A proposed tax district covering 153.6 acres of Grand Center, Midtown and Downtown West cleared a major hurdle Tuesday when the St. Louis Tax Increment Financing Commission voted 4-1, with two abstentions, to send the plan to the Board of Aldermen. The Midtown TIF district would generate up to $39 million in property, earnings and sales tax revenue over a 23-year span, money that backers say is badly needed to fix crumbling streets and sidewalks across the district.
The plan is being spearheaded by Grand Center Inc., the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, the Locust Central Business District and the Midtown Alley Business Alliance, according to St. Louis Public Radio. Area arts and business groups have argued that the city has not kept pace with the infrastructure improvements needed to support private development in the corridor, a complaint that echoes what Midtown merchants told Hoodline in a March report on deteriorating streets when they explored a separate Community Improvement District along Locust Street. Under the plan, new property tax revenue would be split evenly between the TIF district and the city over 20 years.
Steve Smith, a representative of the Lawrence Group, spoke in favor of the proposal at the Tuesday hearing. Smith's firm acquired City Foundry, once part of the Cortex Innovation District, in 2016 after the site sat empty for a decade; the food hall and retail complex generated roughly $63 million in retail sales and about $5 million in sales taxes in 2025, per the station's reporting. The TIF proposal itself does not name specific developers expected to invest in the area going forward.
Schools Left Without a Seat at the Table
The loudest objections at the hearing came from concerns over St. Louis Public Schools funding. John Regenbogen said funding intended to educate city schoolchildren should not be redirected to fund public streets and sidewalks, and he expressed concern about the lack of input from SLPS on the proposal. SLPS is the largest recipient of property tax revenue in the city, according to the same account, and it holds two designated seats on the nine-member TIF Commission — seats that currently sit unfilled.
Commission members said the SLPS school board itself is responsible for designating members to fill those seats. As the Show-Me Institute has detailed, the commission's statutory makeup gives six seats to mayoral appointees, two to SLPS and one to other local taxing jurisdictions, meaning the district's empty seats represent more than 22 percent of the body's total voting power. Peg Weathers said the TIF would provide a reliable source of funding for the district, a view shared by the project's backers even as school funding advocates pushed back.
Why School Advocates Are Wary of TIFs
The unease from SLPS supporters is rooted in numbers. St. Louis Public Schools relies on local property taxes for approximately 80 percent of its operating budget, according to Citizen Portal, far above the roughly 55 percent share the average Missouri school district draws from local effort. A study by Good Jobs First found that economic development tax abatements, dominated by TIFs, cost SLPS an estimated $1,634 per student annually between fiscal years 2017 and 2022 — the highest per-student loss of any school district in the region.
Separately, Show-Me Institute analyst David Stokes published a policy critique this month opposing the deal, arguing that redirecting 23 years of future property, sales and earnings tax growth to an unelected district board fails to generate net regional growth and instead shifts public tax dollars to private allocation.
What Happens Next at City Hall
The Board of Aldermen is currently in summer recess and won't reconvene until September 11. Because the commission's vote was a positive recommendation, aldermen would only need a simple majority to pass the implementing ordinance under Missouri's Tax Increment Financing Act; a negative recommendation would have required a two-thirds supermajority to override, according to guidance from bond counsel firm Gilmore & Bell.
The Midtown TIF debate arrives amid a wave of investment and friction across the same footprint. Nine PBS is overhauling its Grand Center headquarters in a $30 million project, while developer New + Found is planning a mass-timber office building at City Foundry, as Hoodline reported in July's coverage of the site's expansion. City Foundry has also seen tension over public incentives, with the city withholding $18 million in tax incentives from the One Foundry Way apartment tower amid a wage-underpayment lawsuit detailed in Hoodline's report on the foundry crews' class-action fight. Regional trail agency Great Rivers Greenway is also building out Midtown segments of the Brickline Greenway, including a planned crossing meant to link the Grand MetroLink station, City Foundry and Grand Center, adding another layer of public infrastructure investment to the district aldermen will weigh when they return next month.
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