A “game changer” retail and resident development targeted for 306 acres off Frank Scott Parkway near Swansea could be worth up to half a billion dollars.
Swansea leaders have approved a pre-annexation agreement and a feasibility study for up to $58.47 million in tax incentives including a proposed TIF district and a business district with a 1% sales tax earmarked for Triple Lakes Farm LLC.
The company wants to build stores, restaurants, apartments, villas, duplexes and single-family homes on vacant land in the northwest corner of the intersection of Frank Scott Parkway and Union Hill Road/Sullivan Drive in unincorporated St. Clair County.
“They’re talking about having a $400 to $500 million development,” Mayor Mike Leopold said after a board meeting Monday night. “It’s one of the biggest developments that Swansea will ever get.”
Chris Byron, an Edwardsville attorney representing the developers, described the Triple Lakes project as “a game changer for the village of Swansea.”
Leopold told the audience in a standing room-only board room in Village Hall that Swansea could realize $1 million in sales tax revenue and other revenue annually from the site.
The exact number and layout of homes and apartments as well as the number and names of the businesses interested in locating at site have not been released. However, the first phase is expected to be the retail area, which would be nearest to where Frank Scott Parkway intersects with Union Hill Road/Sullivan Drive. The developer still has to present detailed plans to the village’s Planning and Zoning Board.
“We’re hoping that somewhere down the road, Swansea’s income from this from the taxes and everything else, we’re hoping it’s going to push a million dollars a year,” Leopold said.
“That’s further down the road mind you, that’s not the first several years.”
Leopold, who did not seek reelection on April 1 and will be replaced by Trustee Jeff Parker, who won the mayoral election, said it may be 10 to 15 years before the site is completely developed.
“Somewhere down the road, this will generate a lot of revenue for the village of Swansea and we don’t have a lot of things in Swansea that generate sales tax revenue,” Leopold said.
“We want sales tax revenue. That’s what we live off.”
Regarding Swansea’s revenue from the Triple Lakes Farm site, Village Administrator Ben Schloesser said, “It will significantly change the face of our revenues moving forward and help the village maintain low property taxes by supplementing with retail sales tax.”
Schloesser also noted that the tax incentives will not be paid up front to the developer.
“They’re only going to be incentivized through revenues that are produced through their development,” he said.
Triple Lakes project developer
The developer is Triple Lakes Farm LLC, which has filed reports with the Illinois Secretary of State. The registered agent for Triple Lakes Farm is Lindsey Keller Janssen, 435 Bluff Road in Collinsville, which also is the address for Keller Farms Inc.
Janssen could not be reached for comment.
Byron said Keller Farms is not the developer of the Triple Lakes Farm project but the company is one of its investors.
Keller Farms is known for producing horseradish as well as sweet corn, soybeans, field corn and wheat on over 5,000 acres, according to the company’s website.
The family-owned company’s website states, “We take great pride in our 5-generation record of outstanding crop production and we hope to continue the legacy for decades to come.” Keller Farms traces its roots to 1887 when Ferdinand Keller immigrated to the United States from Europe.
Tax incentives
Along with the pre-annexation agreement, Swansea leaders on Monday approved a 30-year redevelopment agreement and an agreement to extend sewer lines to the site.
They also voted to commission a feasibility study to create a TIF district for the site and a special business district where a 1% sales tax would be collected from businesses. This revenue would be made available to the developer to pay for infrastructure costs.
In the proposed tax increment financing, or TIF, district, 70% of the money collected in the district would be given to the developers.
In a TIF district, property values are frozen at the level when the district is created. Any additional revenue generated by a rise in property values is channeled into a special fund earmarked for infrastructure improvements and economic incentives in the district.
The tax “increment” is the “difference between the amount of property tax revenue generated before TIF district designation and the amount of property tax revenue generated after TIF designation,” according to the Illinois Municipal League.
In the proposed business district, the developer would get 100% of the funds collected with the 1% sales tax imposed on businesses.
Both the TIF district and business district would be in effect for 23 years.
St. Louis-based PGAV Planners will be paid $39,500 to conduct the feasibility study.
The Swansea Village Board also approved a “recapture” agreement to cover the sewer installation project. Under this plan, the village will extend sewers to the site for a cost of $3.4 million, but the money would be “recaptured” because the developer would be required to pay the village back with tax incentive money.
“The developer doesn’t get a penny” until the $3.4 million sewer cost is fully reimbursed, Byron said.
The sewer extension will be the first work done on the site and that is expected to start after the formal annexation process is completed in the next few months.
The tax incentives worth up to $58.47 million are known as “estimated redevelopment expenses” in the redevelopment agreement. Schloesser described the following list as a “framework” of costs that could be reimbursed to the developer:
- Sewer force main and lift station: $3.4 million
- Turn lane off Frank Scott Parkway: $400,000
- Four-way intersection with lights off Frank Scott Parkway: $3 million
- 12-acre development: gas, car wash, convenience store, coffee shop: $3.6 million
- 56-acre development: commercial, retail, grocery: $11.2 million
- 33-acre multi-family residential development: $9.9 million
- 205-acre single-family residential development: $9.22 million
- Inflation over 23-year period: $12.97 million
- Interest: $4.77 million
Trustee Rocky McDonald, who did not win reelection to the board on April 1, cast the lone “no” vote on the tax incentives. He said that while he supports the project and welcomes the developers to Swansea, he opposes granting tax incentives for residential development and noted the village hasn’t given TIF aid to other companies that have built apartments.
Parker and trustees Matt Lanter, Cary Lewis V and Brian Thouvenot voted for the tax incentive plan.
Concern from residents
Alexa Edwards, who is McDonald’s sister, gave the trustees a printout of her questions about the project, including whether the site is undermined.
Schloesser said after the meeting he doesn’t know whether the developers have information about undermining on the site.
Both Edwards and Schloesser acknowledged that businesses and homeowners in Swansea and elsewhere in the Metro East have had to deal with undermining issues.
The McDonald family owns 37.5 acres adjacent to the north side of the Triple Lakes site. McDonald abstained from voting on the sewer extension project because the sewer line could affect his family land.
One resident asked if a stoplight would be installed at the intersection of Llewllyn Road and Frank Scott Parkway because of the volume of traffic on the two streets. Schloesser said the Triple Lakes project doesn’t include a stoplight at this intersection and it would be up to St. Clair County to decide whether a light should be installed there.
Another resident asked if he would have access to his farmland located near the Triple Lakes site and he was told that he should still be able to get to his land.
Village officials reported that the village’s sewer system has the capacity to handle an extension to the Triple Lakes development.
Leopold told the audience that if Swansea doesn’t annex this site and gain the tax benefits of it, the developers would seek to be annexed by Fairview Heights.
“Just so we’re all on the same page, this project will be developed in that particular 300 acres,” he said, regardless of whether it’s in Swansea or Fairview Heights.
He urged support for the Swansea plan because then village officials could better deal with concerns Swansea residents have about the project.
Editor's note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat. Mike Koziatek is a reporter and editor for the BND, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
