Motivated Municipal Partners

Cities and villages across Madison County are actively seeking quality development. Our relationships with elected officials, planning boards, and economic development commissions mean your project gets a real hearing — not a bureaucratic runaround.

Available TIF Financing

Multiple municipalities in Madison County have active or eligible TIF districts. That means future tax increment from your development can be redirected to finance the infrastructure and public improvements that make your project viable — before a single shovel hits the ground.

Strategic Location

Direct access to I-55, I-70, I-270, and the Mississippi River. Minutes from downtown St. Louis. A growing residential population actively seeking retail, dining, and entertainment options. The demand is real and the infrastructure is already in place.

Contractor Network Ready

We have deep-seated relationships with local contractors, subcontractors, and trades throughout the greater St. Louis region. You won't spend months sourcing a build team — we can help you staff a project from the ground up.

Streamlined Approvals

With a team that has sat on both sides of the planning and zoning table, we know how to prepare submissions that move. We anticipate objections, address them early, and keep your timeline from getting bogged down in avoidable delays.

Financial Structuring Expertise

From pro forma modeling to lender presentations to redevelopment agreements, our CPA-backed financial team ensures your numbers are airtight and your financing strategy is optimized for the incentives available in Illinois.

A District Is Established

A TIF district is created around a defined project area. The current assessed property value becomes the "base." All taxing bodies — schools, fire, county — continue receiving taxes on that base amount.

Development Increases Value

Your project is built. Property values rise. The tax revenue generated above the original base — the "increment" — is captured by the TIF fund rather than distributed to taxing bodies.

Increment Funds Your Project

That captured increment is used to reimburse eligible project costs — infrastructure, site prep, public improvements. It reduces your out-of-pocket capital requirements and improves overall project returns.

District Expires, Everyone Wins

When the TIF district expires (typically 23 years in Illinois), the full increased tax base is released to all taxing bodies. The community gets permanent, higher tax revenue — on a property that may have sat vacant without the development.

We are not just consultants who hand you a report and walk away. We stay embedded in your project — from the first site evaluation through the ribbon cutting — handling the municipal relationships, financial structuring, regulatory navigation, and contractor coordination that determine whether a development actually gets built.

Our team has sat on both sides of the table: as developers, as municipal commissioners, as CPAs, and as economic development professionals. That means we anticipate problems before they arise — and we know which ones to take seriously.

Missouri Senate Bill 870 is one of the most important — and least utilized — protections available to fire districts in TIF agreements. When properly applied, it ensures that fire district revenue is not frozen or diverted for the life of a TIF district, preserving the funding that fire departments depend on to serve growing communities.

The catch? The protection only applies if the language is correctly written into the redevelopment agreement before it's signed. Once an agreement is executed without it, the protection is gone — often for 20+ years.

Jim Carver, our Principal for Economic Development, is one of a small number of practitioners in the region who specializes in SB 870 language. He has successfully incorporated these protections into TIF agreements across Missouri — and he reviews every agreement our firm touches for compliance.

Agreement Review & Redlining

Before your governing body votes on a development agreement, TIF plan, or enterprise zone designation, we review every term — identifying provisions that reduce your revenue, limit your future flexibility, or expose you to legal risk.

Revenue Impact Modeling

We model the 10-, 20-, and 30-year revenue impact of proposed abatements — so your board understands not just the immediate concession, but the full lifetime cost and the projected recovery when the abatement expires.

Negotiation Representation

Developers have professional negotiators. You should too. We represent taxing districts in developer negotiations — ensuring that abatements are time-limited, performance-based, and include clawback provisions that protect the public interest.

Municipal Use Tax Recovery

Hundreds of Missouri municipalities have uncaptured local use taxes sitting in state escrow — revenue they're entitled to but haven't activated. We identify, recover, and help municipalities properly activate these funds, creating new ongoing revenue streams.

TIF Reporting & Compliance

Once a TIF district is established, annual reporting, increment calculations, and legislative compliance don't stop. We provide ongoing administration for taxing bodies — keeping you compliant and informed about the performance of every active district.

Enterprise Zone & Business District Review

Enterprise zones and business districts can be powerful economic tools — or they can deliver revenue concessions with no accountability. We evaluate designation applications on behalf of taxing bodies and ensure that public benefits are clearly defined and enforceable.