If Judge Robert Dierker wanted specifics about Paul McKee’s $8.1 billion NorthSide plan, all he had to do was ask.

So said a lawyer for McKee, who asked Dierker on Tuesday to re-open a lawsuit against NorthSide to hear more evidence – including specific, block-by-block plans – three and a half weeks after the judge tossed out the city’s redevelopment deal on the project on the grounds that it was too vague.

In a post-trial motion in the case, attorney Paul Puricelli said that no one in court ever raised the question of how NorthSide would spend the $390 million in tax increment financing that city authorized for the project. Neither the plaintiffs in their complaint, nor Dierker, who ruled on the case from the bend.

Had those questions come up, Puricelli said, they could have been answered, everything from where sewer upgrades would begin to what buildings would be demolished to where fire hydrants would be put.

Questions about specifics have dogged NorthSide from the start, raising concern from critics who see broad strokes but no concrete details. Dierker, in his ruling earlier this month, suggested that NorthSide was still more “plan” than “project,” and too vague to justify blighting 1,100 acres of the city.

Now, Dierker has 90 days to decide whether more evidence might change his mind. If he does, he can re-open the trial, or set aside his ruling altogether. If not, the case is still eligible for appeal.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Francis Slay – the City of St. Louis is the defendant in the case, and it would have to file any appeal – said the city would be joining in Puricelli’s request. Attorneys for the three plaintiffs in the case could not be reached or did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday.

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