TIF sought for empty downtown building
A developer is seeking $2.35 million in tax-increment financing to rehab an empty downtown St. Louis building designed in 1941 to house Post-Dispatch presses. The building would house stores and offices.
The building at 1111 Olive Street later housed KSDK-TV and the United Way offices. Now vacant, the five-story structure is the city’s first International Style building, according to the developer’s application for TIF help.
Infomedia Inc. is seeking the public subsidy for the planned $11.75 million project to put 10,000 square feet of retail space on the first floor and rehab the upper floors as 90,000 square feet of offices and 10,000 square feet of storage.
The city’s TIF commission has set a public hearing on the proposal for Dec. 16. According to Infomedia’s application, the building’s main tenant would be an IT firm, Xiolink, already located downtown at 900 Walnut Street. The development is projected to produce or retain 80 jobs.
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time to say no and get out of the corporate welfare system.If they want to make money, spend their own. Our nation runs on tax money and we ALL need it
That’s right Shag.
NO MORE TIF!!!!
Let these developers do it on their own dime. We have NO MONEY LEFT!
Ball Park Village
McKee’s stuff
The new bridge (what ever)
And now this
Clearly, the previous commenters have no clue what TIF means and how it works.
Amen Shag,TIF is GPF, Government playing favorites! It needs to stop!
Tax increment financing. Question?If those businesses take sales away from existing companies, the tax revenue goes down . Does it not?
kassa, on the other hand maybe we do. I’m against TIF and all government subsidies for private entities as well. This is legal robbery of the taxpayer in that we pay higher real estate taxes and these excess taxes collected are paid to a private developer for their own pet project. Just lower real estate taxes by the amount of the TIF’s and that will help the economy as well and be more fairly distributed among taxpayers instead of all going for a select few developers.
Kassa, I disagree. I think the critics know exactly what TIF is about. I know about TIF, and I am against it for more office space downtown. If a project cannot make it without government help, maybe it’s not feasible to do it. I know it doesn’t mean the government is shelling out money to give to a developer, but it does mean that the taxes the development will generate do not come to the city for a specified period. So the city is banking on the development making it for a long enough period to eventually pay off in taxes to the city. Eventually. I don’t think we need to use TIF to encourage the development of more office space. I’m sitting in a downtown office building with about 60 percent occupancy right now.
We can amicably debate whether TIF is useful here. But just saying I “clearly have no clue what TIF is”…that’s not debate. Tell me why you think this project should be given govt. help.
Not more corporate welfare money. My mom always told me if you can’t afford it, then don’t buy it. Besides the city has more important things to spend money on like big, computerized signs, casinos, ballpark village, and a million other idiotic things. Lets take that money and put it into education. Maybe use some of the money to rebuild depressed areas of the city, help small buisness owners, and try to give hope to the African-American community. This city needs to rebuild race relations and work together to make something happen. We don’t need more tax money for greedy developers and out of town hatchet men.
Shag, Mack and Maggie,
Perhaps you don’t realize that the ENTIRE loft district in downtown was only developed because of TIF incentive money. Downtown St. Louis would still be all boarded up and crime would be as rampant as it was 10 years ago. Suburbanites would drive in for Rams or Cardinals games and promptly leave the city before dark. Now there are a plethera of restaurants and shops,people walking there dogs, people strolling with their children and people jogging all around the city.
TIF’s are just supplemental money for developers/ restaurant and shop owners to invest in delapitated areas that otherwise wouldn’t be prudent to invest in. Why would a developer develop lofts when the cost to revitalize a building costs more than the profits they would make doing it in the first place. The TIF is the incentive . . . the developer still has to take the Risk. The developer still has to pay more than the TIF to complete the project and the banks broker the TIF, (not the Gov’t) therefore, there is still so much scrutiny on a projects success.
I would bet 10$ the three of you are Obama loving Socialistic Liberals who don’t have a clue about TIF’s and how much they benefit communities. You just spout off your uneducated mouths because you’ve been brainwashed to think all Capitalism is bad. Sometimes an intelligent person will drop their pride and re-educate themselves. Holding on to stupid notions just to be oppositional shows IGNORANCE.