The green, leafy weeds sprouting as high as 3 feet from the empty lot at 2710 Gamble Street in north ºüÀêÊÓƵ don’t inspire dreamy visions of greatness for a city in need of hope.
But when the full story is written of how ºüÀêÊÓƵ persuaded the federal government at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, or NGA, to the city’s long-neglected north side, remember that it all began here.
It was June 11, 2003, and Paul McKee, a real estate developer whose biggest successes were in the suburbs and exurbs, staked his reputation on an idea that most would eventually consider crazy. In the crumbling red-brick facades on the once-thriving north side of ºüÀêÊÓƵ, where vacant lots pockmarked the landscape, McKee saw the future of the city he loves.
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One by one, starting with 2710 Gamble Street, he purchased thousands of lots disconnected and in disrepair and put together a footprint he called NorthSide Regeneration. His plan was to lure the sort of big tenant that could provide the thousands of jobs the blighted area would need to recreate itself.
NGA is that tenant.
McKee didn’t know it at the time. Nobody did.
But as politicians from Gov. Jay Nixon to Mayor Francis Slay took their victory laps over the past week after NGA Director Robert Cardillo announced his intention to build the new facility at the intersection of Jefferson and Cass Avenues — just north and east of 2710 Gamble — it is worth remembering that without NorthSide, it never would have happened.
The process of creating the atmosphere that led to the NGA opportunity took more than a decade. Nixon was against it before he was for it. He pushed against the incentives passed by the Missouri Legislature that created the financial incentive for McKee to invest millions in a long-forgotten landscape. Even Slay, a longtime McKee supporter, appeared soured on the developer for a time, perhaps worried about the political optics after the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Business Journal set its sights on the developer in a months-long crusade that included the Journal actually advocating for the NGA to take its jobs and billions of dollars in investment to Illinois.
The point here isn’t to make sure McKee gets his credit — now that NGA is coming he has a chance to really make his NorthSide vision a reality — but to refocus ºüÀêÊÓƵ and Missouri leaders on the prize: rebuilding a city.
For big things to happen, it takes vision, time and the cooperation of rivals, like Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican, and Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat. Like Slay and Nixon, who often don’t see eye to eye; or Slay and ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Executive Steve Stenger, whose relationship is, well, developing.
The lesson of NGA is that for ºüÀêÊÓƵ to win, the victories have to be bigger than one politician, or one party, or one developer, or one consultant. This is an insular city where old rivalries die hard, and big thoughts are often jettisoned in favor of incremental progress.
The events of the past week, particularly coming on the heels of the failure to keep the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Rams, should open some eyes. ºüÀêÊÓƵ kept a major employer, and secured a multibillion-dollar project in an area long neglected by developers because the NGA saw this as the best place to reach the employees of the future. City voters invested in their schools, in buildings and its fire department, and they overwhelmingly voted to keep a 1 percent earnings tax that provides a third of the city’s operating budget.
Good things happened because civic leaders, voters and outsiders saw hope in a city some want to define as failing.
“We face tough competition, and offering an environment that appeals to these future generations is critical to our success. Studies point to a desire by today’s millennials to be in urban environments, and this trend is expected to continue,†to current NGA employees in announcing his intention to move to the city’s north side.
Those same studies point to something else millennials want in a city: good mass transit.
That’s why the work to keep NGA must be only the beginning. The next big move should be to build the of Metrolink that would connect existing housing on the city’s south side with the soon-to-be-developed north side and the employment centers downtown and in Cortex and the airport.
Yes, the new Metrolink line is a billion-dollar dream. But investing in NGA is only a home run if the area around it — the rest of McKee’s NorthSide, produces the promised retail and housing to lift the area from blighted to burgeoning. That doesn’t happen if there isn’t a way for residents and employees — new and old — to get from home to work. The south side of ºüÀêÊÓƵ still has row after row of the red-brick homes and bungalows that used to dot the north side, but they, too, will crumble without the sort of investment in the future that a modern mass transit system will bring.
A seed of growth has been planted in the vacant lots of north ºüÀêÊÓƵ. Its health depends on the cooperation of rivals who are willing to dream big dreams for the sake of a region.