SLDC Produces Educational Video on Tax Abatement, Shares Five-Year Impacts
As the independent economic development agency serving the City of St. Louis, St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) helps promote development and job growth through tools that support our community and the businesses that want to thrive here. Our toolbox of economic development incentives can help spur job growth and real estate investments throughout St. Louis for years to come.
To encourage development and investment in new commercial and residential construction in the City, SLDC offers various economic development incentives. One tool we use is property tax abatement, which reduces the increase in real property taxes a property owner must pay after redevelopment of the property for an agreed-upon period of time. The company commits to investing the money it saves in new facilities and hiring new employees. Through these partnerships, vacant buildings and land can be transformed and reactivated to create jobs and new commercial or residential opportunities while generating more revenue for schools and city services.
By using tax abatement to promote investment and development, between 2017 and 2022, SLDC estimates incentivized projects have created or retained 6,300 jobs, resulting in 4,200 new residential units, 1,200 hotel rooms and more than 4.5 million of commercial square feet representing an estimated overall investment of nearly $2 Billion in the City of St. Louis. Over a 10-year period, these projects will generate approximately $53,000,000 in additional revenue to the City's property tax base. These projects add additional revenue on day one during the abatement period to the schools and other taxing districts.
“SLDC’s job is to build a safe and healthy ecosystem for residents and businesses, help create good jobs for parents of school-aged children and ensure abundant access to affordable housing in the City of St. Louis. Developers often need incentives to build amenities like affordable housing. The Community Benefits Scorecard we use to evaluate incentives encourages the inclusion of an affordable housing component to qualify for abatement,” said SLDC’s President & CEO, Neal Richardson. “These incentivized projects also add population and attract families to the City of St. Louis — which is a win-win for the City and St. Louis Public Schools. Additionally, many of the projects approved for incentives in recent years also receive Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), which provides federal and state tax incentives to construct or rehabilitate affordable rental housing for low-income households — where many SLPS families live.”
To educate developers and the public about tax abatement and how it is awarded in the City of St. Louis, SLDC recently released a video explaining the process. The educational video is the first in a series that SLDC plans to produce about economic development and available incentives.
If there is a specific economic development topic the public would like to learn about, please contact us with ideas.
SLDC houses and staffs the development boards that review requests for city incentives like tax abatement. To ensure development projects are carefully evaluated and the development process is easy to navigate and transparent, SLDC offers a self-service Developer Portal. This simple and accessible tool allows developers to apply for and track the process on incentive projects in the City of St. Louis. Developers seeking incentives for any project in the City of St. Louis — regardless of size and scope — must register for the portal and create a profile.