It Takes A Village

The ghosts of developments-past may have been swirling at the feet of the aldermen during a presentation on the $387 million Ballpark Village at a noon meeting of the housing and urban development committee today.

Wind repeatedly blew open the door leading to a narrow balcony off the Aldermanic Chambers and swept into the chambers; sending Alderwoman Young scrambling to secure her newly liberated paperwork.

Mayor Francis Slay's development director, Barb Geisman, and Alderman Fred Wessels, 13th ward, who chairs the committee, gave the gathered a rundown of the financing and what the Cordish company plans to build in return for the $59 million in TIF financing the city is providing the development.

As with other TIF financing, the city is redirecting a portion of the taxes to be collected once the project is up and running to provide bond financing for the project.

Geisman stressed that no general revue is given directly to the developer, the project generates its own funding. However, the city forgoes a portion of tax revenue generated in the development.

That being the case, Geisman estimated that even after the TIF gets its cut, the city will still receive an average of $3.5 to $4.5 million in revenue annually over the next 23 years. Over that same time period, city schools could expect $2.3 million annually.

The development will carry its own tax to fund the project. A bill introduced to the Board of Aldermen today creates two taxing districts, a TDD (transportation development district) and CID (community improvement district). They are estimated to generate $24 million for the project through a 1% sales tax and $1 ticket tax.

An interesting figure crops up here; it's estimated that 1.3 million tickets will be sold annually. The Cardinals came in 5th in overall ticket sales in 2006 behind the Red Sox (4th), Cubs (3rd), Yankees (2nd) and Broadway hit musical Wicked (1st). In March of 2006, the Cardinals had sold 3,020,500 of 3,531,377 available 2006 tickets (minus post-season) or 85%.

Alderwoman Lyda Krewson wanted some assurance on the project. Other developers had begun with high-end retailers such as Ann Taylor, which is one of the potential retail [clients] being tossed around by Kordish.

"I remember St. Louis Center," she said. "Now you can't even by pantyhose there."

Alderman Wessels assured that this project was different with a focus on drawing pedestrian traffic, offering entertainment to draw non-baseball crowds and integrating a residential component in the form of 250 condominiums now with the potential for more in the future.

Geisman said the retail portion could draw from the approximately 6 million visitors to Bush Stadium and the nearby Arch complex.

On the job front, the project could generate 2 thousand new jobs including jobs in the new class-A office space being created.

The Cordish Company's national connections would help in drawing business interest from around the nation for both the retail and office space, said Wessels.

Five bills establishing the project were introduced in this morning's session, BB's 407, 409, 410, 41,1 and 412.

Another hearing will be held on Wednesday January 31st.

It's hoped that the project will break ground this summer and be ready when the first pitch crosses the mound in 2009.