urbanSTL

He owns so much land, that he could have made such small margins on each individual project and still have seen big overall gain.

He owns entire streets and multiple contiguous blocks in some places.

Could have built a mix of single families, duplexes, and 5 over 1s all over the place and it would have worked at such a large scale financially.

I just don’t think there was ever real steps taken to accomplish what he promised for all those incentives.

Maybe this will end up being better for future generations that development will be more organic rather than what he could have done. But we made one of the worst deals in modern American history and north city has only further crumbled and St. Louis has declined because of it.

^The projects he proposed were apparently just window dressing to get the incentives. It seems clear now he never had any intention to build any of them at all. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.

St. Louis to demolish historic McKee-owned buildings near downtown
                         Austin Huguelet
ST. LOUIS — The city’s building safety chief says two historic vacant buildings north of downtown need to be demolished in the wake of a damaging fire over the weekend.
Building Commissioner Ed Ware said Wednesday that the buildings, owned by controversial developer Paul McKee’s NorthSide Regeneration, sustained considerable damage in the blaze, and may be starting to collapse. He said the city couldn’t abide that with people living in apartments just across the street. 
“We want to get it down,” he said. “We want to get it safe. We want to get it cleaned up.”
The demolition would be a dreary end for the buildings, which sit off O’Fallon Street between North Sixth and Seventh streets and were built by the Sligo Iron Store Co., thought to be the first metal supply company west of the Mississippi River. NorthSide Regeneration is already scorned by preservationists who have accused the developer of “demolition by neglect.”   https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/government-politics/article_2d800379-1d9f-4891-8e2d-512f8e69575c.html#tracking-source=home-top-story

Demo Alert: 1308 N 7TH ST 

Reading this thread back 16 years ago is really quite interesting when you are in the future and know who's right and who's wrong.

STL is a crushing city to live in for the serial optimist 

Couldn't make a gas station work at the foot of a $700M highway bridge. What an indictment of both McKee and auto-oriented development patterns.

StlToday - Foreclosure auction set for Paul McKee's grocery store, Zoom mart, gas station in St. Louis


https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/bus ... 24dac.html

Can someone just have him arrested or something?

Run him out of town, please!

StlToday - After eminent domain threat, St. Louis negotiates for Paul McKee land around NGA


https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... a8561.html

North St. Louis ‘micro-hospital’ set to reopen with new management     
https://www.stlpr.org/health-science-environment/2025-11-21/north-st-louis-micro-hospital-set-to-reopen-with-new-management

Developer Paul McKee in talks with three operators to reopen former grocery location (stl biz mag)

BarryGlick wrote: ↑

Dec 01, 2025

Developer Paul McKee in talks with three operators to reopen former grocery location (stl biz mag)

I would love to have an Aldi in there. It would be super convenient, and I'm sure it would do well.

I too think an Aldi's would do well there 
Residents in IL might drive over to shop there

I would shop at an Aldi there fairly often and I live in McKinley Heights. Speaking of which I would love to see one in the former Field's Foods on Lafayette. 

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: ↑

Dec 01, 2025

I would shop at an Aldi there fairly often and I live in McKinley Heights. Speaking of which I would love to see one in the former Field's Foods on Lafayette. 

I second this.  I understand the property was purchased by the dental school across the street and behind the old city hospital.

^Is that the dental school that used to run the dental theatre above the Spaghetti Factory on Laclede's Landing?

In another thread (that tells of the sale of Field's to the dental school) it is to be turned into a student activity center.