ST. LOUIS — A property affiliated with developer Paul McKee’s Northside Regeneration owes more than $1.6 million in unpaid taxes, unless McKee and his partners can pay off the debt by then. , could be sold at a St. Louis tax auction next year.
The property with the most unpaid taxes is the now-closed Greenleaf Market and Tucker Boulevard convenience store and gas station, one of the only projects Northside actually built. .
Northside Regeneration has owned hundreds of properties mostly north of the city for more than 15 years, hoping to redevelop the area that is home to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is currently under construction.
Last week, the company was hit with dozens of delinquent tax lawsuits, with the St. Louis Revenue Collector filing a lawsuit in state court alleging that the company had been behind on property taxes for three years.
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The huge tax bill is the latest pressure facing the controversial developer.
In December, a St. Louis judge ordered the city to restore a historic building at the intersection of Page and Grand boulevards and pay legal fees to the attorney representing the neighborhood association that filed the lawsuit. And the city recently passed an ordinance allowing prominent land use on many of his properties, which are located in important strategic redevelopment areas. Northside has long faced criticism over the status of its properties north of downtown, and the city hopes the plan will encourage Northside to either develop it or sell it to someone who can.
Some officials suspect the land is saddled with bank debts that exceed the property’s value, making redevelopment difficult. While the city’s use of the prominent land could eliminate these debts, state Sen. Nick Schroer (R-Defiance) also wants the city to repay its bank loans if it seizes the land. We are pushing for a bill that would make it mandatory.
But the biggest tax McKee and his partners face is on the Greenleaf Market and former Zoom gas station across the street.
The gas station, now an Amoco, has a prime location near the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge into Illinois, where gas prices are high and it is usually crowded. Greenleaf grocery stores have faced problems since the pandemic and are currently closed.
Three years of unpaid taxes on Greenleaf, which is owned by an entity called St. Louis Grocery Real Estate LLC, plus interest and attorney fees, leaves an unpaid balance of $938,000. The gas station is owned by the same limited liability company, and he paid $690,000 in taxes and unpaid interest over three years.
Two large undeveloped parcels of land north of the two stores owe nearly $90,000 in unpaid taxes over three years. Dozens of other smaller properties owned by Northside Regeneration have smaller debts, in some cases hundreds and even thousands of dollars.
“The required payments will be made prior to any proposed tax sale or divestiture taking place,” McKee said in an email.
It will take him nearly a year to do that. Susan Ryan, a spokeswoman for the office, said revenue collectors cannot enter into payment plans with commercial property owners, but those owners will have to step in during the 11 months before the tax sale actually takes place. It is possible to pay taxes accordingly. As long as the property owner pays the tax balance by next year’s sale, the property will not be auctioned off, she said.
The tax foreclosure lawsuit filed this week is part of a process outlined in state law. Many other estates also filed lawsuits against them. Unpaid tax lawsuits begin during the first few months of the year to notify owners to pay the bill or sell the property for taxes within a year.
But tax returns show the extent of Northside’s tax delinquency, showing dozens of properties have not paid taxes for years. Since the collector has three years before he can file for tax lien, it is difficult for a developer to wait to pay that amount until the unpaid taxes are three years old, especially for non-revenue producing land parcels. The case is not unheard of.
But raising more than $1.6 million would mean closing the grocery store, a potential eminent domain lawsuit Northside faces from the city, and significant repairs and legal costs for the Cass Avenue property. Claims can be complicated by both.
Another McKee-related development, the new Homer G. Phillips Medical Clinic at Cass and Jefferson streets, opens this year and could provide the developer and its partners with some cash.
The hospital applied for $6.4 million in tax increment financing payments from the tax increment financing district that Northside created in 2009, an incentive approved by City Council members in 2019.
The city’s development department recently determined the project complied with minority contract rules and approved the payment, spokeswoman Sarah Fleetley said. The TIF payments are pending final approval by the St. Louis Comptroller’s Office. These TIF notes, or promises of future TIF payments, may help Northside raise the funds it needs to pay its taxes and other obligations.
Either way, when McKee ultimately pays his taxes, much of that money will be returned to the TIF fund. And some of that money could be used to pay for hospitals, essentially repaying developers for their tax payments.
A look at life in St. Louis through the lens of a post-deployment photographer. Edited by Jenna Jones.
