ST. LOUIS • The long legal saga of developer Paul McKee's plan to remake much of the near north side took a small step forward Wednesday morning.

That's when a three-judge panel of the Missouri Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the lawsuit over nearly $400 million in tax increment financing designed to kick-start the $8 billion, two-square-mile redevelopment, in an hearing at the Old Post Office building downtown.

Wednesday's hearing was essentially a 45-minute rehash of the trial that sprawled out over two months in early 2010, when four neighborhood residents challenged the NorthSide TIF in court. That trial ended when Circuit Judge Robert Dierker overturned the TIF agreement, saying McKee's NorthSide plans were too vague to justify such huge subsidy. That ruling tossed the project into a legal limbo where it has remained ever since, and led to the appeal.

On Wednesday, McKee attorney Paul Puricelli argued that the highly specific details Dierker seems to call for would make TIF unworkable for large-scale, long-term projects like NorthSide. And, he said, NorthSide must provide detailed project plans to the city before receiving any funds through the TIF.

But the size of the project doesn't matter under TIF law, plaintiffs' attorneys said, and that nothing in the NorthSide agreement specifies what will be built or when.

"What (aldermen) voted on was a plan without a project," said attorney Bevis Schock.

The arguments may have covered little new ground, but the hearing's import was underscored by who was in the audience. The city's top lawyer, Patti Hageman, was there, and an attorney from the Board of Alderman watched from the back row. Also in the audience sat McKee, who never came to Dierker's trial, along with his chief legal adviser Steve Stone, former State Rep. Rodney Hubbard, Jr. and his father Rodney Hubbard, who heads a nonprofit with financial ties to NorthSide.

For McKee, the stakes are high. A positive ruling on the TIF suit could enable him to finally launch the project he has been working on for seven years. A negative ruling might force him to repay more than $10 million in state tax credits he has received for NorthSide since Dierker's ruling came down.

McKee declined comment after the hearing. Both his lawyer and Schock said there was little to do at this point but wait for the judges to make their ruling. There is no time frame for a ruling.