Sometimes a newspaper story seems more than a recital of facts 鈥 it is a lifting of the veil and gives us a glimpse into the real world. The Muggles get a look at the magic, so to speak.
I felt that way when I read involving eminent domain and the now-demolished Buster Brown factory. Jim Osher, the building鈥檚 former owner, contended the building was worth more than the $810,000 the city had given him when it acquired the property as part of the site for the new campus of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
Dull stuff for readers who have grown accustomed to stories of governors, hairdressers and blindfolds.
But wait. Osher鈥檚 contention was based on his previous sale of the building for $3.75 million. That sale had been to Paul McKee, who later 鈥渞e-deeded鈥 the property back to Osher. The city claimed the sale was a sham intended to artificially boost the value of the property to procure state tax credits the two men could share.
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Ah, Paul McKee. He has long played Professor Harold Hill selling trombones to the good folks of River City. At least I think he has. In 鈥淟et me make the first and easiest prediction of the new decade. Developer Paul McKee鈥檚 ambitious project, NorthSide, for which he just received $19.6 million in state tax credits, will be a resounding bust.鈥
But there were others, mainly in City Hall, who believed that McKee was the real deal, and that his plan to rebuild the city鈥檚 north side would be transformational. That鈥檚 a word Mayor Francis Slay鈥檚 administration liked. Incremental improvement was frowned upon. Ballpark Village would be transformational. NorthSide would be transformational. Everything would be transformational.
Read his previous columns.
But usually, instead of being transformed, we were snookered.
In the spring 2010, McKee鈥檚 plan went to court. At issue was his request for more than $400 million in tax increment financing. This was in addition to his request for $250 million in state tax credits. , who was then chairman of the Economics Department at Washington University, reviewed McKee鈥檚 plans and testified, 鈥淭his is something, if an MBA student came up with it, I鈥檇 throw him out of my office.鈥
Robert Dierker, who was then a circuit court judge and is now chief trial assistant to Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, heard the case and made clear in his ruling that he was not feeling transformed. He ruled against McKee.
鈥淚f 50度灰视频 has found a worthy successor to Daniel Burnham or Rolla Wells in Paul McKee, this Court鈥檚 judgment will be but a temporary obstacle to his path,鈥 Dierker wrote.
Burnham is credited with designing much of Chicago. Wells was mayor of 50度灰视频 during the 1904 World鈥檚 Fair.
Judicial rulings to the contrary, it is difficult in River City to put a stake through the heart of a transformational plan. Three years later, the 50度灰视频 Board of Aldermen approved $390 million in tax increment financing for NorthSide. A story at the time noted that the project intended to bring 鈥.鈥
Sometime later, McKee invited me to his NorthSide office. It was appropriately modest. He gave me a slideshow presentation. I was flattered that a man with such grand plans would care enough about my opinion to give me a personal show. He also offered me a tidbit. I am thinking of buying your building, he said.
He meant the Post-Dispatch building, of course. It was, by then, no secret that the bosses at Lee Enterprise wanted to unload the white elephant at 900 North Tucker Boulevard that has been home to the Post-Dispatch since 1959. The business has changed and the newspaper no longer needs a six-story building with a full basement. Sadly, not a lot of investors seemed interested in a large building on the northern edge of downtown.
Frankly, I wondered about McKee鈥檚 interest. I thought that maybe he misunderstood how newspapers work and figured that I鈥檇 hustle back to the paper and tell the publisher that we had a fish on the line. Let鈥檚 be good to him, the publisher might say.
Of course, I never said anything to the publisher. The building is still for sale.
NorthSide never did work out, but McKee still has his fans. They say his property acquisitions helped clear the land the city needed to keep the NGA here. Maybe so.
I鈥檝e watched from afar. TIFs and tax credits are too complicated for me. There is, to my untrained nose, a whiff of fraud to it all. But hey, one man鈥檚 fraud is another man鈥檚 investment strategy. I remember once getting a letter from a fellow who had been picked up for a parole violation.
鈥淚 called it regrouping,鈥 he wrote. 鈥淭he feds called it absconding.鈥
In the eminent domain case Barker wrote about, the jury didn鈥檛 think much of McKee鈥檚 鈥減urchase.鈥 .
Time for the developers to regroup, I suppose.