Paul McKee Jr. – the prime mover in the controversial Northside Regeneration initiative – has come a long, long way from the secretive land-banking with which his project began, and which was unmasked by independent researcher Michael R. Allen.
From covertly buying up acres of land in small parcels under the mask of shell companies (the acknowledged method of assembling large tracts of land from multiple owners), McKee has now graduated to issuing a lengthy “Open Letter to the People of St. Louis” and encouraging the media to publish it. The Beacon, for one – not constrained by print costs, and sitting fat on a $1.5 million windfall from the soon-to-be-shuttered Danforth Foundation – printed McKee’s screed. It prompted angry responses from the accustomed quarters.
McKee is particularly resented by many residents of Old North, whose boutique and grass-roots approach to rehabbing the distressed North Side – one beautiful old building at a time, at one’s own expense – is at odds with McKee’s large-scale, sweeping vision. McKee’s project both relies on unprecedented amounts of public subsidy and promises to court new corporate partners. As much as everyone agrees that St. Louis, and especially North St. Louis, needs new jobs, the construction of new corporate parks near Old North is not what the urban pioneer homesteaders had in mind when they began to rehab their dilapidated dwellings and began to fall in love with their funky neighborhood.
McKee’s critics deride him in terms usually reserved for total evil. In fact, one teacher’s union official who met with McKee some time ago, to see if McKee’s support for a new charter school in his development footprint meant that he was opposed to the public schools, came away with an interesting remark: “I didn’t see any horns growing from his head or him holding any smoking pitchfork.”
The virulence of the opposition to McKee was sparked all over again by a quote he uses to kick off his open letter. Writing with a plural pronoun that includes his development partners and wife, McKee notes, “We believe that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian, said it best: ‘Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.'” To some extent, McKee is asking for trouble by quoting a German Lutheran pastor who opposed the Nazis, plotted to assassinate Adolf Hitler and was executed as a result. Any appearance of comparing one’s own efforts to a courageous historic stand like Bonhoeffer’s smacks of hyped-up self-importance. Certainly, there is a religious and spiritual streak to McKee’s concept of regenerating – resurrecting, that is – the near North Side, which makes it ironic that his detractors often paint him as evil.
McKee gets very specific as to what he sees as the “evil” plaguing the North Side. It is the infrastructural underpinning of what the Put Down the Pistol activists are assailing. “Large-scale neglect, broken infrastructure and a hazardous environment is the current condition in much of North St. Louis. This is the evil that exists in the midst of the good people of North St. Louis and the larger community,” McKee writes. “It is not acceptable. These conditions have deprived our fellow citizens and businesses in North St. Louis of opportunities and jobs for far too long. These conditions prevent the creation and sustainability of a safe and livable community and only foster further decay and blight.”
McKee’s critics accuse him of only worsening this situation by investing in so much land but not improving it until the bulk of his public subsidy comes online. To that, McKee responds: “Being honest and realistic: the conditions in North St. Louis did not develop overnight. The area was blighted in 1947 by the city as per the city records.”
McKee also is clear as to the savior he proposes for the “evil” in our midst: jobs and more jobs.
“To address the evil that is running rampant in North St. Louis, we need a comprehensive and panoramic approach that addresses area regeneration, redevelopment, sustainable neighborhoods and job creation in a holistic manner that considers everything from underground infrastructure to homes to business areas to schools and parks, McKee writes. “The kind of evil-fostering environment that currently exists is largely attributable to the lack of jobs and the resultant lack of legal economic activity in the area! Real, sustainable jobs give people the power to work, thrive and prosper in our American tradition.”
It’s worth noting that McKee is not naive about the workforce development needed in urban areas for residents to capitalize on jobs when they are created. The NorthPark development, which McKee spearheaded along with Bob Clark of Clayco, did significant employee recruitment as jobs were created in the new corporate park, and their corporate tenants had difficulty attracting quality applicants from the North County ring suburban neighborhoods. When he writes of “a comprehensive and panoramic approach,” part of the plan has to include dedicated programs of the sort that Better Family Life, Inc. and the Met Center have evolved with St. Louis Community College and the life sciences employers in the area.
“We will continue to actively reach out to every willing citizen and business who wants to end the long decline of North St. Louis by addressing lack of jobs and economic activity,” McKee writes. Anyone who has seen him work up close has to recognize the sincerity of this claim. McKee’s networking on behalf of his project has been tireless since Allen’s research opened the media and then the public to what he is doing.
The aspect of that networking that has received the most attention is McKee’s legislative activism, guided by veteran operator and attorney Steve Stone. Some of their legislative advocates in getting the land assembly tax credit passed in Jefferson City – notably, Republican Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and then-state Rep. Rodney Hubbard – invited more suspicion, since Kinder and Hubbard both have stirred controversy and created their own fierce opponents. McKee and Stone’s on-again, off-again allies on the St. Louis Board of Aldermen – April Ford Griffin and Marlene Davis – have not as yet received the same degree of public heat or opposition. This leads some credence to McKee’s claim that many residents of the development footprint area welcome his project and its proposed improvements – so long as they are protected from the threat of eminent domain.
Eminent domain remains a political football McKee has failed to spike, though he claims existing agreements offer protections against eminent domain and he is willing to negotiate an additional agreement to put these fears to rest.
McKee also has the ghost of a lost lawsuit to dispel in this letter. Judge Robert H. Dierker Jr. ruled that the Northside redevelopment agreement with the city is void because the agreement stipulated no set projects. McKee and his attorneys immediately went back to the deal table with the city to work on more specific project agreements, and he gives us a peek at the deal table in the open letter.
His “list of projects” includes:
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- “Renovation and completion of the office/warehouse for national sales products bringing 75 jobs to the North Side.Â
- Preparing sites for the inclusion of projects from China in cooperation with the China Hub Commission.
- Historic renovation of an existing school for a new pre-k through 4th grade schoolÂ
- Demolition and environmental clean up of over 187 buildings and 2,800 sites involving more than 300 jobs over three years
- Creation of the SMART (Sustainable Material and Recycling Technology) center for acceptance of all demo material creating 25 jobs
- Proposing on a new green energy assembly plant creating over 300 new jobs.
- Renovate and reinvent another historic structure to house 16 biotech labs and companies creating 75 new jobs.
- Develop a new urgent care center in cooperation with many North Side not-for-profits.”
“Being honest and realistic” (to quote McKee himself), this list is a mishmash of good intentions and the kind of definable, shovel-to-the-ground projects that Dierker is expecting before he countenances a new redevelopment agreement. It also leaves unanswered the crucial – and controversial – question of where exactly Northside will begin its vast work and just how far north that work will move – and how soon it will get there.
It will be interesting to see what specifics McKee and the city produce for Dierker to review. Until there is a new agreement in place and there are new jobs in North St. Louis as a result, McKee’s open letter is not likely to earn him any new believers.
