When the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency opened its sprawling, state-of-the-art western headquarters late last month, dignitaries hailed it as a turning point for north St. Louis — a glittering promise of rebirth for an area long marked by disinvestment and decline. The city also has the NGA Arnold facility, located south of St. Louis.
The 97-acre epicenter, they said, would spark an economic boom and help the city recover from the ravages of the May 16 tornado. Mayor Cara Spencer called the NGA, “an economic engine that can turn our city into the growing region that we know we can be.” Gov. Mike Kehoe, U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell and other officials joined her on stage, celebrating what they described as the largest federal investment in St. Louis history.
Yet, the scene just beyond its gates tells another story
The NGA is a major operational center that analyzes satellite and aerial imagery and mapping data to support U.S. national security, military operations and disaster relief efforts. Its spacious facility features a vast array of stunning smoked glass-faced concrete buildings with a custom-built lake on its southern border and neon lights that brilliantly illuminate the facade at night. The St. Louis center is expected to employ about 3,100 people.
Yet just across the campus’ west side, streets like Howard, Elliott, Magazine and Glasgow hold a few modest homes with blocks of vacant lots choked by weeds, toppled trees, boarded and graffitied brick shells, and shuttered businesses — including the gold-painted snack and deli shop at North Leffingwell and Madison.
Back in 2022, then-Mayor Tishaura Jones, St. Louis Development Corp. Director Neal Richardson and other city officials said residents of the six neighborhoods nearest the NGA campus would benefit from $37 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds specifically targeted for reinvestment in north St. Louis neighborhoods. Three years later, there is little evidence of that promised transformation.
Stalled momentum
City officials say the absence of visible progress is rooted in a decades-old struggle with a single developer. Paul McKee, through his company, NorthSide Regeneration, began buying up hundreds of properties in the area nearly 20 years ago, aided by more than $40 million in state tax credits. City leaders accuse him of allowing houses to deteriorate and opportunities to wither.
Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, whose district includes the NGA site, put it plainly: There are “no direct plans now.” His bill granting the city eminent-domain rights over many NorthSide parcels is intended to change that. “First we have to get those parcels out of his hands to bring (in) development,” he said.
Community activist Kalambayi Andenet said she views the NGA opening not as a celebration, but as a failure — one rooted in the history of how Black communities have been “misled and exploited.”
“Historically, America has always packaged harm to our communities as progress,” she said. “Every time, it comes at the expense of Black life and Black legacy.”
One example critics point to is McKee’s long-promised plan to build a state-of-the-art hospital across from the NGA site. Instead, in 2024 he opened a three-bed health-care clinic that he named Homer G. Phillips Hospital — borrowing the name of the historic north St. Louis institution that once trained generations of Black doctors and nurses.
The decision drew protests from residents who urged him to change the name, but McKee refused. Less than a year later, the facility surrendered its license to state health officials and permanently closed.
Sheila Rendon, who lives in the St. Louis Place neighborhood — one of six neighborhoods affected by the NGA development — said that when she and her husband, Gustavo, attended the grand opening, “we were not received with open arms.”
Rendon said she opposed the project from the start. “It was built against our wishes,” she said. From her perspective, the promises made to her community have been little more than “a rubber stamp.”
“The process does not seem to be anywhere near beginning,” she said. For years, Rendon has lived in frustration over the lack of development in her neighborhood.
“Housing, retail and commercial development are all needed in this area. We have asked for that for decades and the only thing that has been built is a federal facility that neither our community can benefit from in terms of employment or access.”
The blight next door
In 2023, the city designated 80 parcels around the NGA site as blighted, giving itself legal authority to intervene. The action meant residents could get tax breaks for property improvements and guaranteed that the city wouldn’t use eminent domain against homes that were well-maintained.
Virginia Druhe of the St. Louis Place Community Association doesn’t blame the NGA itself for that.
“They shouldn’t have made those promises knowing that one person controls half of the land and hasn’t done anything with it,” she said. “Our major priority is affordable housing, and there’s not much we can do until McKee gets out of the way.”
City Hall’s defense
City officials say progress is slow but deliberate. SLDC spokesman Deion Broxton said the agency, through its Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority, is “working through the eminent domain, condemnation and settlement processes right now to acquire those sites.”
Once the land is secured, he said, SLDC plans to market it for redevelopment guided by a community “stakeholder plan.”
That plan — known as “Our Plan” — grew out of “Project Connect,” a city-endorsed effort launched when the NGA project was announced. It aimed to coordinate neighborhood revitalization, transportation improvements and other development efforts across St. Louis Place, Hyde Park, Old North, Columbus Square, Carr Square and JeffVanderLou.
Broxton pointed to major road improvements already completed, including the stretch from Interstate 64 at Jefferson down Cass Avenue to 20th Street. The federal funding for those upgrades came through the American Rescue Plan Act under Jones’ administration.
He also stressed that residents helped shape “Our Plan”: “It’s not about any specific business plan or a plan a developer has proposed for that area; it’s about what the residents want.”
Optimism and doubt
Some longtime residents remain unconvinced. Brian Kruger, who has lived in St. Louis Place for more than 25 years, said SLDC didn’t invest in the neighborhoods around the NGA site “at a time when it would have made a little more sense.”
He hopes SLDC’s interim leader, Otis Williams, can “wiggle around obstacles” to get things moving — but doubts that will happen without a permanent director.
For Aldridge, the mood in his ward is “optimistic but concerned.” After years of promises, people are still waiting to see results.
“Now that we have this campus here … well, we were told that this was going to spread development … but people haven’t seen it yet,” he said. “So, I think people are hopeful but they’re still like, ‘What’s next?’”
Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow. Ashley Winters contributed to this report.