Posts Tagged ‘Paul McKee’

After a several day session in Judge Robert Dierker‘s courtroom, St. Louis county developer Paul McKee‘s massive NorthSide project is facing one of its first deadlines: an agreement between McKee’s companies and the city set April 1 as the date that McKee will propose more exact plans and request additional city assistance.  Most City Hall observers expect McKee and his partners will let the date slip by while the McEagle team continues to acquire properties and wait for answers to his requests for federal and state assistance.

A “dream team” of activist lawyers (led by venerable Bevis Shock) may be trying to erect a roadblock in court to developer Paul McKee‘s plans to transform a swath of north St. Louis, but McKee himself seems unfazed by their arguments.  While the nay-saying lawyers argued that McKee’s Northside Transformation plan was illusory, McKee and his own lawyers were quietly acquiring additional property for the project on Friday.

Guesstimates have varied from “none” to “too many,” but there is now an official answer to the question of how many pieces of property Paul McKee has acquired within his designated redevelopment area in north St. Louis. According to documents filed with the state of Missouri regarding the highly anticipated NorthSide project, McKee and affiliated companies owned 731 parcels at the end of last year, most of them vacant lots and abandoned buildings that he plans to fill with new businesses, homes, parks.

The columnist has made hundreds of New Year’s resolutions over the years – for himself and on behalf of many of you.  Some have taken: some have not.  For himself, the columnist vows better attention to health; more acceptance of the limits of medicine; greater patience with the pace of healing; and a more heartfelt gratitude to doctors, nurses, billing clerks, insurance companies, and (especially) to well-wishers.  He also vows greater attention to correct spelling, accurate timing, complete quoting, standard punctuation, organized note-taking, credible attribution, flattering photography, and graceful corrections.  Of course, that is an annual resolution, made with little real intention of doing anything about the habits of a lifetime gossipist. On your behalf, the columnist attributes (with no foundation and with relatively little malice) the following fantasy resolutions:

• From President Barack Obama: I’ll do my Christmas vacation next year with Claire, Joe, and their family in St. Louis, as long as Claire promises not to Tweet about it and Joe pays for the Pi.
• From Governor Jay Nixon:  I’ll ask Peter Kinder, who practically lives there, to tell Georganne the best places to eat, shop, and stay in St. Louis.
• From Archbishop Robert Carlson:  I’ll make more good news with Catholic Charities than bad.
• From SLU president the Rev. Larry Biondi:  I’ll commission a statue of a naked Rick Majerus for Bannister House if the Billikens make the NCAA Tournament.
• From Sen. Kit Bond:  I’ll use my final year to find jobs for all my staff.
• From County Executive Charlie Dooley:  I’ll ask the nice Greg Boyce for a couple of lumps of clean coal to put into a certain former staffer’s Christmas stocking.
• From Mayor Francis Slay:  I’ll give a Key to the City to Lady GaGa.
• From KMOV GM Alan Cohen:  I’ll do infomercials 24/7.
• From “Donnybrook” founder Martin Duggan:  I’ll start a blog. What’s a blog?
• From Emerson CEO David Farr and celebrated attorney Linda Martinez:  We had no idea we were named “man and woman of the year” by the Variety Club until we read it in Berger’s column. We hope he’ll be seated with us at the April 24th dinner.
• From Congressman Lacy Clay:  I’ll check “finally single”  on my Census form next year.
• From former GOP consultant Rod Jetton: I’ll use the hot air
• From the Robin  Carnahan campaign to fill a bouquet of green balloons.
• From Gateway Foundation donor M. Peter Fischer:  I think I’ll do another two blocks.
• From Build-A-Bear boss Maxine Clark:  I’ll stuff the first marketing person who suggests a children’s video on national health care reform, immigration, or gun control.
• From former Engineered Air’s Mike Shanahan:  Since that fancy country club in Naples, Fla., has blackballed me and sent me a check that bounced, I think I’ll remain at Old Warson.
• From the St. Louis Beacon’s Bob Duffy:  We now have our own space in the KETC-TV offices and hope we’ll open an Illinois bureau in Pontoon Beach.
• From television reporter Alex Fees:  Maybe I can get Donna Wilkinson to follow Steve Schankman on my “Conversations with. . .” in January on HEC-TV – if her stockings aren’t falling.
• From Congressman Russ Carnahan:  I’ll use my frequent flier miles to send mouthy Ed Martin on a long trip to country without the Internet.
• From Blues owner Dave Checketts:  I’ll play Ed Goltermann in goal for home games.
• From Gerard Craft:  I’ll open a Niche on every corner.
• From WashU chancellor Mark Wrighton:  I’ll get that Top 10 ranking back.
• From Chief Tim Fitch:  I’ll find a new badge for Floyd Warmann.
• From KSDK GM Lynn Beall:  I’ll retire or replace any face viewers might conceivably recognize.
• From Rams owner Chip Rosenbloom:  I’ll fire the coach if he blows our number one draft choice by actually winning another game.
• From Bob Baer:  I’ll ride the last Metro bus to Chesterfield if the County tax campaign fails in April.
• From would-be Rams owner Rush Limbaugh:  I’ll buy the Arch Rival Roller Girls instead.
• From north St. Louis developer Paul McKee:  I’ll mow all my yards and rake yours too.
• From entrepreneurs Mike and Steve Roberts: We’ll suggest changing the name of St. Louis City to Roberts St. Louis City.
• From Symphony music director David Robertson:  I’ll buy KFUO and program it with hip-hop, uh. . .classical music.
• From Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III:  I’ll change the name of Ballpark Village to Holliday Haven.
• From the Loop’s Joe Edwards:  I’ll open a successful venue on the actual Moon.
• From Lee CEO Mary Junck:  I’ll improve morale by signing a good contract with the Newspaper Guild.
• From AmerenUe officials:  I’ll use the phrase “a warm holiday glow” in our next filing with the Public Service Commission to soften them up on a nuclear power rate increase.
• From Art Museum honcho Brent Benjamin:  I’ll expand.
• From AB Inbev boss Carlos Britto: I’ll find out if Clydesdales go better with a little lime.
• From grocer Greg Dierberg:  I’ll open the most popular grocery in a decade and call it. . .Culinaria Too.
• From the Caseyville and Collinsville police:  Next time we hope we’ll get it right. (At Teezers Bar in Collinsville, a guy walked in with a silver handgun over the holidays and fired off a few rounds and marched out.  Police began looking for a 70 year-old man known to them and after much searching, they decided that the gunman they really needed to look for had the same name but was just 52.  Then, the Caseyville police gave their Collinsville counterparts an entirely different suspect’s name. The guy, who allegedly committed the explosive act, was none of the above: he had been hiding out all that time at Jessi’s Hideout in Collinsville.)
• From restaurateur Sam Kacar: I hope to open a third Trattoria Branica in Chesterfield Valley by mid-January and then focus on a fourth in the CWE or Webster Groves.
• From former airport director Dick Hrabko: I’m going to get those slots installed at the Spirit of St. Louis Airport.
• From Wind Capital exec Tom Carnahan:  I’ll use the hot air
• From the Roy Blunt campaign to generate electricity.
• From uber-flack Joan Quicksilver:  I’ll nominate Jerry Berger as Media Person of the Year.
• From affable CVC’s Kitty Ratcliffe:  I resolve I’ll ask for another convention center. (The woman has garnered kudos for signing such major confabs as the Church of God in Christ, that brought 40,000 here and has inked its convention for St. Louis in 2011 and 2012 – away From Memphis.
• From all of this column’s many sources: We’ll not turn a blind eye to any item that might amuse St. Louis in Jerry Berger’s website.

Caveat lector and Happy New Year!

At his 90th birthday party at Tony’s, attorney Thomas J. Guilfoil paid tributes to the guests and his law partners and reminded everyone, “It takes a good English lawyer to know the law; it takes a good Irish lawyer to know the judge.”  Surrounded by friends, Guilfoil was embraced by Mayor Francis Slay, who proclaimed that a board room in Room 201 will be hereafter named the Thomas J. Guilfoil room.  Asked what if Paul McKee‘s NorthSide, $5.4 billion development of 500 acres fails to come to fruition, Slay replied, “It would be marketed to developers each seeking say 30 or 40 acres, along with all the properties there the city owns. If it (NorthSide) doesn’t go, we can market it in a better way.”  Slay brought down the house, when he recalled a member of the St. Louis School board, who put a curse on him.  He said, “I got letters, a mass card from the Pink Sisters and a letter from a priest, that read, “If you believe in blessings, you’d better believe in curses.” F.Y.I. Fresh out of law school, Hizzoner was hired by the Guilfoil, Petzall, Shoemake law office and remained there for 20 years.  Partners Gerhardt Petzall with his wife, Barbara (a prof at Maryville) and Jim Shoemake, with his wife, Rita, were on hand.  Jim said, that many years ago, Rita had been in Europe and shopped with one of the firm’s clients, Mark Tucker, owner of the Me, Too shoe distributors, when they ran into Sylvester Stallone, who grew up with Tucker.  “Tucker asked Sly if he was also in the shoe business to which Stallone shot back, “No, I’m in fucking show-business,” quoted Shoemake. Former BJC urologist  Dr. William Catalona of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, a client of Shoemake’s for many years, is now developing a “a more accurate alternative to the PSA exam”, offered Shoemake. Catalona is medical director of the Urological Research Foundation.  A font of information, Shoemake is chairman of the board of Lindenwood University, which he hopes soon will become a class two college in the NIA. Another story unfolded about the time Guilfoil took newbie Slay to Chicago on Teamster’s Central States Pension Fund business (a client) and to meet with Allen Dorfman, who fronted the mob’s interests as head of the fund. “Walls were being torn away in the search for Jimmy Hoffa‘s body,” said Guilfoil. (Dorfman was mentored by Hoffa). “And a week after we met with Dorfman, he was murdered.”  Petzall and Slay told of how they went to Ecuador to try a case for the late Joe Simpkins. Most of the lawyers only spoke Spanish, that was translated by interpreters.  When the case moved to St. Louis, one of the lawyers said in his best Spanish dialect, “I’d like to go to Roxy’s (an east side haunt).” Also, on hand for the kudos were: Sherry Wibbenmeyer; Dianne Meyer; Victor Isart; Marisa and Pranee Nijaturus; Jeannie and Gen. Ken Lewi; Joyce Holson and Barbie Martin.

The crumbling and vacant James Clemens House, 1849 Cass Avenue in the St. Louis Place nabe, has been a sore point between local preservationists and developer Paul McKee, whose company acquired it as part of the massive NorthSide project for which McKee is currently gathering investors and partners.  To the likely relief of everyone, McKee now has a plan – and a co-developer, Bob Wood - to rehab the very deteriorated structure as senior apartments… Meanwhile, the slumbering housing construction industry is showing signs of revival in the city with new projects “in the works” in Hyde Park, Wells-Goodfellow, Carondolet, Walnut Park Dutchtown, Grand Center and The Ville.

In our town, the baseball playoffs are taken with commendable seriousness, as befits an excursion in a successful moon landing. Everyone seems to go to Busch Stadium with great good nature. It is an excursion in creating a St. Louis, that never was, except in the dreams of children and journalists, a possible redundancy. While the computer jockeys were banging the keys, one season ticket-holder opined, “The excitement here is just like football, but you won’t see this tomorrow at the Rams’

Lorenz

game.” UMB Banks’ Nick Lorenz and wife, Abby, were the objects of the paparazzi as they had just gotten married; Reggie Harwell, a 27-year vet on disability, replete in his version of Cardinal Nation duds, was also posing for pics and Ald. Freeman Bosley, Sr., told all within earshot just how he feels about Paul McKee‘s Paric’s proposal to

Harwell

rebuild a chunk of the north side. “He doesn’t

Richardson

give a shit about the neighborhood,” exclaimed Boz. “Just the money he’ll make. What happens to the neighborhood after he leaves?” A competitor to Irl Engelhardt’s Patriot Coal, of which he is non-exec chairman, said Irl has bought beaucoups property in southern Illinois for coal and he has even built a house there.” Chicago-based Levy restaurants gave Scottrade Center a $10 million advance and a percentage of sales there, averred a Scottrade exec. St. Louis Police Sft. Latricia “Queen Thunder” Allen wagged about the creativity of the Ronald Jones Mortuary and how Jones used to prepare remains. “In those days, at the request of families, some bodies were dressed and stood upright for viewing. Ron arranged horse-drawn carriages to lead a funeral processions.” A disappointed crowd slowly left the stadium in a turtle’s pace and looked on as Bill Richardson played his sax version of “Misty.”

Unless lightning strikes twice, Anthony Sansone, Jr.’s most recent attempt to purchase an interest in an NHL franchise is officially on ice. The Tampa Tribune is reporting this week that Tampa Bay Lightning co-owner Len Barrie had until Monday night to buy out partner Oren Koules. Barrie had – sez the newspaper — tapped Sansone, a hockey-savvy local who owns and manages real estate, as his new partner. Now, Koules has 60 days to try to buy out Barrie. Will Koules also try to partner with Sansone? . Former Landmarks Association deputy director Michael Allen, whose painstaking investigation of the real estate activities of Paul McKee first alerted the public to the scope of McKee’s Northside project, has ankled the preservation group and has hung out a shingle on his own as an architectural researcher. Meanwhile, Landmarks is poised to celebrate its 50th anniversary with a gala at The Palladium (the new special events Hall on Park Place behind Old City Hospital). Strange ideological bedfellows Rex and Jeanne Sinquefeld, Charles and Shirley Drury, and Amrit and Amy Gill are anchoring the host committee.