NorthSide transformation needs leadership, capital and accountability
Southeastward view of Downtown skyline from third floor window of Blewitt Middle School on Cass Avenue near 19th Street. Eddie Roth.
The vision is breathtaking.
Against all odds — and, some would argue, against all reason — a huge swath of long-blighted, mostly vacant, largely forsaken north St. Louis has been proposed as the site of a “game-changing 1,800-acre, state-of-the-art job center in the inner city.”
The footprint was five years in the making. Real estate developer Paul J. McKee Jr., best known for his work at WingHaven in St. Charles County, quietly acquired about 930 parcels of land, investing about $46 million of his personal fortune in the process.
The redevelopment area extends as far north as Natural Bridge Avenue and as far east as 10th Street and Cass Avenue, which will be the Missouri landing of the new Mississippi River bridge. Grand Boulevard is the western boundary of what Mr. McKee calls “NorthSide,” with Martin Luther King Drive the primary southern border. A a three-block-wide bootheel protrudes south to Interstate 64 between 20th and 23rd Streets.
In the next 15 years, Mr. McKee, 64, hopes to create four commercial hubs, one in each quadrant of the project site. He sees private development of 3.5 million square feet of new office space; 1 million square feet of retail development; construction of 10,000 new homes and the creation of 22,000 permanent jobs — “good jobs,” he says, the kind that provide at least a living wage.
The promotional literature for NorthSide refers to “St. Louis — City of the Future.” Mr. McKee claims NorthSide will lead the nation in energy sustainability and social responsibility. His vision is that the project will be fueled by clean energy sources, concentrated in walkable communities, trimmed with parks, bike trails and public gardens, mobilized with public transit, devoted to public, parochial and charter schools — and committed to broad economic diversity in housing and employment opportunities.
He promises minimal use of eminent domain and vows that none of the 8,900 persons living in the development area will be forced to move from the neighborhood.
Mr. McKee says his vision “stands on the shoulders” of the 2001 Vashon-JeffVanderLou Initiative, funded largely by the Danforth Foundation. That effort brought substantial resources to the project area, but it did not have a lasting impact on social conditions.
Mr. McKee believes changing deep-seated urban blight can’t be achieved incrementally. It requires control of land on a grand scale. So he spent years assembling a site large enough to have a big impact.
He also argues that job creation comes first. Good jobs raise people up, pay for infrastructure, entice home construction, promote historic preservation and sustain green space, strong schools and healthy communities.
NorthSide, he says, will have the scale and control to attract national and international firms that want low-rise, campus-like settings for thousands of employees. Mr. McKee’s WingHaven project is anchored by the MasterCard campus. His NorthPark development is anchored by the new Express Scripts campus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
In north St. Louis, he says, it’s possible to assemble to kind of large tracts no longer available in the suburbs. It’s more expensive than “greenfield” development, but they can be rebuilt with infrastructure — streets, sewers, communications, energy, recreation — that meets a growing global demand for green, sustainable developments.
NorthSide, he argues, “can lead us back to greatness.”
He acknowledges he and his partners regularly hear this question: “Can these guys really pull this off?”
The answer is no — not by themselves, not steadily and not to the project’s highest aspirations — unless three things happen:
• Public investment. Mr. McKee notes that city development maps as early as 1947 showed much of north St. Louis as “blighted.” The six decades of decay since have been an “indictment” of generations of regional political, civic and business leadership, he said.
That will have to change if the project is to succeed. The public approval process, both formal and informal, is daunting. He has been working with Barbara Geisman, the city’s executive director for development, and alderwomen April Ford Griffin, D-4th ward, and Marlene Davis, D-19th ward, in whose wards most of project area lies. They will present the development plan to the Board of Aldermen for approval.
In 2007, with heavy lobbying from Mr. McKee and Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, the Missouri Legislature approved $95 million in Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credits. They expire in 2013 and don’t become available until a development plan is approved and tax-increment financing is secured.
TIFs require the city to use increases in the project area’s tax base to pay for public improvements — such as streets, sidewalks, sewers, streetlights and other infrastructure. This project will require a TIF in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
For all its size, the TIF proposal is fairly low-risk. It’s not as if the project area is generating much in the way of taxes now.
With aggressive public involvement at the local, state and federal levels, the project also could qualify for millions in economic stimulus funding. That’s particularly true for its infrastructure and green-energy components.
Those who call themselves leaders in this city and this state, from the mayor and aldermen to civic leaders and business leaders, must recognize NorthSide as a project that could transform St. Louis. And not with just polite nods and attaboys, or by asking “what’s in it for me?”
If NorthSide is to succeed, it will need all the prestige, political clout and financial capital it can muster. That effort can’t begin too soon.
• Private investment. St. Louis is tough on people with big ideas. Its bankers and business people, particularly now that many big banks and firms no longer are locally owned, aren’t as personally invested in the community as they used to be.
Early signs of significant progress could melt that cynicism. Mr. McKee’s best chance of getting this project off the ground is to bring in highly visible investors right out of the gate, moving like gangbusters just as soon as a development plan and TIF win approval. So far, he said, he has only one bank commitment, from the Bank of Washington, Mo.
This is a tough credit climate, but McEagle Properties, Mr. McKee’s firm, has a solid track record. Bankers and investors who believe in St. Louis must get on board.
• Accountability. A central part of Mr. McKee’s pitch is that he’s willing to subject the project’s long list of lofty goals to objective measurements of progress — reporting hard numbers on matters ranging from real diversity in jobs and housing, use of clean energy, promoting new schools, parks, bikeways and reuse of historic properties.
Anyone who doubts that accountability is crucial didn’t follow the open public meeting Thursday evening, where emotions understandably ran high. What’s a “redevelopment site” to some is home to nearly 9,000 people. Mr. McKee stood and took all questions.
If this is to be St. Louis’ breakout project, an accountability team should be in place from the start, regularly reporting to the public. The team should be professional and independent and could include players such as the University of Missouri-St. Louis’ Public Policy Research Center, the Missouri Historical Society and the Landmarks Association of St. Louis.
Let’s not call experts in after the fact to help figure out why things went wrong. The way to transform St. Louis is to put accountability first — to ensure things go right. And to believe it can happen.
The landmark association should not be allowed within fifty miles of this project. Their mistakes are legendary and breathtaking in scope.