch that was shown on the History Channel earlier this year.