Saint Louis Has Plan B if Stadium Plan Fails

Posted on by Joseph Miller

Recently, the Post-Dispatch reported on what the city plans to do with the Near North Riverfront, the proposed site of an open-air football stadium, should the current plan fall through. Apparently, local leaders have been presenting ideas to developers and businesses for months. Some ideas include:

. . . residential towers, hotels, shops, a high-tech business incubator, plus wetlands, green space and parks stretching more than a mile, from the Gateway Arch grounds to the new river bridge. The plan even proposes floating-barge beer gardens and playgrounds.

In essence, this plan would be an extension of the Archgrounds revitalization, with the ultimate goal of turning the Mississippi riverfront into a first-class destination for residents and visitors. Subsidies for this development are pretty much a forgone conclusion.

The first thing to point out is that the very existence of a plan B for the riverfront contradicts some bombastic statements from new stadium supporters. For example, Gov. Nixon said at a press conference supporting the stadium plan, “If we do nothing, 10 years from now that will look exactly as it looks now. . . . This is our chance.” It turns out that not building a stadium is not necessarily the same as doing nothing.

But turning to plan B itself, it is disappointing to see that complete lack of originality of the strategy. A high-tech business incubator? Cortex (the existing subsidized innovation hub) is far from bursting at the seams. Residential towers? Saint Louis has some of the lowest rent in the nation, and the city has to subsidize nearly every new development; this does not indicate a lack of supply. Beer gardens and playgrounds? We’ve already seen how a new subsidized playground (Ballpark Village) has cannibalized the business of not only local bars but other subsidized bar districts (Washington Avenue). At this point, publicly backed residential-cum-entertainment districts are second only to building new stadiums as the city’s favored (if failed) strategy for reinventing downtown. Let’s not even get started on hotels.

Policymakers need to come to the realization that we are not one brilliant central plan (stadium or otherwise) from propelling sustained growth in Saint Louis. A turnaround is only likely when the city creates the underlying conditions that allow for bottom-up development and make the city a competitive place to do business. If Saint Louis can do that, private companies will build the floating beer gardens all on their own.

Senator Proposes Transparency for Government Unions

Posted on by John Wright

At the Show-Me Institute’s latest Policy Breakfast, Sen. Bob Onder talked about the need for the dealings of government unions to be out in the open. Not only can state and local government agencies, such as school districts, make deals with unions in closed-door sessions, but government unions also get away with keeping their spending hidden. Here’s what Sen. Onder had to say about government union transparency…

Nobody Benefits from School Buildings Sitting Vacant

Posted on by James V. Shuls

I joined Kelly Jackson and McGraw Milhaven on “The McGraw Show” this morning to discuss my new paper, “Vacant School Buildings: An Examination of Kansas City and Saint Louis.” Check out the discussion below.

After our on-air discussion, McGraw brought up the similarities between the district and the Saint Louis Land Reutilization Authority (LRA), or what I refer to in the segment as the Land Bank. He offered a good baseball analogy. It seems the LRA and the St. Louis Public School District are looking to hit home runs, but they need to focus on getting hits. The district regularly receives reasonable proposals from charter schools, which the district may not consider a home run, but they are certainly hits.

The district certainly needs to do something with these buildings, because nobody benefits from school buildings sitting vacant.

How Will the Convention Hotel Help Taxpayers?

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the planned convention hotel in Kansas City does increase convention business. How much more convention business will the city need to repay the investment? No one is saying.

liabilities-assetsThe Power & Light District plan was put together by City Manager Wayne Cauthen, and it was done largely out of the sight of the public. It was too late to make changes when the subsequent city manager, Troy Schulte, told us that in order for the Power & Light District to be self-sustaining, as voters were promised, “You needed Plaza-level holiday-level sales every day of the year.”

Seeking to avoid that same mistake, the 2010 convention hotel effort received lots of scrutiny, including reports from consultants and financiers. Bill Lucas, then president of the city’s hotel steering committee, said, “We’d about have to double our convention bookings” to make the hotel feasible. The project did not go forward because people were skeptical we’d make the goal.

This time the city is rushing a vote on the project to meet an arbitrary political deadline. There are no reports from consultants; no reports from financiers. One councilmember even complained about the short time available to make a decision.

While no one is saying how much convention business will have to increase to repay the investment, consider the impact of TIF giveaways to developers:

  • Visitor money spent in the convention hotel itself won’t help us, as we’re giving all the taxes generated from those sales to the developers through Tax Increment Financing (TIF).

  • If convention visitors wander to the Power & Light District for dinner and drinks, they’ll pay a high tax rate, but the city is already giving that tax money to Cordish through their TIF. The city won’t see much from it.

  • If visitors head north to the River Market, the same will apply—we’re giving at least half of the tax revenue there to the developers.

  • Maybe they’ll ride the streetcar. The streetcar will be free, so we won’t see any tourism dollars there (although it appears visitors who stay at the convention hotel will be paying 1 percent to the streetcar Transportation Development District).

  • Maybe visitors will go to Country Club Plaza. That will be great, but half of the tax revenue generated from their purchases will go to the developers named in the Plaza TIF.

Therein lies the problem with Kansas City’s frequent use of TIF; we’re hollowing out our tax base. We claim that these developments will help the city, but in order to get the developments, we give away the tax revenue. Kansas City will likely need to more than double our convention bookings to make this financially sound, but no one is saying. This is no way to run a city.

The Streetcar’s Economic Development Shell Game

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

Despite the fact that all serious economic research on streetcars indicates that they do not drive economic development, Kansas City streetcar supporters keep providing misleading or contradictory numbers. They’re at it again.

kcstarmapJust after we published a post lampooning claims about economic development downtown, the Kansas City Star upped the ante by publishing a list of developments along the streetcar line.

The Kansas City Star continues to update  an interactive report that displays about 79 downtown projects totaling more than $1.7 billion that either have been announced, are in progress, or have been completed since the start of 2012, with the exception of some major civic projects.

Meanwhile, Sandy Smith over at NextCity provides us with more made-up numbers on the impact of streetcar development, quoting Downtown Council CEO Bill Dietrich:

“Since we began construction on the line, $900 million of new investment is coming into town,” he says. “We’ve been surveying the people creating these new developments and asking them how much the streetcar was a factor in their thinking. We found that about $250 million of that figure represents developers who said that either they would not be here without the streetcar or that the streetcar was important in influencing their decision to invest.” (According to the city, the latest numbers now total $1 billion in new investment, with $381 million owed to the streetcar.)

So there you have it. Kansas City streetcar supporters keep coming up with conflicting numbers from $250 million to $1.7 billion and everywhere in between. The serious research still remains: Streetcars do not drive development, unlike the myriad subsidies such as those given to Centric and 1914 Main.

Charter Schools Are Not the Enemy

Posted on by James V. Shuls

As first appearing in Education News:

We all love to have enemies; not real enemies, just the kind that make us feel better about ourselves. For example, sports are more enjoyable when our team goes up against their rival—think KU vs. Mizzou or Chiefs vs. Broncos. In politics, it’s the same. We rejoice when our candidate or party defeats the opponent. There is something about having enemies that gives us the sense that our side is superior and that our cause is just. Lambasting someone else as the enemy is an easy way to secure support for one’s cause, and this is exactly the tact taken by those who oppose the expansion of charter schools—charter schools must be stopped or they will destroy public education.

Missouri’s current controversy surrounding charter schools stems from the legislature’s attempt to “fix” the interdistrict school choice bill, which allows students to transfer from unaccredited school districts to accredited ones. Lawmakers inserted a provision into the transfer fix that would allow for the further expansion of charter schools in Saint Louis and Jackson counties. In response, the editorial board of the Kansas City Star wrote, “This wrongheaded idea should never have gotten as far as it has.” You see, the editorial board sees charter schools as a punitive measure—as the enemy.

The truth of the matter, however, is that charter schools are not the enemy of public education; they are but a means for ensuring every child has access to a quality public education. Along with members of the educational establishment, the Star’s editorial board has bought into the “us versus them,” charter versus school district mentality. Those who support quality educational options for every student should reject this notion.

Charter schools are free public schools that serve primarily disadvantaged students who lack the ability to move to better school districts or to pay for private school tuition. Charter schools are not a cure-all. Just as there are good and bad district schools, there are good and bad charter schools. The beauty of charter schools is that they allow bad schools to close and they allow new, innovative schools to take root. Studies, including the “National Charter School Study 2013” by researchers from Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, consistently show that charter schools are improving over time as higher-performing schools become more established and weaker schools close. Most importantly, charters offer parents trapped in failing schools an alternative.

There should be no “us versus them” when it comes to the type of school a student in Missouri chooses to attend. Whether a child is in a traditional public school, a public magnet school, a public charter school, or even a private school, the only thing that matters is whether that child is receiving a quality education. Indeed, we should be hawkish at fighting against failing schools in any sector.

There may never be room under one tent for Chiefs and Broncos fans. There is, however, room in the big tent for all those who support quality educational options for every student.

James V. Shuls is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and a fellow at the Show-Me Institute.

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