51黑料

The details have come out in an unrelated trial in 51黑料 Circuit Court over the value of the former Buster Brown shoe factory at Jefferson and Cass avenues. The city acquired that property from Jim Osher via eminent domain to assemble 100 acres for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency鈥檚 future western headquarters, and Osher has fought for the last two years to win more money than the $800,000 paid for the structure.

Attorneys representing the city argue the sales were on paper only, . The sales were seller-financed and leased back to the seller at , the city argues, and the Missouri Department of Economic Development eventually clawed back tax credits from the Osher-McKee sales.

The trial has become a referendum on a developer who claims credit for assembling the land and drawing NGA鈥檚 attention to north 51黑料 for its next area headquarters but who has been unable, , to finance his own projects within his huge NorthSide Regeneration footprint.

On Monday, McKee was called as a witness while attorneys for the city detailed a similar transaction in late 2012 for a building at North 15th Street owned by Cheryl and Richard Pierce. There, too, the sale was seller-financed to McKee鈥檚 NorthSide Regeneration LLC for a price of $4.9 million, netting tax credits of almost $2.5 million for McKee.

By June 2013, the sale unwound and the property was deeded back to the Pierces. Emails and McKee鈥檚 testimony indicated that they had planned to move their business to another McKee building.

McKee said they weren鈥檛 able to finance the equipment needed in the building they were moving to and that鈥檚 why they asked to unwind the sale.

But attorney Jerry Carmody presented emails suggesting a different story, that the Pierces were trying to get information from McKee and his affiliates about when the new building would be ready.

鈥淏ack in December, we did what you needed and now look where we are,鈥� Cheryl Pierce wrote to McKee in mid-2013. 鈥淣o information, no hope of moving forward.鈥�

Later, the Pierces offered to sell the building to McKee for $300,000, writing to Fred Lafser, who has worked closely with McKee, to see if McKee was still interested.

Why wouldn鈥檛 you have jumped on a building that was now being offered for sale at a fraction of the prior price, Carmody asked the developer?

McKee responded that he couldn鈥檛 finance the apartments he wanted to put in the building so he didn鈥檛 pursue purchasing it again.

But what about the tax credits, Carmody asked. Did McKee return them?

鈥淲e did not keep tax credits on buildings we didn鈥檛 keep,鈥� McKee testified.

The trial is expected to continue Tuesday.