Since 1999, the City of St. Louis has signed off on $7.5 million in tax increment finance (TIF) revenue for the research park in the Central West End, now called CORTEX since 2002. The state also has signed off on $56.6 million in tax incentives for CORTEX, according to the Missouri Development Finance Board.
CORTEX leaders justified using public funds by saying they would create 12,640 permanent jobs and 8,400 one-year construction jobs.
To date about 950 jobs have been created, said Dennis Lower, president and CEO of CORTEX.
When the St. Louis American asked how many of these employees are minorities or women, Lower said, “We do not collect this data, as these are private employers who routinely do not report their workforce numbers.”
This question may come up again at an Oct. 31 public hearing, where Cortex leaders will ask for $157.7 million in public financing at the Tax Increment Financing Commission to fund a $2.2 billion, 200-acre redevelopment in the Central West End’s research park.
According to CORTEX’s August TIF application, Lower estimates that the research park district will create 15,730 permanent jobs and 18,000 construction jobs.
Community leaders want to know who will get these jobs and whether or not the TIF Commission will follow up to ensure the jobs promises come to fruition.
On Oct. 9, Kim Gardner, who won the August Democratic primary for state representative in the 77th District where CORTEX lies, sent a letter to Lower asking, “Does CORTEX have a diversity plan that seeks to find ways to diversify the region’s ‘innovation eco-systems’ to further include women and underrepresented minority groups?”
Gardner never received a response from Lower.
CORTEX is a non-profit biosciences district, founded by BJC Healthcare, Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis University and Washington University. In 2010, CORTEX merged with the Center for Emerging Technologies, which was established in the 1990s.
Each of the founding organizations has staff in place to ensure that their diversity numbers do not fall below a certain level. The individual institutions’ leaders know how many minority and women employees they have, how much they make and where they are lacking in diversity.
However, CORTEX does not have a diversity plan in place.
“How does that make sense for their individual institutions but it doesn’t make sense for CORTEX?” asked Adolphus Pruitt, president of the St. Louis City NAACP. “How can diversity be important in those individual institutions and not for the institutions that they facilitate in CORTEX?”
The American contacted all four institutions regarding CORTEX, and none replied by press deadline. Sandra Marks, the diversity consultant for CORTEX and the WUSM Campus Renewal Project, also did not respond to the American’s email or phone call.
Lower agreed only to respond via email to the American’s questions.
When the American asked Lower if there is a plan in place for diversity inclusion at CORTEX, he said, “Each company makes their own decisions about diversity inclusion. We have no say in these matters because they are private employers.”
Last week city officials said CORTEX should follow city ordinance 68412, which sets workforce goals on the development’s construction. Comptroller Darlene Green said she met with BJC representatives yesterday about setting not only construction workforce goals also employment diversity goals.
“I feel that Ordinance 68412 is a framework that can be used to fashion support for local employment and minority inclusion,” Green said.
TIF watch
As standard practice, the TIF Commission should review an applicant’s past history of creating jobs, and meeting the city’s diversity goals, before awarding another tax incentive based on job creation, Pruitt said.
“How can any commission whose charge is to ensure the city gets the highest benefit from issuing TIFs not take into account the employment history of past applications?” Pruitt said. “Did they create the jobs they promised? The commissioners are ready to make a decision of this magnitude without knowing if the number of permanent jobs were realized.”
In 1999, the city approved a $1.5 million TIF for the Center for Emerging Technologies, 4041 Forest Park Ave, which is within CORTEX. In 2006, the city approved $6 million for 4100 Forest Park Redevelopment Project, also within the CORTEX district.
In a January 2011 report from East-West Gateway Council of Governments, researchers found that tax incentives have not helped municipalities avoid fiscal stress or had a general beneficial economic impact on the region. Many municipalities have seen a drop in sales and property tax revenue.
In a TIF area, any increase in sales or property taxes goes towards the developers for 23 years – not the cities or the public school districts. The NAACP has sat down with Lower and Rodney Crim, executive director of the St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC), to explain that in order for St. Louis communities and neighborhoods to prosper, the households must have income.
“If household income does not go up, adverse outcomes do,” Pruitt said. “That’s what they call the ghetto. You’ll never see a neighborhood prosper from redevelopment without household income going up.”
Maurice Foxworth, attorney and advocate for diversity in the biosciences, said the African-American community is at risk of missing the bioscience revolution, just as it has other movements of innovation in the past.
“African Americans historically missed opportunities related to two major technological revolutions; the agriculture revolution due to slavery, and the industrial revolution due to Jim Crow,” Foxworth said. “Now we are talking about the bioscience revolution. How many trains are going to pass us?”
Pruitt said he’s not convinced that St. Louis City residents approve of spending tax money to create jobs, which were touted for unemployed city residents, but are being primarily filled by people from other parts of the region.
“Who in city government – whether elected or otherwise a commissioner – are going to make sure that the people in most need of these jobs are getting them?” Pruitt said. “And when they don’t, fix it.”