Some set of numbers there

I’ll bet that those not in favor of this project will ever read them though

I wonder why McKee didn’t include pictures of his own, once occupied now vacant, buildings in the NorthSide Blighting Study?

Yeah, funny that the rotting hulk across from me that McKee owns is not shown as an example. Did you see where it says that he will “remain in compliance with building codes”. Oh my aching sides.

And tsquare, try to be less predictable. The opponents have a CPA on board and are pulling out the financials and flyering the neighborhood with money details. The flyer on my door last night pointed out that McKee is promising single family homes in the area will magically shoot up to $451,688. How people think they are NOT being eminent domained is beyond me. Who buys as $450K home on a street with an old brick tenement building that has been housing low-income renters since 1896?

Where is the affordable housing in this application? Where are the residents going to go? It does not help the city overall to empty out an area for future redevelopment at the cost of destabilizing families and tearing up our communities.

Well something HAS to be done Gloria. And hopefully this process will allow all to come to some compromise. There are too many BEAUTIFUL homes in this area that have sat unattested to for far too long. Whether it’s this project or or what this project becomes, I’m excited for the future. It is inevitable that some people will move out of the area or be forced out, But for the sake of progress I think we can all agree it’s in the best interest of our fine city to bring the near north side back. There is NO REASON an area like this so close to our central business district should be so barren. Here’s to a solution that uproots the least number of good folks and the highest number of bad apples. I think McKee has some big ca-hones to take something like this on, I just hope he has the knowledge and patience to listen to all sides so we as a community can come to the best solution.

Moorlander, there’s $25M in this thing for demo north of Cass. That is every home and business. They are just going to remove us, stop fooling yourself. A “bad apple” is defined as someone who lives here. Of course we want redevelopment, but we also WANT TO STAY. My family has been in this house for 41 years and in this neighborhood a lot longer. Not all the Polish and Germans did the white flight. My people were abolitionists and did not have a problem with integration. And this is what we get for our persistance and faith. A bunch of bought-out politicians selling us out to the McKees, the Griesheimers and the Eckelkamps.

Meet STL the next City of New London. It amazes me how suddenly poor Black folks on the NS have gained so much attention after years of being victims of intentional and systematic blighting & gentrification by the City of STL.

Remarks like, “Here’s to a solution that uproots the least number of good folks and the highest number of bad apples”, let’s us know what is happening and sets the stage of what we must do. Who and by what measures will determine who are the “good” folks and the “bad apples”? What form of profiling will be used to distinguish between the 2 classes? Will the Black prostitute in JVL be treated any differently than the White prostitute that strolls the streets in ONSL? Who makes the decision on who stays and who goes?

The best solution to restore the quality of life for NS residents who have weathered the storms of demise is for the City of STL to make full restitution for its years of institutional and systemic discriminatory practices toward the residents of the entire North Side, not just Paul McKee’s targets. Mr. Clark Brown said it best at the MEDAC/NSCBA Business & Clergy Forum last night, “let the City put those millions of dollars they propose to give Paul McKee into the hands of the people of the NS to rebuild their communities.” I go a step further and say, let the US Justice Dept. Civil Rights Div. conduct a full investigation into the City of STL and its’ practice and pattern of targeting communities of color for eminent domain abuse, such as Mill Creek, make the decision.

Evenmoreso, let HUD conduct a full-scale investigation into the City’s Community Development Agency’s, CDA, disparate treatment in it’s process and distribution of CDBG funds and HUD’s Sec. 204 K program. Let the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law investigate if there’s been clandestine efforts by the City to dilute African Americans’ voting power as the result of massive demolition that forced people out of the North Side. Let the Civil Rigts Div. of the US Treasury Dept. investigate the banking systems to determine if they’ve systematically denied African-Americans access to lending products through subtle redlining practices in the NS. Let an investigation into the State’s Historic Tax Credit Program determine if there’s been disparate treatment in the issuing and full access to the Credits. Let the findings from these investigations determine who are the true culprits of the demise of the NS. I say, let the games begin!

I am 100% in favor of redevelopment of blighted areas - much of the area in question meets any reasonable defination of blight. As to Mr. McKee, I doubt that he and his partners have put in anywhere close to the $40 million he claims to buy the properties and seriously doubt that he / they will put in more than 10% of what the City puts in.

People — Don’t be dooped by all the “Debbie Downers” out there. I live in “hot hip creative cool fantastic” Austin, Texas, but I grew up in Clayton and in the CWE. My dad still lives on Lindell Blvd in the CWE and I visit quite often. Sure, Austin is a hip young cool city — but it has zero charm and zero history that STL neighborhoods convey. There is no light rail, no modern public transport of any kind, and very little cultural life. Powell Hall or the Fox or a Zoo or a planetarium down here? Forget about it. The UT-Austin campus can hardly compare to Wash U or SLU (although it was voted #1 party school in USA), and of course there is no Gateway Arch or Locust Street or Washington Avenue or Delmar or Euclid… You all gotta pull yourselves up, dust yourselves off, and realize that you got it going on compared to much of the Sun Belt.

G.W. is smart to be skeptical of the residential piece in this project; at this point, it is all about speculation. One thing to be sure, however, is that McKee’s modus operandi has always been about the front door commercial developments–even in the case of Winghaven–with the residential done by someone else. He can easy put off any sort of realistic discussion of the bulk of his project territory–and continue to let it rot–while focusing upon the first two commercial phases, where the TIF money is really more relevant. Because of the structure of most single family, owner-occupied deals, TIF doesn’t really apply. (However, the DALTC provides some write-down, but not enough to jump start $450,000 homes). The way the city is structuring the TIF project(s) is a recognition of this fact that this project has phases and that the two commercial phases are a better bet than the residential. Who will do the residential? Well, it probably won’t be PARIC and more than likely it will be done like Winghave–a combination of local developers.

I wouldn’t get too worked up by the current TIF approval process. It is a common procedure to pass an initial TIF legislation that is short of details and long on vision, followed up by legislation later that provides real details. No one I know that knows anything about commercial development thinks at this point in this economy McKee has any better prospect of identifying new commercial tenants than any of the other big ticket commercial projects currently siting on the planning stages–like the Bottle District or Ball Park Village. At this point, McKee looks like what he says that he fears becoming–the biggest slum landlord in the Midwest (with the exception of the city, of course).