ST. LOUIS 鈥 A $126 million Midtown hotel project, which looked dead a week ago, was revived Thursday.
Aldermen advanced a plan to grant developer Midas Hospitality more than $7 million in tax breaks over 10 years, teeing up full board approval later this month.
Aldermanic President Megan Green and representatives for the developer said they had reached a deal to provide the tax subsidies sought by Midas in exchange for some concessions to organized labor and public schools.
The deal marked a striking reversal of Midas鈥 loss at the board last week, a rare setback for a project already endorsed by city economic development officials. And Green said she hoped it would also set new precedent in how the city negotiates tax breaks with developers.
鈥淚 think this is an important lesson for all of us that we can create win-win situations,鈥 she said.
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David Robert, Midas鈥 CEO, said Thursday was a good day for the city.
鈥淭he city,鈥 he said, 鈥渋s one step closer to getting a $125 million investment.鈥
A representative for Unite Here Local 74, Midas鈥 chief labor critic in recent months, could not immediately be reached for comment.
School board president Toni Cousins wrote in a letter to a city economic development staffer Thursday that Midas had been in touch, and that its project would increase revenues for schools. But in an interview, Cousins cautioned that a proposed concession from Midas to provide some free hotel rooms to unhoused students is not a done deal and will be finalized by the district, not aldermen.
Midas鈥 plan to build two higher-end hotels at Jefferson Avenue and Market Street has been in the works for years. City development officials have estimated the project, which will sit at the corner of the Wells Fargo campus and a short walk from the new soccer stadium, will create dozens of new jobs and generate millions of new tax dollars for City Hall and city schools, even with the tax breaks.
But it ran aground last week amid opposition from labor unions and aldermen looking to do more to support them.
Supporting union jobs in city-subsidized projects has been on some lawmakers鈥 minds since managers at the Union Station Hotel, which also got city tax breaks, were accused of trying to break a unionization effort there in 2022. Midas itself drew scrutiny just a few months ago when it asked for tax breaks to help renovate the OYO hotel on South 14th Street, just south of the Enterprise Center.
At the time, Unite Here Local 74, which represents hospitality and service industry workers, lobbied the board to withhold incentives on the OYO project until Midas agreed to stay neutral in any organizing effort. When Midas balked, union leaders called on aldermen to scrap the deal.
But state law prohibited them from conditioning the tax breaks on labor neutrality. And aldermen were moved by appeals from condo owners living in the hotel who said deteriorating conditions in the building made them question their decisions to live downtown.
When Midas came back to the board for the Wells Fargo project, there were no existing residents with heartfelt appeals to save them. Robert, the CEO, simply argued that the project would be a good deal.
His company would replace two office buildings it demolished with a 304-room development split between the high-end brand Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants and extended-stay Staybridge Suites. There were estimates it would create more than 100 new jobs.
And Robert said the hotels would draw new kinds of guests and contribute to the momentum of an area that already includes Union Station and the new soccer stadium, and sits along the proposed new Metrolink line.
Aldermen, however, expressed concern about approving another tax break for a development in the prosperous central corridor while other parts of the city struggle to grow. They noted the project scored a zero for 鈥渜uality jobs鈥 on the city鈥檚 development scorecard, and they voted it down.
But on Thursday, Robert came touting some new offerings. He said he鈥檇 been moved by testimony on an unrelated bill about the significant numbers of public schoolchildren in the city who lack reliable housing, an issue that also troubles aldermen. He said he鈥檇 spoken to the school board and planned to start offering limited stays in his company鈥檚 city hotels to homeless students and their families during inclement weather.
He said his company would sign an agreement with the city vowing to follow federal law and avoid taking any action to retaliate against or intimidate a hotel employee seeking to unionize, or hire third-party consultants to do so on their behalf. It wasn't full neutrality, but to Green and others, it was progress.
Robert said his company had also compared its pay offerings with those offered to employees at unionized hotels downtown, and his offerings compared favorably.
Nick Hartzler, a Midas consultant, said the reason the project didn鈥檛 check the 鈥渜uality jobs鈥 box on the city鈥檚 scorecard is because a significant number of prospective employees are bartenders, servers and hostesses with relatively low base wages below $15 per hour. But he said employees in similar positions at other Midas hotels bring in additional $12 per hour in tips, which wasn't considered in the city analysis.聽
The aldermanic development committee approved the incentives without dissent. The full board could take its first vote on the tax incentives for Midas on Friday.
If the incentives clear that hurdle, they could win final approval on April 15.