Paul McKee's $8 billion bid to rebuild two square miles of the city's north side isfinally poised to take a few small steps forward.
Alderman April Ford-Griffin plans to file legislation today that would allow the developer to starta few pieces of his NorthSide Regeneration proposal, despite a judge's ruling that torpedoedcity financing. If approved by the Board of Aldermen, work could begin next month.
But considering the project's massive vision, the work would be rather small-bore. The proposalincludes cleaning up 14 vacant lots, tearing down six empty buildings and rehabbing sevenmore, including the old Greyhound Bus station at Cass Avenue and 13th Street. It also wouldbuild a $750,000 materials recycling center on 10th Street near Interstate 70, where bricks,wood and other materials from demolished buildings and ripped-up roads would be stored andsold for reuse.
These steps are things McKee has envisioned for some time. But the specific proposal to do it isdesigned to satisfy one man: Judge Robert Dierker.
Dierker is the city judge who derailed NorthSide last summer when he threw out its cityfinancing package, saying the plan was too vague to justify a $390 million pledge of taxincrement financing and the potential use of blight and eminent domain.
"There is no evidence whatever of any discrete, definable redevelopment project," Dierker wrote,and as a result, he said, the TIF was a reach too far.
McKee has appealed that ruling, but appeals take a long time, and nearly two years after goingpublic, the developer wants to get started. This agreement, said his attorney Paul Puricelli, isdesigned in part to provide some of the specifics that the judge found lacking. |
