A little over a dozen attended Brentwood Mayor Pat Kelly’s monthly coffee and doughnut get-together Friday morning in the council chambers, where he had some surprises mixed in with old news.
Kelly began with a 20-minute self-described “rant” against Better Together St. Louis, a group that promotes unifying St. Louis City and the municipalities of the county. He said a new report is due out from the group, and called it another initiative to take control away from municipalities. “It’s a good idea if you’re in control when it’s over,” he said.
While talking about development, Kelly said IKEA originally wanted to build in St. Louis on 27 acres in Hanley Industrial Court. He said Brentwood turned them down.
“If you guys (IKEA) aren’t successful and leave, what would we do with that building? That’s the mistake that some communities make. They’ll put all their money into one pot, like one retailer, and I think that’s a mistake,” Kelly said. “A big part of our success has been our location, but we also made sure we had diverse stores.”
The old Rally’s will be a Fort Taco, which is better than the liquor store that wanted to be there, he said. Read more about Fort Taco.
He said he doesn’t know why the Einstein Bros. Bagels hasn’t started construction at the former Applegate’s. He said the owners have all the permits from the city, and guessed it might be an insurance issue from when a car drove into the front entrance in December.
The Thorntons are still working with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to get the “no further action” letter so they can move their State Farm insurance agence from their office at 9202 Litzsinger Road to S. Brentwood Boulevard across from Starbucks.
There was a complaint about fading paint at a crosswalk on Strassner Drive needing to be repainted. The resident said Strassner has become a “semi-highway.” Kelly didn’t say it would be repainted.
Kelly said he had to convince the county that a dedicated right turn lane on eastbound Manchester at Hanley was needed instead of two left turn lanes onto northbound Hanley. There’s now one left turn going north, one right turn going south and two lanes going straight. See more here.
He said he still backs returning to two-year terms for both mayor and aldermen, and it’s up to the board of aldermen to put it on the ballot in November. He said he really thinks the mayor’s term should be four years and the aldermen’s two, but is for changing both to two if that’s what it takes to reduce the aldermen’s terms.
There was a complaint about speeding on Cecelia, and Kelly said people think cut-through traffic is nonresidents, though he said it is usually residents.
He said St. Louis County Police made a drug bust on a house on Bremerton that involved two Brentwood men in their early-twenties. He said they were renting the house to sell drugs, and undercover county police had made buys.
Backstoppers will hold a barbecue on June 7. It’s Saturday, June 7, from 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. on the Brentwood City Hall parking lot.
The funds are there for a dog park at the old Executive Walk Apartment site, and he hopes it can be done this summer.
He said the drilling being done around town is to test for underground moisture for an MSD project. He said an underground spring was responsible for the mud that a Brentwood Public Works employee got stuck in while working below ground on a sewer lateral. The board of aldermen passed the OSHA standards for shoring and working below ground at the May 19 meeting.
As far I as I can tell an IKEA stores rarely close. A search of the internet turned up the following;
The first North America store in Datrmouth Nova Scotia Canada was open from the mid 70’s to 80’s and closed because of support costs and shipping everything from Europe. The only other IKEA stores that closed (1 each in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia) appear to mostly be relocations to newer bigger stores nearby.
I wasn’t aware that the city of Brentwood owned Hanley industrial court and was in the position of deciding who opened a business there.
Kelly refers to “eggs in one basket”. Right there in that area we’ve got Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart, and a Menards on the way. Target slightly off to the west. Add an IKEA, and you DO have a lot of eggs in a small basket. If HD or Target fails, that’s a tax loss for Brentwood. There is also a furniture store and BBB in Promenade that could be affected. Did they want a TIF or tax breaks? Is there open frontage onto Hanley road that is big enough or did they want to buy and demo existing businesses? Eminent Domain? It’s never an easy decision.
The difference between IKEA and every other store you mentioned is that you can find one by just going down the street from whatever corner of the US you live in. IKEA will draw people from the entire St Louis Region. If you want your community known and visited, give people a reason to come there and offer something different.
Telling us about the rejection of IKEA AFTER THE FACT? Why wasn’t the public allowed to discuss the matter beforehand?
Agree with Rene. Kelly needs a lesson in transparency. One he won’t forget.
I have to agree here. Why wasn’t this mentioned before? Or was it and I missed it somehow? I would have thought IKEA would just add to the city. They seem to do quite well in places that have them.
I’ll take the bait and ask, why would he freely admit to turning down a very successful business proposal like IKEA. What made him suspect that it is not going to be an improvement in the community?
let’s look at what happen to the the kmart area just inside st. louis city on manchester. that was once an amazing place but kmart is on hard times. ikea is loved now, but what about 10 to 20 years down the road. also i’m sure ikea was asking for a ton of tax credits or whatever. i think it makes sense for them.
What businesses exist in Brentwood now that we can predict will be successful in 10 to 20 years down the road? We don’t even know if the Earth will still be livable in 20 years. IKEA is a proven international success everywhere it goes. I find it very strange that Mayor Kelly is bragging about turning down something as successful as IKEA. St. Ann in North County turned them down a few years ago and now St. Ann is going bankrupted. IKEA might have saved that area and St. Ann passed, probably for very similar reasons (tax breaks, etc.). It just seems like very shortsighted and small town minded decision. Lucky for St. Louis IKEA is coming anyway.
See my post above about IKEAs history.
IKEA would’ve been a plum for the area for many, many years to come. Mistake.