In a presentation to aldermen earlier this month, St. Louis Development Corporation interim CEO Otis Williams painted a dire picture of the development pipeline in the city, suggesting businesses were leaving, building permits were plummeting, and few tax incentives are being utilized. But it now appears that some of the data he used to back up his claims was outdated or inaccurate and made things appear much worse than they actually are.
Williams made his remarks to the St. Louis Board of Aldermen’s Housing, Urban Development and Zoning committee on October 7, with a call to action to clarify incentive and development procedures that SLM covered in a story on Wednesday. That story brought new attention to Williams’ report and some numbers that don’t hold up to scrutiny.
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Take building permits issued in the city. Williams said that through August this year, St. Louis had only issued 1,190 permits with a total value of $217 million. “It is a reason why working together, we should have a conversation about this particular environment where building permits are getting fewer and the cost of construction is getting higher,” he said.
But when SLM reviewed the city’s openly accessible building permits database, the number of permits issued through August was just under of 3,000, and valued at $953 million. (A $400 million permit issued this June for SSM Health Cardinal Glennon’s new hospital accounts for nearly half that total.) SLDC spokesperson Deion Broxton acknowledged to SLM that the building permit data presented to HUDZ captured permits issued through May 7, not August.
If you examine permitting through Oct. 22, St. Louis’ building permit dashboard shows 3,678 permits issued, valuing just shy of $1.2 billion. That suggests the city is likely to finish the year right around last year’s total, if not higher, and close to the roughly 5,000 permits issued each year from 2016 to 2023.
Broxton acknowledged the point, but noted that SLDC expects fewer building permits will be issued in the coming years, especially ones for high-dollar projects, such as the $145 million Albion Residential development in the Central West End, as fewer private developers are coming forward to propose those projects down the line.
Another of Williams’ eye-raising figures was the precipitous decline of unique businesses in St. Louis since the pandemic. He presented numbers he said came from the city’s License Collector that showed the 10,776 businesses in the city during the pandemic had dwindled to 6,239 this May, representing a 42 percent decrease.
Ward 1 Alderwoman Anne Schweitzer was immediately skeptical. “If I’m watching this as a member of the media and I see there are 4,000 less businesses in the city of St. Louis in five years, I’m writing that story,” she said at the meeting.
And, as it turns out, Williams’ numbers are not a story that should be told, according to a representative from the City’s License Collector Office. They clarified to SLM that the figure Williams cited for this year is only for the number of businesses hit by the storm, and doesn’t include ones in parts of the city that escaped damage.
Again, the SLDC spokesman acknowledged the apparent error, and noted that point in time license figures, like those presented, can undercount businesses whose licenses have recently expired and not yet been renewed.
The Bottom Line: Williams’ core message to the HUDZ committee was about expanding the use of incentives. He noted that incentive use on projects has dropped sharply in recent years and urged streamlining city practices to ensure more developers would choose to pursue projects here. Though many of the sentiments he expressed are shared by those in the development community (including a recent developer survey by the Tower Grover Community Development Corporation) and Mayor Cara Spencer (who recently made similar comments on the city’s need to streamline incentives), the bigger point is also important to note: Underlying data shows St. Louis development has not plummeted and the city is not in dire straits.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article misstated the total value of issued permits from January through August 2025. The value is $953 million not $955 million.
