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ST. LOUIS — Aldermen on Tuesday refused to grant tax breaks for a proposed hotel near the Wells Fargo campus in Midtown, likely killing the project.

Developer Midas Hospitality boasted plans to spend $126 million building a higher-end hotel at Jefferson Avenue and Market Street. City projections said it would create dozens of new jobs and generate millions of new tax dollars for City Hall and city schools, even with the tax breaks.

But aldermen questioned the need for the project. And labor unions said the new jobs Midas was promising wouldn’t be worth it.

“I want to see the city and the workers prosper,� said Kim Bartholomew, president of Unite Here Local 74. “But it can’t just be one or the other.�

The decision marked a rare loss for a developer seeking incentives at the board, especially one with plans already endorsed by the city’s economic development arm. Midas CEO David Robert said he was disappointed by the move and unsure of the project’s future.

“It looks dead,� he said. “We’ll have a vacant piece of dirt there at the west border of downtown that could have been something spectacular.�

But the situation also provided a newly progressive board with an opportunity to make good on rhetoric about holding developers' feet to the fire — and supporting union jobs.

It’s been an issue on some lawmakers’ minds ever since managers at the Union Station Hotel, which got city tax breaks, .

And Maryland Heights-based Midas itself drew scrutiny just a few months ago when it asked for tax breaks to help renovate the OYO hotel on South 14th Street, just south of the Enterprise Center.

At the time, Unite Here Local 74, which represents hospitality and service industry workers, lobbied the board to withhold incentives on the OYO project until Midas agreed to stay neutral in any organizing effort. When Midas balked, union leaders called on aldermen to scrap the deal.

But aldermen said state law prohibited them from conditioning the tax breaks on labor neutrality. And they were moved by appeals from condo owners living in the hotel who said deteriorating conditions in the building were attracting criminal activity and making them question their decisions to live downtown.

On Tuesday, when Midas came back to the board, this time seeking tax breaks on the Wells Fargo project, aldermen were skeptical.

Midas leaders said, in exchange for $7.3 million in tax abatement over 10 years, they would replace two demolished office buildings with a 304-room development split between the high-end brand Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants and extended-stay Staybridge Suites. They said they would create more than 100 new jobs. They said the hotels would draw new kinds of guests not currently staying in the city and contribute to the momentum of an area that already includes Union Station and the new soccer stadium, and sits along the proposed new Metrolink line.

“We could invest and have invested in other cities,� Robert said. “We’re investing in St. Louis because it’s home to most of our 1,200 employees and their families. We’re trying to make a difference here.�

But Alderman Shane Cohn, of Dutchtown, said it was hard to approve another tax break for a development in the prosperous central corridor while the north side and areas like his, in southeast city, are struggling to grow.

He also questioned whether the city needed another hotel when others are still having trouble rebounding from the pandemic. Besides, he said, the area has recently welcomed other higher-end hotels, like the 21c Museum Hotel on Locust Street, competing for similar clientele.

Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier, of Tower Grove East, homed in on how the project scored a zero for quality jobs on the city’s development score card.

City development officials said that fewer than half of the new jobs are expected to pay enough to meet local “livable wage� standards — $14 per hour with $4.60 per hour in benefits, or $19 per hour without benefits.

“Job creation is excellent,� Sonnier said. “But the quality of the jobs matters.�

Robert said the numbers used in the analysis are probably three years old and that pay at Midas hotels have risen dramatically since then.

But aldermen ultimately voted 2-4 against the incentives bill, which was sponsored by Alderwoman Laura Keys, of the O’Fallon neighborhood. Sonnier, Cohn, Aldermanic President Megan Green, and Alderwoman Shameem Clark Hubbard, of the West End, voted no.

Alderman Michael Browning, of Forest Park Southeast, and Alderwoman Anne Schweitzer, of Boulevard Heights, voted in favor.