urbanSTL

keep kids in city schools? Bring in washing machines:
http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/0 ... es/496649/

Saw that the other day. It was a good story. But what's it got to do with McEagle? Glad to see it here. It surely belongs on the forum . . . but is there a connection I missed?

CID on top of the TIF

Stl American - McKee asks for sales tax increase at grocery and convenience store, residents push back

http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_n ... 64dce.html

“While this may be legal, it is highly unethical and, frankly, immoral,” Payne said. “That the developer expects some of our city’s lowest income residents to pay his bills after he neglected his properties and purposefully blighted our community for more than a decade is appalling, and that our elected officials are in support of such a predatory scheme is shameful.”

This was about how I felt after reading the headline. Mckee is pretty ridiculous.

Some details as well as comments on McKee's grocery store with construction to break ground next month as per his quote in PD article

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 7cdaf.html

Food purchased with food stamps or EBT cards can’t be taxed, McKee replied. The grocery store will be a GreenLeaf Market run by Good Natured Family Farms, a farmers group that provides fresh food from small family farms around the Kansas City area. Financing is lined up, and construction should begin next month, he said.

The store will be funded in part with a $10 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant as well as New Markets tax credits and brownfield tax credits. The overall construction cost is estimated at $19 million.

Considering the store will be in a predominantly impoverished area, doesn't it stand to reason that most purchases will be on EBT or food stamps? If so, and since such purchases won't be taxed, doesn't that make the TIF bonds that much harder to pay off with incremental tax revenue?

Do the gas and cig taxes get TIF'd? You can't TIF the state taxes right?

quincunx wrote:Do the gas and cig taxes get TIF'd? You can't TIF the state taxes right?

I think that is a great question considering that supposedly this deal couldn't be made without a gas station/convenience store involved which suggests where most the TIF/CID revenues will are expect to come from.

I'm wondering the development is essentially offering rent rate to grocer at little or nothing considering that the $19 million cost is for the most part being paid by USDA $10 million grant, brownfield and other tax credits and TIF/CID.

Are the CID boundaries limited to those two properties or do they extend to the surrounding neighborhood? I'm specifically wondering if the Crown Mart a block away on North 13th is included.

If so, there are some ethical hoops to jump through to impose a community tax on a company specifically to build a business that directly competes with that company. But if not, then folks who don't want to pay the extra tax have an option very nearby.

-RBB

rbb wrote:Are the CID boundaries limited to those two properties or do they extend to the surrounding neighborhood? I'm specifically wondering if the Crown Mart a block away on North 13th is included.

If so, there are some ethical hoops to jump through to impose a community tax on a company specifically to build a business that directly competes with that company. But if not, then folks who don't want to pay the extra tax have an option very nearby.

-RBB

The CID is just the grocery store & gas station.

StlAmerican - City’s fiscal body can’t agree on sales tax hike at future market and gas station

St. Louis Comptroller Darlene Green spoke out against a bill on Wednesday, October 19 that relates to increasing sales tax by one percent at an area where NorthSide Regeneration developer Paul McKee Jr. is building a grocery store and gas station – near the intersection of Tucker Boulevard and 13th Street.

http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_n ... 88c05.html

Before they filled it in I'd long wondered about the possibility of brining light rail to the old IT through Granite and out to Edwardsville and Alton. The cost of repairing the bridges was probably always too high, but it seems like a corridor that could do a fair number of people a fair amount of good. The population of Madison County is almost identical to that of St. Clair County. There's a quite similar mix of communities in similar distance. You'd be going through communities totaling about 130,000 with another 50,000 odd folks within perhaps five miles of the line. Maybe a bit more than that. I'd guess it's an area that already uses transit more than most. You'd surely want to get MCT onboard. And it's a line that could have connected with N/S. Of course it's hard to know how much more development it might have brought than the Stan Span and I don't immediately have an estimate what the cost would have been comparatively speaking. But yes, the quotes are amusing.

Stltoday - McKee's debt nearly derailed NGA's move to north city

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metr ... 189d9.html

This project is a scam.

How exactly is this TIF district with mckee set up? Does it run out at some point? How does he have such a huge area? Is there anything that can be done to kick him out? Who was behind giving him all this?

The Board of Aldermen approved the TIF.

quincunx wrote: ↑

May 09, 2017

The Board of Aldermen approved the TIF.

But what was there reasoning for giving him such a huge area? And do TIFs never expire? Is there an amount of years where it expires so we can rid ourselves of him? Can the board vote to reject the TIF? How does he have some kind of TIF stranglehold over land he doesn't even own (like where they soccer stadium was proposed)? I am looking for more details than just they BOA approved it. I assumed that much. I want to know what their reasoning was and how it was even an option on the table to give him a huge swath. I am newer to this site so I don't know all the background others on here know.

The City is balking at additional tax credits:

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 4d9c0.html

chaifetz10 wrote: ↑

May 10, 2017

As they should. They literally wanted taxpayer money to stock the store! How is it possible that someone can have zero equity in a proposal but still be the "owner"? The city should push back and force them to actually put a few million down for this to get off the ground.

I don't know how it is possible but the same guy somehow managed to convince the MO state house and the acting Governor once upon a time to create a state tax credit program entirely for himself with sole intention of giving him tax credits, or essentially money, to buy up north side properties that started all this mess in the first place. Was that about 15 years ago or more now? Land assemblage tax credit if I got the title correct. That in itself if not mistaken was McKee literally getting compensated by state taxpayers for his purchase and ownership of north side properties.

Certainly understood the need for help, the hope of a large scale plan as envisioned by northside when it first came out as NGA move and its forthcoming massive investment wasn't even on the radar. I certainly supported McKee's northside once upon time with west downtown plan/phase that makes a lot sense to me. Not now with the utter lack of ability to deliver anything. At this point you would think that Board of Alderman would have the political courage to kill northside just as they are the ones who help created northside in the first place.

I can only imagine the paycheck McKee would have gotten if the MLS stadium vote passed and the parties to be had to pay off McKee to get him out of the way of the stadium site because it also falls within northside footprint. Considering how much they paid him to get him out of the way to secure NGA site.

I guess I got it all wrong, McKee's payback might be the fact that MLS stadium tax didn't pass. Maybe MLS2STL had their stadium marketing all wrong and should have put it as a choice of progress or no progress with McKee's name front and center.

Talk about a sad state of affairs that Slay would let McKee have first dibs on MoDOT West Downtown 22nd parkway property if I understand the agreement correctly.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 03bcb.html

Sorry if this has been posted. It makes me ill.

Two months after balking at the project’s costs, a St. Louis board green-lighted an extra $2.5 million in federal tax credits for a gas station and grocery store north of downtown.

The allocation is the latest public assistance offered to help a company affiliated with developer Paul McKee break ground on the first significant private project within his 1,500-acre NorthSide Regeneration footprint.

The request generated some controversy in May after St. Louis Development Corporation board members questioned the $19.6 million cost to build a 20,000-square-foot grocery branded as GreenLeaf Community Marketplace and a 6,500-square-foot Zoom gas station near the corner of Tucker Boulevard and Cass Avenue. Already, the city has authorized up to $2.8 million in tax increment financing assistance from taxes generated within the NorthSide Regeneration area and $5 million in new markets tax credits.

McKee’s lawyers have said the additional tax credits were needed because the lender, Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust of Iowa, wanted an extra reserve fund before lending $10 million to the project.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 307e1.html

So taxes are paying over $10M in costs for a grocery store and a gas station?

Have we lost our collective f*****g minds?