ST. LOUIS — A measure aimed at jump-starting redevelopment north of downtown, in part by subjecting many properties controlled by notorious landowner Paul McKee’s NorthSide Regeneration to eminent domain, won final approval from city alderman Friday.
The measure, sponsored by Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, who represents a swath of downtown and north St. Louis, faced virtually no dissent at the board despite pleading from NorthSide’s lawyers at a committee hearing last month, a sign of McKee’s depleted political influence at City Hall.
It now goes to Mayor Tishaura O. Jones for her signature. Her administration’s development office supports the bill.
The measure includes protections barring eminent domain on existing homeowners in the neighborhoods surrounding the nearly complete National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
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But it subjects vacant and nuisance properties — often owned by NorthSide — to the legal mechanism.
It would also allow St. Louis development officials to offer tax incentives for new development while putting pressure on NorthSide, who owns hundreds of acres around the NGA, to sell or develop his properties.
McKee amassed his holdings over the last 20 years, at first with the blessing of City Hall. But his grand development plans were slow to materialize, and many buildings he owned have crumbled or burned in that time, drawing ire from the remaining neighbors.
He managed to build a gas station and grocery store on Tucker Boulevard and recently opened a new 15-bed hospital directly across from the NGA site — evidence, his team argues, of progress.
McKee’s lawyers begged aldermen to reconsider the bill’s language during a committee hearing last month. But St. Louis Development Corp. CEO Neal Richardson has said that the city needs to be “proactive†in acquiring nuisance properties from neglectful owners as it primes the area for development in anticipation of an influx of NGA workers.
“They have to do something,†Richardson said then of McKee’s team. “Or the city will remove them from the equation.â€
Post-Dispatch photographers selected some of their photos from January 2024. Video edited by Jenna Jones.
