Developer Paul McKee’s gas station at O’Fallon Street and Tucker Boulevard just north of downtown opened this week.
It’s the first development McKee has built since proposing his massive NorthSide Regeneration project in 2009.
The Gulf Oil gas station and associated ZOOM convenience store began construction at the beginning of the year. Still under construction is the GreenLeaf Market grocery to the west across Tucker Boulevard, also part of the $20 million plan McKee worked to put together over the last two years.
McKee has said Good Natured Family Farms, of the Kansas City area, is partnering with him on the GreenLeaf Market, which will offer fresh produce and other food. It will also stock some of its produce at the ZOOM convenience store.
The project drew skepticism when it was first proposed because of the amount of tax credits and a special taxing district needed to finance it. The $3 million needed to acquire the real estate in order to get McKee lender Bank of Washington to release its liens also raised eyebrows, as did McKee’s lack of equity investment in the project and his initially proposed development fee of about $900,000.
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The developer is trying to break ground on the first Northside Regeneration project: a grocery store and gas station that has already won access to millions in subsidies.Â
City officials signed off on contributing $7.5 million in federal New Markets Tax Credits toward the project last year, but since then they’ve moved to terminate McKee’s development rights on hundreds of acres nearby.
The Bank of Washington sued the city over the default, and the city used eminent domain on its own property to clear any potential title claims from the bank on land it is supposed to hand over to the federal government next month for the $1.7 billion National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
