Circuit Court Judge Overturns NorthSide Tax Credits

Paul McKee needed to prove that his plan for NorthSide, his proposed development in North Saint Louis City, was feasible and sound in order to receive large chunks of tax credits from the city and from Missouri. As Bill McLellan comically reported, McKee failed in that task when a circuit court judge nixed the city ordinance which had offered McKee the necessary tax increment financing for the project to be profitable as far as McKee was concerned. McKee, of course, is the incredibly successful owner, de jure or de facto, of Paric--his original construction company--and numerous spinoffs such as McEagle and Optimus. His companies have, or will, constructed and/or developed a number of significant projects in St. Louis--from Winghaven to the Kiel Opera House rehab.

As McLellan says, it may not be over since McKee can appeal the decision. But after having gone through all of the trouble, the complaints, and the winding red tape, McKee--entering his older years, handing off some of his business to his sons, and content with the contracts that his company has secured--is ready, I think, to give up on this project, at least on the scale that he has proposed so far. And frankly, I believe that's a good thing, no offense to Mr. McKee.

I agree with McLellan on many of his points, including the fact that there was no meat on McKee's skeleton of a plan. How McKee planned on selling all of his homes and the commercial space is beyond me, it's beyond McLellan, and I think it was beyond McKee, too. (Perhaps if he hadn't constructed Winghaven--more than 30 miles from downtown--there would be more demand for residences closer to the city, but that's another issue.) But can you blame him? It seems that deep down inside, McKee just wanted to help the City of St. Louis return to some degree of what it was at the beginning of the 20th century: one of the nation's largest and most important cities. (And if he could make a few millions of dollars during that, he wasn't going to complain.)

Daniel Burnham, mentioned in McLellan's article, said "Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big." Burnham is best known for his Plan of Chicago. He was instrumental in that city's rebirth and was commissioned for many of the projects after the Great Chicago Fire. But the fire, by destroying everything so completely, presented the opportunity, as well as the necessity, for big plans. St. Louis City, fortunately, is not in that situation. What St. Louis needs, I think, is small plans, as McLellan suggests. Divided into its hundreds of tiny municipalities, St. Louis thrives on super-local tastes and flavors. McLellan gives the example of Soulard, but similar areas like the Delmar Loop and the Central West End provide evidence that St. Louis' best hope is in small developments, in the little plans. After all, when many small plans succeed, they too can "stir men's blood."