While the thunder of a showy trial on McEagle's NorthSide project has marched along, the next round of redevelopment ordinances specific to the four phases of the project apparently have not. The Board of Aldermen was supposed to consider those ordinances before April 1, but they may not come for some time longer. At least, that's what Jerry Berger tells us:
Most City Hall observers expect McKee and his partners will let the date slip by while the McEagle team continues to acquire properties and wait for answers to his requests for federal and state assistance.
Dale Singer has a sold analysis of the trial in the Beacon. Read it here.
On the matter of federal and state assistance, the city lost its bid for a federal TIGER grant to reconfigure the Jefferson/22nd Street exits downtown. McEagle needs that reconfiguration and a land swap with the Missouri Department of Transportation to start one of the first-phase components of the project.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
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3 comments:
Hello Michael,
I just learned of your blog in the 3/4/10 issue of the RFT. Thanks for your efforts--I feel St. Louis has so much to offer, architecture nature and culture alike. I spend much of my time seeing patients in North City and am amazed by some of the incredible homes, buildings, and also of the unfortunate decay due to economic blight, etc. (I wish St. Louis city and county tax structure were combined so they can share some of the burden, but that's another story...)
Michael,
What a waste if this McKee plan doesn't make it. This is the way to salvage the remaining architecture this nurse sees as she visits her patients on the North side. God forbid, did she use the words, "economic blight", doesn't she know the word blight will fuel a sensless lawsuit that will only fuel more economic and physical blight.
Perhaps like many of her patients, the Northside is on life support in need of immediate reviving! Only an increased population, an increased tax base and an increased QUALITY OF LIFE, will make St. Louis what it needs to be. Folks are not going to move here with schools that are second rate and it's going to take a significant tax base to improve the schools.
Development is needed sooner rather than later. Seens like you would be totally on board knowing it takes money & plenty of it to revive these old jewels! It doesn't happen by simply wishing things would change.
St. Louis, we are natives of the "Show Me State", I hope Kansas City doesn't have to make a believer out of us and show us that the well is running dry. Schools, ambulances, fired departments, police, roads all COST MONEY. No population, no tax base, no services.
We have got to get away from the emotionalism and get to economic FACTS. Our cities need a viable tax base, this takes people living in our cities. This means maintaining an excellent QUALITY OF LIFE that is going to attract people to live in our cities.
Gas is going up again, we have a transportation bill that MUST pass to keep us all connected.
Just talked to some native St. Louisans who now live in Conneticut as I was typing this and they visited NORTH St. Louis ...their eyes notice that it's SHOT, why don't our eyes notice that we need to do something. Let's stop looking through rose colored glasses and suffering from the Emporer's NEW CLOTHES syndrome...let's face the naked truth. We need to save these so called jewels sooner rather than later. McKee, Old North, New North and a myriad of others need to get busy so we can increase our city's population!
Wake up people!
Richard
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