St. Louis using eminent domain to gain control of proposed NGA site

St. Louis officials are still working hard to take full control of the 99-acre site in North St. Louis where they hope the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency will build its new $1.6 billion campus that one day will house 3,100 workers.

With just nine days remaining before the decision is made on where the NGA site is headed — North St. Louis or St. Clair County — St. Louis has amended an eminent domain lawsuit to attain control of 44 parcels within the proposed NGA site’s 99-acre footprint in the city.

Robert Cardillo, the NGA director, is scheduled to make his preliminary decision on April 1. That’s three days before the scheduled court hearing on St. Louis’ eminent domain lawsuit to acquire the disputed 44 parcels. A total off 550 parcels make up the 99-acre site.

The fact the city is still pursuing legal action against some parcel owners demonstrates that bringing NGA to North St. Louis would be a bad move, while it undercuts city claims they have full control of all necessary parcels, according to Megan Betts, a St. Louis property owner who lives near the proposed site.

“Because if it was all ready to go you wouldn’t have anybody in court right now,” said Betts, a member of the group Save Northside STL, which opposes bringing NGA to North St. Louis. “What’s their definition of control?”

Otis Williams, the St. Louis Development Corporation’s executive director, said the city’s eminent domain lawsuit won’t affect the NGA’s decision on where to locate the NGA facility.

“We talked this through with all the attorneys, both with the federal attorneys and our attorneys, and there is no issue,” Williams said.

Williams said city will use eminent domain to seize the properties only if the North St. Louis site is selected.

Only two residents within the 99-acre site have not come to agreement with the city, according to Williams.

“All the others have come around,” he said. “In fact, they have their bags and boxes packed hoping that the decioin is made.”

St. Louis has spent more than $7 million, mostly to buy land, to keep the NGA’s 3,100 jobs and the $2.4 million in earnings tax revenue they generate for the city each year. The city has valued the land at about $14 million and at one point proposed selling it to the federal government. Now it is offering it to the feds free of charge.

In addition, the state of Missouri plans to offer $131 million in financial assistance to bring the project to North St. Louis. This includes $95 million in tax increment financing, plus about $36 million in brownfield tax credits.

The city also promises to provide an annual commitment of $1.5 million for 30 years — a total of $45 million —to pay for site acquisition and preparation costs, and utility relocation and improvements, according to a summary of benefits provided to the media by the city.

In announcing this package of incentives during a March 7 press conference at St. Louis City Hall, Mayor Francis Slay declared, “We believe that St. Louis city is the best choice for NGA to fulfill its mission.”

Joseph Miller, a policy analyst with the Show Me Institute, in St. Louis, strongly disagrees with Slay’s assessment.

Miller has given a thumbs down to efforts by St. Louis and Missouri to bring NGA to North St. Louis. It would make a lot more sense to move it to St. Clair County, to a 182-acre site next to Scott Air Force Base the county has offered to NGA free of charge, according to Miller.

“And it’s actually going to be cheaper (to taxpayers) because it’s simply a cheaper piece of land to prepare,” Miller said.

The St. Clair County site won’t require the eviction of any residents from their homes because that site consists of farm fields where no one lives.

“We have the situation now where the NGA is not going to leave the metropolitan area,” Miller said. “The jobs aren’t leaving the metropolitan area, yet we are going to kick people out of their homes, when that wouldn’t happen in Illinois. That for me is a big strike against it.”

The NGA, an intelligence agency that makes military maps based on satellite imagery, needs to move out of its current facility on the grounds of the old St. Louis Arsenal south of downtown St. Louis because it needs modern infrastructure, better security and room to grow.

On March 4, during a press conference at MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner announced the state would provide $116 million in road and other infrastructure upgrades if the NGA chooses the Illinois site.

U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr., who represents the district in North St. Louis surrounding the proposed NGA site, said during his city’s March 7 conference that one reason NGA should be built in North St. Louis would be to atone for the poor decisions that led to the construction and demise of Pruitt-Igoe — the 33-building public housing complex that opened in 1956 and that, by a decade later, had became a national symbol of crime and urban decay. The city tore down the housing project in 1972.

“The federal government owes us after the debacle of Pruitt-Igoe,” Clay said. NGA, he added, “is a chance to replace that failure.”

News media outlets have reported that the Department of Defense put an $801,000 item in the 2017 defense budget for 182 acres for NGA West — a figure that mirrors the amount of land promised by St. Clair County.

David J. Berczek, a spokesman for the agency, said that NGA Director Robert Cardillo has not yet made a decision on the location, and that the budget item was nothing more than a “placeholder.”

The Army Corps of Engineers’ recommendation on where the NGA should relocate won’t come until April 1. Cardillo is expected to make the initial announcement of where he wants to locate the NGA facility in the first week of April. His final decision is expected to follow before May 31.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 10:42 AM with the headline "St. Louis using eminent domain to gain control of proposed NGA site."