page_title: St. Louis Arena
section_title: Closure and demolition (1994–1999)
hierarchical_section_title: St. Louis Arena / History / Closure and demolition (1994–1999)
caption_attribution_description: English: The St. Louis Arena on the day of its controlled implosion, February 27 1999.
context_page_description: St. Louis Arena was an indoor arena in St. Louis, Missouri. The country's second-largest indoor entertainment venue when it opened in 1929, it was home to the St. Louis Blues and various other sports franchises. The Arena sat across I-64 from Forest Park's Aviation Field.
  The Arena hosted conventions, concerts, political rallies, horse shows, circuses, boxing matches, professional wrestling, Roller Derby competitions, indoor soccer matches, the 1973 and 1978 NCAA men's basketball Final Four, the NCAA Men's Midwest Regional finals in 1982, 1984, and 1993, the 1992–94 Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball tournament, and the 1975 NCAA Frozen Four ice hockey finals.
  It was demolished in 1999.
context_section_description: As a condition for the private financing of the demolition of city-owned Kiel Auditorium and the construction of privately owned Kiel Center (now the Enterprise Center) on the same Downtown site, local business group Civic Progress, Inc. insisted that the Dogtown-neighborhood would not be allowed to compete with Kiel Center for any events, while the insurance burden for the building was left with the City of St. Louis.  With no income allowed for the arena while insurance expenses continued, the building sat vacant while pressure built on the city government to either make it revenue-producing (essentially impossible under the Civic Progress-imposed non-compete clause) or raze it.  The arena remained vacant for nearly five years.
caption: St. Louis Arena on February 27, 1999, the day of its controlled demolition
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