urbanSTL

or just give up on the season and make the players work on the damn thing ...



anway. Just an FYI. I sent my above post to Mclellan and he responded almost immediatly. He was very nice, agreed with some of my points - and basically seemd to say that he thought - overall - the little guy gets the shaft versus the other way around. Can't say I disagree with that..... wes seem to be comming at it from two different perspectives. I'm focused on the fact that I think its a great investment. He's worried about overall social inequities. ... anyway .. he seems to be comming around on the village.

Excellent. Opponents pompously thump their chests for self-agrandizement in public and then casually admit in personal E-mails that the other side has a point.



I think it's great to have oppinionated commentators, but shouldn't even their efforts be directed towards a goal? Does McClellan think that BPV shouldn't be built? I'm sure he, and other 'critics' believe they are just pointing out shortcomings, but being honest and articulating your argument with facts actually bolsters one's position.



(sorry to re-tread similar arguments as before)

by the way - he didn;t tell me that he was comming around on the village - that was just my read.

I don't entirely disagree with McClellan's last column, but real estate is fundementally (built environment) different than a traditional business (people, ideas, hard work).



Using his McClellan's example, the RFT started out as a small paper, if things are going well, they hire more people, print more pages, move to a bigger office.



If they built out the Ballpark Village with 500 residential units and a bunch of parking. But, 5-10 years down the road there was demand for 1200 units and 500,000 sq ft of retail and office, you would have to pay to tear down what is there to build something bigger.



For a business that would be like saying in order to double in size you have buy out all of your employees, sell all of the office equipment, break your lease and then start all over at twice the size.



TIF allows the city and developer to full advantage of a unique opportunity that exists now and is slightly ahead of the actual full market demand for the project (with no public assistance). The other choices are to sit on the vacant land for 5-10 years until the project can be done with no assistance. Or to build a scaled back project that would be inadequet in 5-10 years.

From the Business Journal:

Cardinals, Cordish talk up Ballpark Village at RCGA event



The St. Louis Cardinals and developer Cordish Co. are in the final stages of negotiations with the city of St. Louis over a subsidy request for the planned $650 million Ballpark Village.



The project, to be located on a 10-acre vacant site next to the new Busch Stadium downtown, will include 360,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space and 300,000 square feet of office space in several towers.



Bill DeWitt III, vice president of business development for the St. Louis Cardinals, and Chase Martin, director of development for Cordish Co., gave their presentation at Cordish's St. Louis offices in the Bank of America Plaza Building Wednesday morning. The presentation was part of the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association (RCGA) "Breakfast with the Gazelles" program.



Cordish and the Cardinals are seeking tax increment financing from the city and state but have not released the amount they're requesting. DeWitt said the negotiations are ongoing, and the amount of the request will be made public in the coming weeks. The first phase of the project has an 18-month construction schedule with a target completion by early 2008, Dewitt said.



Martin said the amount of office space to be included in Ballpark Village will be a minimum of 300,000 square feet but could be more. Cordish is talking to at least three major office tenant users, he said, which could substantially increase the amount of office space built in the project. The project calls for 100,000 square feet blocks of Class A office space each in three towers.



The exact amount of office, residential and retail space is still being determined and will be based upon market conditons. "It's still in play," DeWitt said.



The Cardinals are planning to build a destination restaurant and entertainment venue that will house a Cardinals museum, DeWitt said. Currently, the Cardinals' museum is housed in the Bowling Hall of Fame building, which the Cardinals have under contract and plan to incorporate into Ballpark Village.

good god please let this go through ....



and just a thought. We've herad several times that this "new proposal" will have buildings soaring OVER the arch - which we mean at least 60 stories (or thereabouts). I suspect that the rendering we've all been looking at is not the final rendering they are going to propose. afterall - (as we've all noted) the pic was just a model of the old proposal.

The editorial in the post a couple of weeks back that had a pic of the model said that it was to scale, but not necassarilly built to the final designs. So with that in mind, the building designs could very easily change. We all know how often they do.



Great to hear about the office tenants, which is also good for projects like the MW tower, and maybe even the Bottle District, as well as just general infill.



This is also the first time it has been mentioned that the land under the the Bowling HOF will definitely be part of the project

It seems like south of Market is sort of on track as the new buisness district.

two questions... Are we sure there will be new or improved renderings/taller buildings... I feel as if the model/current renderings are the new plan...

also, do we have any idea what will be included in phase one, phase two and so on... more specifically... what will be built in phase one (18 month construction to be completed early 2008)?

^ The truth is we don't have really any facts about what this project is going to be yet.

Blzhrpmd2 wrote:(And for the love of God, put a W on the board boys!)

Thankfully they did that last night, when I was in attendance!



(Unfortunately, Houston won against Pittsburgh as well.)



Anyway, the STLBJ tidbit about Cordish talking to potential major office tenants is VERY encouraging IMHO. I'm confident a deal will get done, and it won't take much longer, but I wonder if it won't be as soon as some originally speculated since the number of condos and the amount of office space are still up in the air.

The following commentary was in today's Post by former city comptroller Dwight Billingsly , he makes some interesting points about the differences between the Ballpark village funding and some of other notable recent projects.







It's not "public" money; it's the people's money





09/28/2006



Here are a few questions for those who oppose tax increment financing for an expanded Ballpark Village:



When you pay income taxes or sales taxes or property taxes to the government, whose money are you paying? Yours, right? And when you get real tax relief from, say, President Bush's tax cuts, whose money are you keeping? Yours again, right?



So why is it regarded as lost public money when part of a project's revenues that would have gone to pay taxes is, instead, re-invested in the project -- a project that would not have been built if not for some measure of tax relief?



It's the same principle as when people receive tax refunds -- their own money back -- and go out and buy a car or a new washer/dryer or take a vacation. Or when any business receives tax relief and re-invests in new employees and equipment for growth. Advertisement

The money belongs to taxpayers and to the economic activity that generates income, not to the government. So it's not public money but more of the project's money that Cordish Company, the Ballpark Village's developer, and the Cardinals' owners want to put back into the project.



Taxes always have inhibited economic activity: If an investor can't keep enough of what he earns he won't make an investment. So lower taxes mean more economic activity. That usually results in more revenue to the government after a tax cut than would have occurred without a tax cut, a phenomenon demonstrated by economist Arthur Laffer and the policies of presidents John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.



Tax relief can promote a variety of positive economic activities and outcomes. For example, a provision that gave capital-gains-tax relief to minority ownership groups was responsible for the greatest boom in minority ownership of such properties in history. Unfortunately, Bill Clinton signed legislation that ended this program, but not before major minority media ownership groups such as Granite Broadcasting had been created.



Some are trying to link the Ballpark Village TIF financing proposal to the "new net fiscal benefits" scenarios involving the Savvis Center-Kiel Opera House and Trans World Dome projects, but there is just no legitimate comparison. As deputy comptroller at the time, I managed the city's first TIF project. Both the Savvis deal and the dome deal involved substantial misrepresentations. Due to the negligence of city officials, there weren't sufficient penalties or enforcement mechanisms in the Savvis deal to ensure that the Opera House would be rehabbed. And the new net fiscal benefits estimates for the dome were done by the accounting firm Arthur Andersen of Enron fame; that in itself should tell you something.



But even if Andersen's benefit projections had been credible, the dome should have been financed as a TIF deal that paid for itself with all those new fiscal benefits. Instead, it was done as a straight bond issue with payments obligated to come from general revenue, not revenue from the project itself.



So I would encourage the public to appreciate the distinction between public financing (now the Edward Jones Dome) and project financing (Ballpark Village), and remember that it's our money to begin with, whether generated by individuals or businesses.



And let's move past the insulting and arrogant comments of Mayor Slay's Chief of Staff Jeff Rainford that it's "small thinkers" who object to a Ballpark Village TIF. It's okay to object to Ballpark Village if you believe that the government has first claim to all income. That just makes you a big socialist, not a small thinker.



In any case, wouldn't you rather see more of the money from Ballpark

Village in the hands of the smart business people from Cordish and the Cardinals, than poured into the black hole of the Slay/Rainford city government? I know I would.



E-mail: zdbcomment@webtv.net



Z. Dwight Billingsly is a principal of Branford Gateway Investment Co., a longtime activist in local Republican circles and a regular contributor to the Commentary page.

Thank you.

^ I acutally said aloud those very words after reading the commentary

Isn't this a different argument that we've heard before? It's different to me. Is he saying that the TIF makes sense because it's less money for the Mayor to spend on something else? Is he arguing that a TIF equates to lowered taxes (invoking Kennedy, Reagan and GWB nonetheless)? I'll let the lowered taxes/increased revenue argument slide for now, but taxes are all relative and geared toward redistributing income. I guess in the end Billingsly supports BPV, so that's good. I just don't think I buy his reasoning.

I dont agree with everything he said, but the main point, that this TIF money is not affecting anyone's taxes, and it's in print, is a good thing.

His argument is exactally the same as 99% of the people on this forums' argument: "The TIFs proposed for use in BPV are derived from the income(and therby taxes) off the property itself, and are not guarenteed by the city. This is different than the Dome, or SAAVIS, or Keil Opera House." What he is saying is true, it's basically a tax break to help the development pay for infrastructure. I support his position and (most of) his logic.

The other half of the arguement is that city stands to take in more tax dollars by, ironically, lowering a tax rate. Since the lower tax rate allows for a re-investment that's likely to generate a larger net taxable revenue.



It's a win win for the city, residents and developers.

Urban Elitist wrote:His argument is exactally the same as 99% of the people on this forums' argument: "The TIFs proposed for use in BPV are derived from the income(and therby taxes) off the property itself, and are not guarenteed by the city. This is different than the Dome, or SAAVIS, or Keil Opera House." What he is saying is true, it's basically a tax break to help the development pay for infrastructure. I support his position and (most of) his logic.

I wouldn't have invoked the names of Presidents Reagan and Bush since I see that as an apples-to-oranges comparison for reasons I won't go into here lest we wander off-topic. Overall, though, I think Billingsly's commentary is spot-on and adds much-needed clarity to this discussion.