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Days before a deadline that could have imperiled a deal with the city of St. Louis, McKee-affiliated companies inked an agreement for private financing to help build a gas station and grocery store just north of downtown.

The development would mark the first significant construction deal put together by McKee affiliates in the developer’s NorthSide Regeneration footprint, a 1,500-acre swath of North St. Louis land where he has for almost a decade promised new development and jobs.

Up in the air was $7.5 million in federal new markets tax credits controlled by the St. Louis Development Corp., the city’s economic development arm. Those had been promised in July to McKee-affiliated companies on the condition the developer put together financing by the end of the year.

“It always takes a little bit longer on the North Side,� McKee said in an interview Friday. “We’re finally pulling off what we said.�

Some site work has already started on the ground near Tucker Boulevard and Cass Avenue, where plans call for a $19.6 million, 20,000-square-foot GreenLeaf Market grocery store and a Zoom brand gas station.

Good Natured Family Farms, of the Kansas City area, is partnering on the GreenLeaf Market, and will provide produce sourced from Missouri farmers. Some produce from the firm will also be available in the Zoom gas station, McKee said.

“Everybody thinks this is a typical, old (convenience) store,� he said, emphasizing fresh food will be available there, too.

McKee said the Zoom gas station and convenience store should be completed by late summer and the GreenLeaf Market by late fall.

Long road to development

A $10 million loan from the Bank of Springfield out of Illinois to help finance the grocery store and gas station clears a hurdle that had been standing in the way of development there for months.

The gas station and grocery became controversial because of the amount of local assistance McKee was requesting, and some residents had grown weary of waiting for signs of progress in the NorthSide Regeneration area.

McKee argues NorthSide’s hurdles show how difficult it is to finance new development in north St. Louis, where the population is predominantly black and poor.

St. Louis had approved a massive tax increment financing district for the area in 2009, which allows increases in sales, property and other taxes to be used to finance development. It was tied up in the courts until .

Then, , which was looking to move from its longtime western headquarters on the south riverfront.

In the meantime, McKee had to who had purchased a portion of his NorthSide debt. And tens of millions were owed to the Bank of Washington, which holds liens on much of the NorthSide property and is now involved in most of its agreements with the city and other parties.

When , finally winning a big anchor in NorthSide’s footprint, it came just in time for McKee. After that, he was able to settle creditor disputes and .

McKee then began to move toward activating his TIF, with the gas station and grocery store as the first project. T for the buildings in 2016.

He also won a commitment for $5 million in new markets tax credits from the city that year and approval for a special sales tax district to finance it.

It was when he came back to the city in May, asking for another $3 million in new markets tax credits, that

Two months later, after , the board agreed to offer $2.5 million in new markets credits if McKee would cut his development fee by about $150,000 and hammer out financing by the end of the year.

‘Looking forward

to the first project’

On the Friday before the long Christmas weekend, the deal closed, according to real estate records.

The Bank of Springfield agreed Dec. 22 to lend $10 million secured by the real estate at Tucker Boulevard and Cass Avenue to St. Louis Grocery Real Estate. McKee’s wife, Marguerite McKee, signed documents on behalf of St. Louis Grocery Real Estate.

The same day, a special company set up by the SLDC’s new markets tax credit division and another entity affiliated with Central Bank of Kansas City signed agreements for about $12.1 million in financing using the credits. The new markets financing agreement is with St. Louis Grocery Group, which lists Glenn Mitchell, who works at McKee’s real estate company, as a member.

The St. Louis Local Development Company, a business lending entity controlled by SLDC, also made a $300,000 loan to St. Louis Grocery Real Estate.

And McKee’s NorthSide Regeneration took over some of the property at Tucker Boulevard and Cass Avenue from a company registered to Fred Lafser, who has worked to manage McKee property in the past.

There did appear to be a hiccup. The bank McKee’s companies originally said they would obtain financing from changed. Originally, it was Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust, not Bank of Springfield. McKee didn’t want to say why they had switched.

And Schnuck Markets, the grocery store, had to lift a land-use restriction it had on the GreenLeaf site stemming from its past ownership. In return, it gets a right of first refusal for the next 10 years on NorthSide Regeneration land that would be developed for use as a grocery store.

Otis Williams, who as head of the St. Louis Development Corp. negotiated with McKee for the NGA headquarters land and leads the body controlling new markets tax credits, said McKee and his affiliated companies had met his obligations for the new market tax credits.

“We’re looking forward to the first project being complete there and others to begin,� he said.

The next one could be the former Pruitt-Igoe site across Cass Avenue from the NGA’s future headquarters. Many of the trees that sprouted in the 40 years since the infamous housing projects were demolished have been cleared recently, and McKee has plans for medical and commercial development there.

News on those projects will be coming out later this year, McKee said.