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If all goes according to David Checketts’ plan, the Kiel Opera House will be open for holiday shows before Christmas of 2010.

The Blues owner and his partners Friday unveiled a long-awaited proposal to revive the historic downtown concert hall, and to do it right away.

"Why wait?" Checketts said Friday.

His New York-based SCP Worldwide and McEagle Properties, of O’Fallon, Mo., hope to start work on the $74 million rehab project in August, allowing them to open for the holiday season of 2010.

They plan a full revamp and upgrade of the interior of the Kiel, which has sat empty since 1991, and say they’ll recreate as much as possible of its old glory.

"When you’re going to take a historical treasure and bring it back, you want to take a lot of attention to the integrity of the building," Checketts said. "We’ll bring it alive exactly like it was (when it opened in 1934), with improved sound and lighting."

Paying for it, though, remains a challenge.

SCP plans to fund the $74 million project with a mix of bonds, tax credits and private financing.

Members of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen introduced a bill Friday that would issue $29 million in bonds for the Kiel, to be repaid over 25 years with the 5 percent "amusement tax" the Blues pay on each ticket they sell. Last season, the team paid about $1.5 million in those taxes, said Jeff Rainford, a top aide to Mayor Francis Slay. That’s money that would go to the Kiel instead. But, he said, the city will get some of it back in increased sales tax revenue from the Kiel. The deal does not make the Kiel eligible for tax increment financing.

And Checketts’ group must pay off the balance of those bonds with their own funds if the team should move or not be able to pay them off in taxes.

The deal also relies on $28.6 million from several tax credit programs, including the state historic tax credit. Applications for those credits are under way, said SCP president Kenneth Munoz.

The rest of the money — about $16 million — will come from private sources, in the form of loans and cash from the partners.

A weak bond market has been blamed for delays in the Cardinals’ Ballpark Village project next to Busch Stadium, though Munoz said the smaller, single-use Kiel project should have an easier time getting financing cheap payday loans. Still, he acknowledged that the tight credit climate poses some challenges.

"There are a few financial-world issues yet to be achieved," he said. "We’re working on it."

The next step comes Wednesday, when the plan goes before a subcommittee of the Board of Aldermen. It will need the board’s OK for the bonds, and for adjustments to the agreement between the city, which owns the Kiel, and SCP, which holds the lease on it and neighboring Scottrade Center.

Slay is "strongly supportive" of the plan, Rainford said, and thinks reviving the Kiel could give a big lift to downtown and the whole city.

"It’s a tough project at a tough time. But everyone believes in it because of the iconic nature of the building," Rainford said. "The Kiel Opera House is part of St. Louis’ heritage."

SCP is not the first group to study restoring the Kiel. A previous Blues ownership group that built what’s now Scottrade Center was supposed to renovate the Opera House as part of a deal with the city, but said escalating costs for fixing up the old building and lost income from a hockey lockout prevented completion of the project. Several other efforts have failed since. But SCP’s connections in the entertainment industry and experience renovating Manhattan’s Radio City Music Hall give supporters hope that this time they’ll succeed.

The other partner, Paul McKee’s McEagle Properties, is perhaps best known for the 1,200-acre planned community of WingHaven in O’Fallon. It’s also one of the companies linked to McKee that controls hundreds of vacant properties in the city expected to be part of a massive redevelopment project..

St. Louis resident Ed Golterman has been working to find someone to reopen the grand old hall for 11 years, and he called Friday’s news "an incredibly positive development."

"I’m just tickled pink," he said.

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