urbanSTL

So there's not any new details to speak of, but those August deadlines do indeed have the project back in the news.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... HA.twitter

So are we basically at a point where the options are either:

A - Nothing happens because people are made that nothing has happened despite public subsidies (of various kinds).

B - Something of unknown stature might happen if we give more public subsidies (of various kinds).

I know that somethings isn't necessarily better than nothing, especially when "our" money is involved. But I still know which option I'd lean strongly towards.

The TIF Commission should have solicited testimony from executives at Great Southern, US Bank, Commerce, Bank of America, PNC, Pulaski and other banks that routinely loan on projects like Crown Square and the MX. Would any of our local redevelopment lenders -- institutions that have taken risks on urban projects in the city in the last decade -- loan to this project? That's good due diligence.

gone corporate wrote:BizJournal: Angry Residents Delay McKee's NorthSide TIF Vote
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog ... ckees.html

TIF Commission delays the vote on the TIF changes until September 11th after the majority of a crowd of 200 people showed up to complain about how NorthSide has produced little so far. Only after the TIF Commission decides to recommend the TIF changes will it go before the Board of Aldermen for another vote.

Attendees noted that it has been the people within the NorthSide project's 1,500 acre footprint, who are mostly poor people, having to live with these delays on a daily basis. Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr. said that, if the TIF bill ends up in his committee, then it'll stay in committee, a threat that he'll prevent this from moving forward. McKee says that his company will keep moving forward with their plans, with the goal of breaking ground on the major projects either this winter or early spring, probably depending less on weather than on how much longer these delays will keep the project from starting.

So yeah, after all this time waiting for the TIF Commission to make a ruling, they punted.

"Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Well that's a big flipping surprise. I don't know of anyone that thinks this project is perfect. But how much has it cost the city to do nothing all of this time? And Bosley Sr.'s thinly veiled commitment to gridlock isn't exactly encouraging either. The best way to show frustration with delays is another delay? This is ridiculous.

Presbyterian wrote:People are upset over the delays, and so they demand a delay.

Sounds kind of self-defeating to me... like the guy who threatened to blow up a plane because someone suggested he had an anger problem.

Unfortunately this debate stopped being about the development a long time ago

Some fyi:

The TIF is already active & in effect, since April. There are no bureaucratic / administrative delays. The proposed amendments make things just slightly more attractive from a lending perspective. Any delays now are on McKee's end. I'd argue, strongly, that the almost 4 year court "delay" was directly tied to McKee's wanton, neglectful treatment of property he owned, and public lies he told prior to 2009. That tends to get things off on the wrong foot. There are deals out there. McKee hasn't made them.

The tone in the room is of a group of residents and property owners who are supremely frustrated by a decade of amorphous promises. My guess is that if anyone lived in an area that ended up being basically the largest urban "redevelopment" area in the country, and the developer was given, up front, over $40M in cash from the state while conditions on the groud inexorably deteriorated, you'd feel just as frustrated. People would like some degree of specificity with this project, which we have with basically every other TIF in Missouri. Just not this one.

The "city side" of this is still also a mess. McKee's presentation still uses meaningless terms ad nauseam like "job centers". The $8.1 billion figure is literally just pure fiction. There's a technical reason why they picked a figure that high - basically to maximize the TIF subsidy payback on the early end, but I won't go into the detail.

Something is going to be built. Who knows what. It will generate some TIF revenue which will replace some infrastructure. A very, very reasonable thing, which you would see in any other TIF - something like, "With the first $5M in TIF revenue, we're going to rebuild this road and do this streetscape here." Easy. That doesn't exist. That's why so many folks continue to express frustration.

Lastly, key information has been routinely withheld from elected officials, both by Paul McKee and by SLDC. That pattern continued this week.

Scott Ogilvie
24th Ward Alderman

According to Tim Logan's Twitter feed, the TIF Commission is recommending this to the Board of Aldermen. 6 in favor, 1 abstention.

What I found interesting is that McKee mentioned there will be a master's association for commercial and residential properties, which is basically a homeowners association, something more prevalent in affluent communities. Maybe residents fears are not as unfounded as some people suggest and that's why McKee hasn't been very detailed with the plans he presented. McKee could be looking to make this a wealthy enclave in the long term, with HOAs and neighborhood watches.

The only thing that makes me nervous about the master association is that they're allowing the residents to have control of design standards.. Seems like that would best be left to urban planners and architects.

Two interesting takeaways: McKee wants to build a tech incubator in the old Carr School, and a civil engineering firm wants to rehab the Biddle Market at 13th and Biddle for its offices.

Presbyterian wrote:

debaliviere wrote:McKee wants to build a tech incubator in the old Carr School.

T-Rex?

T-Rex will stay downtown (where it should be). The Carr School idea isn't really a "tech" incubator -- its more of a general incubator.

The print edition of the Post today was somewhat different than the online version. For example, (IIRC), it said McKee plans to renovate the Clemmons mansion into apartments, build a $24 million office building and a hotel starting in 2014.

Here's the online link:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metr ... c654b.html