Subject: Economic Development

• Foam: Yet Another New St. Louis Venue

  July 25, 2007

• Public Flogging Meeting on Tax Credits

  August 10, 2007

• Tax Credit Update

  August 14, 2007

• Forum on Paul McKee's North-Side Doings Devolves into Name-Calling

  August 31, 2007

• The Economist on Food Costs

  December 11, 2007

• The Morning Brew: Thursday, 4.24

  April 24, 2008

• The Morning Brew: Wednesday, 5.14

  May 14, 2008

• The Morning Brew: Wednesday, 9.3

  September 3, 2008

• Bringing Down the House

  June 16, 1999

• The Morning Brew: Wednesday, 3.25

  The need to reduce meat consumption in the developed world needs to be balanced against the need for meat in the developing world. (BBC News)AB InBev loses another round of its ongoing copyright battle over the Budweiser brand in Europe. (Reuters)Signs of a thaw in the Anthony Bourdain-Rachael Ray cold war? (New York Daily News)

  March 25, 2009

• Maplewood Official is Cuckoo for Clooney

  Yesterday, my colleague Kristen Hinman wrote an open letter to George Clooney after observing the actor dining at Niche restaurant last Saturday.Hinman's letter (published in Daily RFT) elicited a quick e-mail from Maplewood Community Development Director Rachelle L'Ecuyer who e-mailed in to tell us how much she enjoyed the blog post. L'Ecuyer also forwarded us her own open-letter to Clooney that included a photo of the actor along with the following caption. Think that's amusing/bizarre? Then y

  March 31, 2009

• Bobby Watson and Horizon

  October 13, 1999

• Café Crumbles: Michael Lieb continues his fight to open a coffee shop in Belleville

  November 5, 2008

• Amos Lee

  August 6, 2008

• End of the Century

  February 6, 2008

• Leave Greenberg's Art Alone

  Hey America: Stop it with your eminent domain and wimpiness, already!

  September 5, 2007

• Mid-America Jihad?

  May 2, 2007

• Tower Groove South

  October 25, 2006

• Kris Kristofferson

  October 18, 2006

• Lot in Life

  William Peppes’ property suffered a plane crash and a murder. But eminent domain proved his toughest challenge.

  July 5, 2006

• Brave New Town

  Some call it a well-ordered paradise. Others say it's just plain sprawl.

  May 31, 2006

• Doubting Thomas

  Alderman Tom Bauer's stealth schemes are raising eyebrows

  February 23, 2005

• Hell No, We Won't Go!

  A south St. Louis neighborhood raises a ruckus over plans to demolish homes for a shopping center

  December 1, 2004

• Extreme Makeover

  Rollin Stanley is a hotshot city planner -- which begs the question: What the hell is he doing in St. Louis?

  October 13, 2004

• Best Bureaucrat

  Rollin Stanley

  September 29, 2004

• Best Speaker Series

  Washington University Assembly Series

  September 29, 2004

• Passing Gas

  Jackass-riding Alderman Tom Bauer and QuikTrip join forces to test the limits of eminent domain

  March 24, 2004

• The Greening of McRee Town

  There was nothing wrong with the Missouri Botanical Garden's downtrodden neighbor to the north that a bulldozer couldn't fix

  October 8, 2003

• Best Public Works Project

  The Page Avenue extension

  September 24, 2003

• Palast Guard

  Crusading investigative journalist Greg Palast looks out for the little guy

  March 12, 2003

• Elvisville

  Downtown Memphis is already where downtown St. Louis hopes to go

  August 28, 2002

• To Dwell in Possibility

  A tour of the city with the Landmarks Association's Carolyn Toft presents views of what is and what could be

  July 10, 2002

• Selling Out

  November 28, 2001

• Letters

  September 5, 2001

• The Gospel According to Paul

  August 22, 2001

• Wrecking Brawl

  June 13, 2001

• Base Motives

  May 16, 2001

• Best Up-and-Coming Neighborhood

  September 27, 2000

• Best Role Model

  September 27, 2000

• SEEING THINGS

  August 4, 1999

• Missouri's Eminent Domain Battles Caught on Film in "Begging for Billionaires"

  www.ij.orgJim RoosBegging for Billionaires, a documentary feature examining eminent domain "abuse" in Missouri, makes its initial screening next month in (of all places) Minnesota.  The film -- nine years in the making -- debuts May 2 as a "Best of Fest" selection at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival. Telling the story of land owners fighting to keep their properties from private developers, the movie spends much of its time in St. Louis with subjects such as Jim Roos. A

  April 20, 2009

• The Morning Brew: Thursday, 4.30

  The domestic hog market rebounds from unwarranted fears prompted by the H1N1 outbreak. (Reuters)Last year's food crisis prompted a buying binge of farm land in developing countries. (Reuters)Starbucks posts a 77% loss. (New York Post)

  April 30, 2009

• A Sprawling Casino Next To A Conservation Area?

  photo by Keegan HamiltonThe Columbia Bottom Conservation AreaLocated at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers just north of St. Louis, the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area is among the last stretches of undeveloped riverfront near the city. The Missouri Department of Conservation, the state agency that manages the 4,300-acre area, describes the land as "a mosaic of bottomland habitats that includes shallow wetlands, bottomland hardwoods, prairie, and cropland. These habitats att

  July 28, 2009

• Joe's trolley, the suffering of the Jews and a casino on bottomland

  August 5, 2009

• Forum Tonight to Discuss Eminent Domain, Paul McKee's Northside Development Project

  The North Side Community Benefits Alliance is inviting city residents to attend a forum tonight to discuss developer Paul McKee's massive redevelopment project for north St. Louis. ij.orgChristina Walsh​Leading tonight's meeting (6 p.m. at the Shining Light Pentecostal Church) will be Christina Walsh, a director with the Washington D.C.-based civil-rights law firm Institute for Justice.Topics for discussion include McKee's possible use of eminent domain as well as the developer's plans to fina

  August 20, 2009

• Conservation Area Casino Faces Final Vote by County Council Tomorrow

  The construction of a sprawling 376-acre resort and casino next to the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area in North St. Louis County faces it's most critical vote yet tomorrow night.The St. Louis County Planning Commission already gave the initial go ahead to rezone the massive swath of land in a flood plain immediately south of wetlands that border the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, despite the protests from multiple environmental and community groups.If you've never been, her

  November 2, 2009

• St. Louis County Council Clears Way For North County Casino

  Image Via​While thousands of St. Louis county voters took to the polls yesterday to decide important issues like a smoking ban and increased 911 funding, the fate of the largest stretch of undeveloped Mississippi River waterfront in the St. Louis region was left in the hands of six members of the St. Louis County Council.They voted 4-2 in favor of re-zoning 376 acres of wetlands south of the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area for commercial development, specifically a massive casino and resort

  November 4, 2009

• Did A Vegas Casino Boss Try To Make A St. Louis County Councilman An Offer He Couldn't Refuse?

  Image Via​Reporter Paul Hampel has an incredible story in today's Post-Dispatch about the CEO of Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. (the Vegas-based company that owns Lumiere Place, the Admiral and the new casino in Lemay) attempting to "muscle" a member of the St. Louis County Council before Tuesday's vote to re-zone wetlands near the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area to allow construction of a casino to be run by a Pinnacle rival.In a textbook case of life-imitating art-imitating life, Pinnacle's D

  November 5, 2009

• That Pinnacle Casino Boss Who Tried to"Muscle" a St. Louis County Councilman? His Career Sleeps With the Fishes.

  Last week, Daniel Lee, CEO of Vegas-based Pinnacle Entertainment, unsuccessfully attempted to "muscle" St. Louis County Councilman Steve Stenger into voting against re-zoning land in North St. Louis County to clear the way for the construction of a new casino by a Pinnacle rival. This morning, the Post-Dispatch reports, Lee abruptly resigned from the job he held for seven years to "pursue other business interests."The short-term outlook of those "other interests" summed up in an image:Image Viaâ

  November 9, 2009

• Overhauled South Grand Wins Praise from Urban Planners for Being Completely Great Street

  Astute city-watchers will have noticed some changes on the six-block stretch of South Grand Boulevard between Arsenal and Utah in the past few months: fewer driving lanes, new stoplight patterns, wider crosswalks and those weird little bulb things to keep impatient drivers from trying to cut ahead and mow down a few pedestrians. The changes were all part of the St. Louis Great Streets Initiative, a plot by a cabal of urban planners to turn St. Louis' streets into "interesting, lively and attract

  November 19, 2009