Economic Development and the Historic Preservation Tax Credit

Jefferson City is a busy place this time of the year.  Judging alone the number of twitters from Senator Jeff Smith and the Post-Dispatch’s Tony Messenger things are very busy.  The blogs have also been very busy following the events.  Show Me Progress has had several posts following the various happenings including  some late night posts following the Senate. 

As we have covered previously,  there is an economic bill currently going through the Missouri House and Senate that will have a direct impact on the development of the St. Louis region. 

The RCGA has kept close tabs on what is going on in Jefferson City and has provided a good synopsis of the economic bills from a business and development perspective on how these bills will help or hurt the economic growth of Missouri and specifically the St. Louis region. Review after the fold.

 The RCGA has identified several parts of SCS HB 191 and SCS SB 45 that would be good for the region:

The RCGA supports these provisions:

- Increase  the Missouri Quality Jobs Program from $60 million to $120 million.

- Raise Missouri BUILD from $15m to $20m and eliminate the requirement for companies to solicit bids from other states.

- Create a $5m Angel Tax Credit to spur small business growth (part of the RCGA’s “Grow Me State” initiative).

- Double the Small Business Incubator Program to $1m.

- Reinstate the Research and Development Tax Credit

- Increase the cap on the New Markets Tax Credit to $25m from $15m.

 And also some that would have a chilling effect on economic development, especially in St. Louis:

The RCGA  strongly opposes these provisions:

- Short-term sunsets of economic development programs

- Annual authorization of tax credits in the appropriations process

- Prohibit incentive packages with multiple tax credit programs

- Drastic reductions in the Historic Preservation Tax Credit

It is pretty clear that several deals have been struck moving this legislation forward and unfortunately it looks like the people striking the deals do not support St. Louis.   As a region, we cannot allow the Historic Preservation Tax Credit to be severely reduced.  As the RCGA notes:

Missouri’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit program — the most successful such program in the country — has leveraged billions of dollars in private investment in St. Louis’ center city and older neighborhoods and downtowns throughout the region  and State

The tax credit has been very successful in bringing development to some of our most beautiful buildings and in 2008, 337 projects used $161 million in tax credits to leverage $700 million in private investment.  We will not see this type of private investment in the future without this credit.

Thanks to the hard work and lack of sleep of some of our local senators there is still time to put pressure on the legislators who don’t understand or don’t care about the importance of this program. As Senator Smith said “One of St. Louis’ greatest selling points is our architectural heritage.  There is something important about our heritage.  Our architecture is a link to our ancestors and a bridge between the city’s glorious past, and its bright future.” 

To truly understand why this is important you have to have a sense of St. Louis before and after the Historic Preservation Tax Credit.   The legislators deliberating this bill need to think back to a time, prior to the Tax Credits being passed, when the economy was booming all across the country.  Bank loans and construction projects were at an all time high in just about every nook and cranny of this nation.  St. Louis did not see the same type of growth and redevelopment as other major cities. 

Washington Ave was littered with vacant boarded up buildings. The Sporting News Building was best known as a bombed out shell for its starring role in the movie Escape from New York . The Post Office Square development was just the dream of a handful of young developers. Grand Center redevelopment was a nice buzz word. Well financed, very capable developers wandered throughout St. Louis neighborhoods attempting to finance projects without incurring major financial losses.  

This all changed after the credit was passed and made available.   St Louis has taken part in the prosperity that was sweeping the nation.  Large and smaller, hard to finance projects, went from the drawing board to reality and we have only begun. We cannot allow this progress to stop and must fight to continue to rebuild our city and our region for the sake of all Missourians.

To contact your Senator click here.

Posted by The Core Editor on Apr 10 2009. Filed under Economic Development, Government, Saint Louis City. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.