McKee, NorthSide Win Unanimous $390M TIF Ruling

The SouthSide Regeneration plan may have been an April Fool's Day prank, but today Paul McKee is again thinking big. His NorthSide $390M Tax Increment Financing package has won a unanimous decision at the Missouri Supreme Court. Passed by the city's Board of Aldermen in 2009, the TIF, meant to jumpstart the rebuilding of a large swath of north city, has been stalled by a lawsuit ever since. The decision states that judge Dierker erred in his ruling that invalidated the TIF on grounds that it lacked specificity, essentially saying that Dierker ruled on an argument of his own making and not one made by the plaintiffs.

With the win, and the secured financial backing of the city, McKee has everything in place to move forward. What happens next is anyone's guess. The lawsuit had challenged the ambiguity of the plan and the decision means that McKee does not need to provide more specific project detail to access the TIF. Having been criticized for years for allowing vacant building to burn or fall down, McKee has repeatedly pled for more time and money. The ambitious project is on a scale not seen in the city's urban core since the building on Pruitt-Igoe in the 1950s.