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Not only that, but Kinloch, with an estimated population of 215, may even have enough money to pay the electric bill at its new municipal complex.

According to an agreement signed in April, the struggling city will receive $600,000 for its new home, $415,000 to demolish a vacant and burned-out apartment complex and more than $200,000 annually over a 25-year period to fund basic operations — an amount equal to nearly half of the city’s current budget.

The cash — more than $6 million — is coming out of a tax increment financing district established for NorthPark, a 550-acre business park that counts Express Scripts and Vatterott College as tenants.

It’s an interesting approach by developers and political leaders working to foster economic development in a county hampered by the conflicting interests of 90 municipalities: If you can’t convince a city to dissolve, subsidize it with strings attached.

“Until and unless the state government decides to set standards for the continued functioning of municipal government, the development community, local governments and economic development organizations pretty much have to work with the situation we have at hand,” said Denny Coleman, head of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership.

Kinloch, the first city in Missouri to be incorporated by African-Americans, is situated between Ferguson and Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. It once thrived with more than 10,000 residents. Then in the 1980s, the airport began buying homes for a noise-abatement program, purchasing roughly 1,360 properties. The city’s population plummeted, and poverty and blight took hold. In recent years, the city’s utilities have been cut off for failure to pay its bill.

As Kinloch’s population and tax revenue declined, the city faced the prospect of no longer being able to provide its residents basic services. Concerned that an opportunity for development might be squandered, Coleman and then-St. Louis County Executive George R. “Buzz” Westfall approached Mayor Keith Conway more than a decade ago and urged him to consider disincorporating or merging with a neighboring municipality. But they had no power to force the city to do either.

Under state law, disincorporation is a difficult and time-consuming process, requiring that 50 percent of a community’s voters petition the County Council and that 60 percent vote for the measure. Conway refused to pursue it or a merger.

So in exchange for the ability to develop about 198 acres in Kinloch, NorthPark agreed to pay $5 million to fund major public improvements. Berkeley and Ferguson, whose boundaries also include parts of NorthPark, struck similar agreements. NorthPark is expected to bring more than 5,000 jobs to the county, according to the partnership.

In 2009, under Conway, the city received $2.2 million of that money. Conway told a reporter in 2010 that he used about $200,000 to create a historic district, which included a history museum, new parking lot and a “Walk of Fame” with plaques for notable Kinloch residents. The rest, the mayor said, went to pay off debts, including years of unpaid utility bills, and to pay for day-to-day operations.

A year later, Conway was arrested for federal program theft. Prosecutors said he used the city’s Visa debit card to pay for flights to Las Vegas, a Bahamas cruise, a time share in Palm Beach, $9,004 in delinquent income taxes and other personal expenses. He pleaded guilty and served time in prison.

After Conway’s arrest, the city did not receive another payment.

Today, city leaders still can’t account for about $1 million that came from NorthPark, said City Manager Justine Blue.

WORKING OUT A DEAL

In an attempt to get the rest of the money, Kinloch, under a new administration, sued NorthPark and former St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley in March 2014, accusing them of holding up the process. According to the suit, city officials were told by a high-level official in Dooley’s administration that “St. Louis County had no interest in assisting the City of Kinloch, in any way other than to suggest the city should disincorporate.”

Kinloch agreed to dismiss the suit two months after it was filed, and over the last year, worked out a deal under the supervision of the Lambert Airport Eastern Perimeter Joint Development Commission.

As a safeguard, the money won’t go to the city directly but to its vendors, whenever possible.

“The whole idea behind it was we never want to touch the money,” Blue said.

The exception to that rule would be for money for the city’s payroll, said Andrew Ruben, the commission’s lawyer.

The tax-increment financing district captures a portion of the new real estate taxes and uses them to pay off bonds that fund construction.

Coleman described the agreement between the city and NorthPark as “almost like a payment in lieu of taxes in order to keep the city basically functioning.”

NEW MAYOR SUED

In April, the city’s Board of Aldermen suspended its and had its city attorney draft articles of impeachment against her. According to those documents, McCray promised to not evict residents from city-owned apartments in exchange for their votes, encouraged people to vote who were not registered in Kinloch and illegally attempted to discipline city employees.

The documents accuse McCray of illegally accepting a house from the city when she was an alderman and Conway was mayor, and say that the two worked together to get her elected.

The city has sued McCray over the house, and is suing her in county court, alleging election violations. Alderman Evelyn Carter is serving as mayor pro tem.

McCray has denied the allegations against her but declined to comment on the new City Hall or other developments. Her lawyers also did not return phone calls.

“She is a full Keith Conway supporter,” Blue said. “It is our belief she was a full participant in practically everything he was doing.”

A few days after McCray was suspended, Schnucks, the grocery chain, announced plans for a $100 million distribution center in NorthPark. The 915,000-square-foot center is situated entirely with the city and would take up about a third of its land.

Coleman said the partnership was watching the situation.

Kinloch is one of three historically black communities in St. Louis County that have been swallowed by outside interests. The former community of Robertson in Hazelwood was bought out by the airport in the 1980s and turned into a business park. In Kirkwood, more than half of the Meacham Park neighborhood was subsumed for a commercial development several years ago.

Kinloch was the only one of the three communities to incorporate as a city.

John Parker, whose father was Kinloch’s police chief for nearly 20 years in the 1960s and 1970s, said Kinloch was the Harlem of St. Louis County and that many African-Americans believe the airport buyout was only intended to facilitate a land grab.

“It’s gentrification,” said Parker, who owns a communications firm. “It’s hard for someone to understand just how the African-American community has been treated in St. Louis for years.”

Kinloch’s new City Hall, which will include the police department, will be a 3,400-square-foot facility modeled after Bel-Ridge City Hall, a red brick foursquare-style building with brown trim on Natural Bridge Road near Interstate 170, Blue said. She said construction could start at the end of the year.

“It may not mean anything to anybody except to those of us who were born and raised here, but we have a history rich in tradition that we are not just willing to walk away from,” Blue said. “It’s not ever going to be what it was, but it can still be something great.”