Performance Should Matter in St. Louis — Not Politics

by Kevin Bryant, President of Kingsway Development

In 2015, when we began our work in Fountain Park, there was no coordinated redevelopment strategy for our section of North St. Louis. There were vacant buildings lining Delmar, and over 200 vacant or derelict properties in Fountain Park. Persistent crime, shuttered storefronts, and decades of disinvestment was the backdrop for disinvestment planning decisions that had long divided this city — physically and economically.

Kingsway Development was created to confront those realities directly.

We did not begin with public grants. We did not begin with political backing. We began with private capital, volunteer labor, and a simple mission: reduce crime, stabilize housing, and restore economic opportunity in a historically overlooked Black community north of the Delmar Divide.

Seven years later, the results are measurable.

Crime in our immediate catchment area has declined

by 82 percent. More than 20 percent of all vacant properties in the development area have been stabilized and secured. Property values in surrounding blocks have doubled. More than $150 million in new development is now set to take place along a half-mile stretch of Delmar that has endured neglect and abandonment for over 15 years. The conservative estimate for the value of this new addition exceeds $89 million in new taxes for the city. 

Currently, two projects spearheaded by Kingsway are undergoing construction and are anticipated to be finished this summer. While one entirely benefits the city, both are primarily financed through instruments of debt and are the financial responsibilities of Kingsway alone. Elevation Workspace serves as the highly anticipated business hub for young entrepreneurs, as well as the vital streetscape improvement that Kingsway is bringing to the corridor in line with our commitment to community benefits. Since our inception, we have not secured City grant funding to advance our initiatives.

That is why we were surprised — as was a recent Post-Dispatch reporter — to hear a public statement from SLDC suggesting that Kingsway “has not performed.”

We have performed. And we have done so without the benefit of City grants.

In fact, over the past seven years, Kingsway has received only debt instruments for neighborhood projects, not grants. Although collectively the two current commercial projects alone represent more than $10M in current value, we were passed over for a mere $500,000 in ARPA funding last week after being “preliminarily awarded” the funds nearly two years ago. In the last three years alone, over $20 million in funding, $15 million of which was originally targeted for the Fountain Park community has either been unspent or directed to areas without comprehensive planning frameworks or a track record of outcomes comparable to ours under the same citation that “we were unqualified to receive it”.

At present, St. Louis City has around $190 million that needs to be allocated by the end of the year. However, Kingsway has been left out of any consideration and, most alarmingly, from stakeholder discussions about new plans that directly affect the community we have dedicated years to stabilizing.

We ask a straightforward question: Should public investment follow measurable performance or will the fate of these communities continue to be decided by political pandering?

Kingsway is among the first independently funded community development initiatives north of Delmar. I have personally invested over $1 million in this initiative and donated tens of thousands of dollars to those in need in the community. Neither I nor any of Kingsway’s supporters have received a salary; everyone still sees themselves as volunteers rather than "Developers" or "Urban Planners"—just individuals striving to assist when our government would not.

Our work has always been about addressing crime, housing insecurity, and economic stagnation in a part of the city that was ignored for decades and was once considered hopeless.

There was Fountain Park before 2015. And there is Fountain Park today.

Even after the tornado reduced a great many of the properties to rubble, difference is visible — and measurable. When we began our work, the 700 Block of Aubert was completely unwalkable and Fountain Park ranked as the 12th most crime-ridden neighborhood in the country. On the very block where it was an open-air drug market, we now are excited to announce plans for the first ten new construction homes, set to be completed this fall.

For us, it is not about politics and for the residents who has weathered the storm it is not about thoughtless gentrification. It is about fairness, accountability, and responsible stewardship of public resources. If organizations like Kingsway are to be judged by performance, then measurable outcomes on all fronts must matter. If we are to continue in our mission without grant support for a community that has been completely redlined by banks, we must expect to face obstacles and delays, but we are confident that we will continue to achieve success in the future, just as we have with the initial results thus far.

If public funds are to restore communities most in need, then those with demonstrated impact should not only have a seat at the table but we should be among the first to eat.

Kingsway is ready to work with the City of St. Louis. We have our own modular housing facility with a track record of building well over 900 residential homes. In addition to this high performance track record, we have had site control and buyers in the pipeline waiting to increase the city's dwindling population. We are beyond shovel-ready plans, we are at the permitting stage. We have investor commitments. And we have a documented record of delivering change in a neighborhood that my company has been a taxing paying member of for more than the past two decades.

What we seek is not special treatment. We seek transparent evaluation, open dialogue, and equitable access to opportunity.

Communities north of Delmar deserve development partners who stay, invest, and deliver measurable results. We have done exactly that.

It is time for performance — not politics — to guide public investment decisions in St. Louis.