Downtown group pushes sales tax increase; Cardinals oppose it
Jun 24, 2015, 11:39am CDT
Jacob Kirn
St. Louis Business Journal

In an effort to improve the central business district’s image, a downtown association is pushing an overhaul of certain infrastructure.

It would be funded by a tax increase.

Downtown STL Inc. this fiscal year is considering a transportation development district (TDD) that would fund improvements to sidewalks and lighting, according to documents obtained by the Business Journal.

The TDD would come with its own governing board, and must be approved by residents and businesses within its boundaries, which would run from the Mississippi River to the east; Chouteau Avenue to the south; Compton Avenue to the west; and Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard to 20th Street and Cole Street to Carr Street to the north, according to a resolution passed by the city’s Land Clearance For Redevelopment Authority.

link: http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... ml?ana=twt

Enough with the damn sales taxes.

Why would the Cardinals oppose it?

More taxes! IT NEVER ENDS

I know people dont like taxes, but how else do we fund infrastructure. Some things just down have "market" solutions. You pay for what you get.

stlien wrote:Why would the Cardinals oppose it?

Great question. They haven't paid any BPV penalties and were given a tax break by the city to build a new stadium. Seems as if they should be the last entity squawking.

Could there be a smarter city budget, like stop giving cars to the elected officials and use that money for infrastructure?

goat314 wrote:I know people dont like taxes, but how else do we fund infrastructure. Some things just down have "market" solutions. You pay for what you get.

Build less infrastructure on the edges.

In some perfect world I'd love to step up and volunteer to pay more taxes any time something important was needed and "do my civic duty" but the truth of the matter is that there's just too much waste and fat and zero accountability and wack budgets especially in St. Louis and I'm not down with more taxes every single time.

Get out of my face with more taxes. It's a total joke.

How about the Parking division paying into this rather than endless parking garages. I mean, sidewalks and lighting relate very closely to parking

I meant on the edges of the region.

Shouldn't the windfall from the new bridge, CityArchRiver, and new football stadium be plenty to fund downtown improvements?

^ To be devil's advocate, why not double the amount of the bond issue with half it for street & pedestrian improvements?

The current bond measure does address needs but lets face it is underwhelming, supports mostly improvements that you can argue benefit city employees directly but most citizens indirectly if it does at all. Case in point is the number of vehicles to be purchased or upgrading an older building. Yes, fire trucks are needed and beneficial to the community but replacing employee vehicles or upgrading structures might bring some wear and maintenance cost down but no direct benefit to citizens who uses the sidewalks and streets or spends very little time in gov't buildings. Nor is their is any direct relation of what and where cost savings might be used. Heck, it could be for another employee in a department that doesn't need another employee.

It is so pathetic and broken to me that we'll drop $10Ms on new highway interchanges while it'll take a sales tax increase or bond issue to fix sidewalks and streets next to some of the most productive land in the region.

quincunx wrote:Shouldn't the windfall from the new bridge, CityArchRiver, and new football stadium be plenty to fund downtown improvements?

i don't see how any of those are going to produce a windfall.

quincunx wrote:It is so pathetic and broken to me that we'll drop $10Ms on new highway interchanges while it'll take a sales tax increase or bond issue to fix sidewalks and streets next to some of the most productive land in the region.

Well, I think the definition of "we" isn't consistent between these two cases.

How can anyone in their right mind think of the entire area within this proposed TDD be considered "The Downtown"? What a joke! Several square miles!!!

I think this whole discussion needs to be on another thread. It is not really about the "downtown". By continuing to work on initiatives spread across large pieces of geography, which happen include the "real downtown", these "downtown boosters" end up hurting instead of helping the "real downtown".

^The face the the TDD stretches all the way to Compton is curious. I think it's a back door way to establish funding for part or most of the Olive/Lindell streetcar. But that's just a conspiracy theory.

I've been a long time reader but thought it might be time to comment. For almost twenty years I've been active in downtown - with real estate, economic development, etc. A fundamental problem that is often overlooked is that downtown does not have funds for infrastructure improvement and streetscapes - not even the necessary matching dollars for federal grants (TIGER, STP, etc). This is despite the fact that Downtown provides a large percentage of the City's annual budget. Downtown gets only pennies on the dollar compared to the revenue it supplies the City. Over the years, downtown has not had a significant enough number of voters to demand that the City spend more of its capital improvement dollars in downtown.

In many ways, downtown is the City's golden goose - one that lays a lot of golden eggs which is to the benefit of every neighborhood in the City. The goose is not as healthy as it once was and is now laying less eggs. More of the City's dollars need to be spent downtown to get the goose healthy again.

wabash wrote:^The face the the TDD stretches all the way to Compton is curious. I think it's a back door way to establish funding for part or most of the Olive/Lindell streetcar. But that's just a conspiracy theory.

I was thinking the same thing, maybe a scaled back streetcar to say Grand? Which I think is the best move. Lindell gets too narrow and would be a nightmare. I think Downtown to Grand Center via Olive would be more realistic and less redundant, plus a lot less expensive. Now if we can get the city to get its head out its ass and move forward with N-S as a streetcar, which would dramatically reduce the cost. No need to wait on the count, which is obviously committed to Westport.

mo_opp wrote:I've been a long time reader but thought it might be time to comment. For almost twenty years I've been active in downtown - with real estate, economic development, etc. A fundamental problem that is often overlooked is that downtown does not have funds for infrastructure improvement and streetscapes - not even the necessary matching dollars for federal grants (TIGER, STP, etc). This is despite the fact that Downtown provides a large percentage of the City's annual budget. Downtown gets only pennies on the dollar compared to the revenue it supplies the City. Over the years, downtown has not had a significant enough number of voters to demand that the City spend more of its capital improvement dollars in downtown.

In many ways, downtown is the City's golden goose - one that lays a lot of golden eggs which is to the benefit of every neighborhood in the City. The goose is not as healthy as it once was and is now laying less eggs. More of the City's dollars need to be spent downtown to get the goose healthy again.

Part of the problem is obsession with big projects with ribbon cutting photo-ops. Downtown has seen lots of investment. Busch III, Musial Bridge, City Garden, CAR, TIGER grant for highway ramps, possible new football stadium. But then we miss and crowd out the basic work to enhance the most productive land in the region.