ST. LOUIS — St. Louis lawmakers on Friday passed bills creating tax subsidy districts for a $325 million entertainment, restaurant and retail complex proposed along the Mississippi River in north St. Louis.
The Board of Aldermen passed bills creating both Community Improvement and Transportation Development districts for the site, at 11000 Riverview Drive.
Planned over 67.5 acres, at the former site of the North Shore Golf Course, are a marina, water park, 35,000-square-foot conference center, 375 hotel rooms, 30,000 square feet of retail and, possibly, 50 condominiums, among other attractions, according to the developer’s preliminary plans for the project, called Lighthouse Point. M2 Development Partners of Nashville is the primary developer, with Edgewater Resources working on the possible marina.
An attorney for M2, Dan Cook, said the CID could impose an up to 1% sales tax, along with a special assessment for three classes of owners at the site:
- Hotels could see a room charge of up to $10 a night.
- Owner-occupied properties could see an up to $1,500 annual assessment.
- And other properties could see a maximum annual assessment of $1 per square foot, with an additional $1.75 per square foot for ground-floor retail.
Cook said the TDD will also charge a 1% sales tax. The CID and TDD are both bounded by St. Louis County to the north, Riverview Drive to the west, Interstate 270 to the south and the Mississippi River to the east, according to city filings.
Cook said the St. Louis Port Authority early next year is also likely to contemplate approving 15 total years of property tax abatement at the site, starting with five years at 90% of the assessed value of incremental improvements, followed by five years at 75% and another five years at 50%.
Cook said the developer hasn't calculated what the subsidies could be worth overall.
M2's managing principal, Tim Morris, said in an email Friday that "we have been singularly focused on trying to get the proposed project incentive package reviewed and approved by the various governmental bodies."
"Now that we are near that point, we are going to be engaging our consultants to finalize our master development plan for Phases I & II while finalizing our Letters of Intent with our Development Partners and finalizing our Capital Stack," he said. "We should be focused on these items for the next 90 days and would be targeting commencement of early infrastructure" in the second quarter next year.
"That is assuming that we get some stability in the financial markets, which we are all hoping for at present," Morris added.
Read the full story on the St. Louis Business Journal website.
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