The NFL's Abandoned Dome - The Dome at America's Center - Former Home of the St. Louis Rams

The Dome at America’s Center, previously the Trans World Dome, or the Edward Jones dome is the former home of the Greatest Show on Turf, the St. Louis Rams. The Rams called the stadium home for exactly 20 years from 1995 to 2015, before leaving and returning to Los Angeles. For such a new stadium, opening in 1995 the Dome at America’s Center is truly a sad site to see. In today’s episode of the Archive of Everything we’re going to find out what happened to the Dome at America’s Center after the Rams left town.

When the Rams moved into the Dome in 1995, they had a contract stipulation that the dome would have to be in the top 25% of NFL stadiums or the Rams were free to break their lease on the stadium at any time or change to a year to year lease. The negative reception of the dome as time went on didn’t help boost its rankings, and by 2010 the Dome needed an update. New video boards and other more modern features were added but it didn’t help. Fans and the media noted that it looked like a shopping mall, and felt cramped and uninspiring inside.

With these complications, St Louis and the Rams entered into arbitration in 2013 to try and lay out a new plan for the stadium. St Louis rejected the Rams $700 million dollar proposal that would have rebuilt much of the stadium. A sliding glass wall and skylights would have been added, in addition to a massive center scoreboard. As time went on negotiations and relations between the parties continued to rapidly deteriorate and the Rams finally announced plans to return to Los Angeles.

Its now 2021 and its been 6 years since the Rams left St Louis. What happened to the Dome? Was it imploded? Did a new team move in? Did St Louis finally renovate the stadium?
The first incredible fact about the post Rams Dome is the fact that St Louis tax payers are still paying for the stadium. The $144 million dollars of debt will finally be paid off at the end of this year. The outdated features and overall hatred of the design have people still calling for renovations to be made. The Regional Sports Authority that runs the Dome estimates that it could cost as much as $300 million dollars to update the stadium and try to get new events into the venue. These renovations have yet to take place.

Football finally returned to St Louis when the XFL’s St Louis BattleHawks kicked off on February 13, 2020 when the Battlehawks played in front of a crowd of 29,554 fans. Unfortunately due to the pandemic the XFL collapsed and the BattleHawks folded. The Dome for a split second had a new team, and lost it just as fast.

That really does bring us to today, the Dome in the past 6 years has lost two professional football teams, and the highlight of its post Rams days may have been hosting a stop on Taylor Swift’s bad reputation tour. How ironic seeing the bad reputation of this Dome.
The Dome couldn’t even hold onto its name, when the Rams left for LA Edward Jones immediately terminated the sponsorship. The Dome still sits mostly abandoned, hosting the occasional concert or convention, the only sound of people complaining about its poor aesthetics as they wander the empty halls.