“Thirteen years after the city began planning a massive business park in the Mississippi River flood plain, a long-awaited trial on an environmental group’s challenge of a related tax subsidy is set to begin Monday.
The recession has hindered efforts to attract tenants to the Premier 370 Business Park but city officials remain hopeful about long-term prospects. A Dayton Freight truck terminal became the project’s first business last month and the city on May 19 will open an adjacent recreational area featuring a 140-acre lake dug to provide soil for the levee protecting the business site.
The trial, in Cole County Circuit Court in Jefferson City, is over the city’s designation of a flood plain area as blighted under a state law allowing tax-increment financing, also known as TIF. Under TIFs, some tax revenue generated by a project pays for related development costs.” As reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
