Redevelopment plan split, approved at Council

At the tail end of a five-hour Springfield City Council meeting on Jan. 10, and after a highly publicized redevelopment plan was split into two parts for separate votes, Councilwoman Cindy Rushefsky urged her peers to deny Bryan Properties LLC’s request for a 10-year tax abatement for properties often rented to college students near Missouri State University.

“This is not a wise and efficient expenditure of public funds,” Rushefsky said, pointing to language under Chapter 99 of the Missouri Revised Statutes related to tax abatements for developers of blighted areas. “If (Bryan Magers) doesn’t maintain the property, it is going to go to crap in no time.”

Magers, owner of Bryan Properties LLC, owns a majority of the properties in a 7.1 acre area that is west of Missouri’s State’s campus that was first declared blighted in 1964, according to Springfield Economic Development Director Mary Lilly Smith. Magers is planning a $20 million investment in the area centered around a mixed-use complex that would put new apartments above first-floor commercial space.

Rushefsky said Magers history of managing substandard housing in the blighted area ought to discourage council from rewarding his company with a 10-year tax abatement. Rushefsky referred to descriptions Magers provided of his properties in paperwork submitted to the Land Clearance Redevelopment Authority when the area’s blighted status was still in question as she scrutinized his leasing history.

“Mr. Magers history is relevant to the criteria outlined by the state,” Rushefsky said. “If he hasn’t maintained his properties to this point, what makes you think he will now?”

Two plans for development projects near the corner of Madison and Kimbrough had been considered together for the abatement in the bill’s first reading on Dec. 15, and Smith had said council would need to declare a predominance of the area as blighted to be eligible for the tax incentives. Smith said at the Jan. 10 meeting, however, that it was discovered the area already had been declared blighted five times by the city between 1964 and 1980. But before council approved the singular redevelopment proposal, Rushefsky succeeded in her motion to split the plans into their separate propsoals by a 5-4 vote.

She said she had no issues with the plan by BSH Springfield 1 LLC, represented by commercial real estate broker Tim Roth, to build a $2 million apartment complex, and Part A of the bill passed by a 9-0 vote. But each member of council, and several public speakers, voiced their opinions about Part B, which featured plans by Magers. Perhaps the most vocal defender of Magers was Mayor Jim O’Neal.

“I hope that if this measure fails, Mr. Magers gets a lawyer and sues this city,” O’Neal said calling Rushefsky’s opinions of the developer arbitrary and capricious.

Mayor Pro-tem Dan Chiles said the area was in desperate need of redevelopment.

“I don’t know anybody else that is planning on spending $20 million in this area,” he said.

City Manager Greg Burris said property tax incentives that were considered were available to all developers of blighted areas and, therefore, did not give Magers and BSH Springfield 1 an advantage over others, a concern of several speakers who spoke against the proposals.

Part B passed by a 6-3 vote, with Rushefsky, Nick Ibarra and Doug Burlison voting against it.[[In-content Ad]]