UPDATE: The aldermanic committee approved both board bills, 4-3, at its Wednesday morning meeting.
On Wednesday, an aldermanic committee will review Northside Regeneration developer Paul McKee Jr.’s request to establish a one-percent sales tax increase on an area where he’ll build a grocery store and gas station – near the intersection of Tucker Boulevard and 13th Street.
The GreenLeaf Market will be located at 1408 N. 13th St., near the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge. The ZOOM Store – a gas station, store and car wash – will be directly across the street.
Board Bill 150, sponsored by Alderwoman Tammika Hubbard (Ward 5), would establish that Community Improvement District (CID) – which would increase the sales tax at the future market and gas station by one percent. The tax will go towards the $20-million project’s infrastructure, site acquisition, demolition and repairs, according to the bill.
The tax revenue will also go towards paying back the TIF Note, which is another bill Hubbard will introduce on Oct. 12. Board Bill 149 would approve the GreenLeaf TIF note, which essentially allows McKee to go to a third-party lender and get a loan for the project.
Already in July, Board of Aldermen approved a bill to release $2.8 million in TIF bond financing for the project’s infrastructure. A TIF note is a financing alternative to TIF bonds. This is the first development that McKee has sought to use any of the $390 million TIF, which was first approved in 2009 for the large-scale Northside Regeneration project in North city.
The Housing and Urban Development and Zoning Committee will review the two board bills at its Oct. 12 meeting at 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the Kennedy Room at City Hall.
Some Northside residents were appalled to hear about the potential CID and sales tax increase.
“The problem with the CID is that this is not what we were told,” said Jessica Payne, an Old North resident. “The community wasn’t informed that there would be higher sales taxes, above and beyond the standard city taxes. To expect the residents of this neighborhood to pay extra fees for Mr. McKee’s gas station development is just wrong.”
McKee has not yet responded to the St. Louis American’s request for comment.
Alderwoman Cara Spencer (Ward 20), who is a member of the HUDZ Committee, said that Community Improvement Districts are intended to be tools for communities “to raise tax dollars and administer them hyper locally.” And community members themselves should sit on the board for the district. However, the person who chairs the proposed CID is McKee himself.
Further, she said McKee’s stated purposes for the CID are basically the exact purposes of the TIF – for infrastructure, site acquisition, etc.
“These should not be redundant,” Spencer said.
Residents also don’t like that the tax revenue would go to pay for the project’s complicated financing “scheme.” The sales tax is paying for a portion of McKee’s TIF obligation, essentially leaving him with little skin in the game, they said.
“While this may be legal, it is highly unethical and, frankly, immoral,” Payne said. “That the developer expects some of our city’s lowest income residents to pay his bills after he neglected his properties and purposefully blighted our community for more than a decade is appalling, and that our elected officials are in support of such a predatory scheme is shameful.”
Megan Betts, a community organizer, said that Hubbard has never reached out to the residents about the tax increase.
“It’s something we have to dig to find out about, like everything in the ward,” said Betts, who lost to Penny Hubbard (mother of Tammika Hubbard) in the Fifth Ward Democratic committee race in August.
It was also true when Hubbard opposed a Family Dollar store going into her ward, though many residents were pushing for it, Betts said.
“It was not an open conversation,” Betts said. “We have no idea what she is representing, what she is pushing. It all seems to be what McKee wants.”
In the North city area, Betts is trying to establish a Community Benefits Agreement, inspired by an agreement that’s on the November ballot in Detroit.
The agreement would include requirements for these tax incentives to basically enforce equitable development practices, she said. The agreement would work to “curb the ‘no strings attached’ incentives that are handed out to developers in our neighborhoods,” she said.
The ZOOM Store was scheduled to open by Thanksgiving and the other market to open by March 1, according to St. Louis Public Radio.
