Crestwood will welcome new Ward 1 and Ward 4 aldermen after the election Tuesday, including longtime Public Works Board member Jesse Morrison, who ran unopposed for a three-year term representing Ward 1.
Morrison, a six-year member of the Crestwood Public Works Board, was set to win election to the Ward 1 seat in the municipal election Tuesday, after The Call went to press. Outgoing Ward 1 Alderman Mimi Duncan did not file for re-election.
“It’s just an extension of the volunteering side” of serving on the Public Works Board, Morrison said of his decision to seek elected office for the first time. “I’m genuinely curious about how things work on a local government level. Reading newspapers gives some insight … but I want to be a little more involved.”
The Crestwood TIF Commission has delayed its second meeting following an organizational meeting Feb. 4 until Thursday, April 22.
The panel will examine a request for tax-increment financing from grocery store Dierbergs, which announced Dec. 22 that it was partnering with McBride Homes to redevelop the 47-acre former Crestwood Plaza mall property at Watson and Sappington roads. The companies have the site under contract from owner UrbanStreet Group after months of negotiations.
The Crestwood TIF Commission that will be examining whether to grant tax incentives for the redevelopment of the former Crestwood mall site proposed by Dierbergs and McBride Homes met for the first time this month, with a public hearing and possible decision expected by May.
The two developers did not give any specifics or dollar amounts on the tax-increment financing requests at the Feb. 4 meeting, but Dierbergs Director of Real Estate Brent Beumer, a Sunset Hills resident, gave a conceptual overview of the project and confirmed, as first reported by The Call, that the developers are not seeking any tax subsidies for the subdivision proposed by McBride.
The Crestwood mall site has its fourth developer in seven years, but city officials are confident that the latest plan combining proposals from McBride Homes and Dierbergs Market will actually be built, with a TIF Commission convening next week.
McBride and Dierbergs, both companies based in St. Louis, announced Dec. 22 that they have the 47-acre former Crestwood Plaza mall property at Watson and Sappington roads under contract from owner UrbanStreet Group after months of negotiations.
For decades it housed an outdoor mall, then an indoor one. But the mall’s last stores closed in 2013. The site at the center of the city has been vacant ever since, as three other plans to develop the property came and went. One major milestone along the way is that UrbanStreet demolished and leveled all the mall buildings, so the land is now level with Watson Road and easier to redevelop.
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