Clayton City Council — March 10: A downtown redevelopment advances, and a new fall festival
The board advanced the 121 South Meramec redevelopment with a plat, a parking lease, and a $60M bond first reading, booked the Sababa festival, and awarded park and stormwater contracts.
What happened
The Clayton Board of Aldermen met on Tuesday, March 10, with all six members and Mayor Bridget McAndrew present; every roll-call vote of the night passed unanimously. The dominant theme was the redevelopment of two downtown lots at 111 and 121 South Meramec Avenue, where the board approved a subdivision plat, a parking lease, and a modified parking ratio and gave a first reading to industrial revenue bonds for the project. The board also booked a new fall festival, adopted a Bird City resolution, approved salary-range adjustments, and awarded three park and stormwater contracts.
What the board decided
The council approved its consent agenda on a unanimous roll call; staff noted at the meeting that this included a liquor license for a new Missouri Athletic Club. It adopted a resolution supporting a Bird City designation for Clayton (Resolution No. 2026-02), an effort the Mayor's Youth Advisory Committee students had worked on with the Sustainability Committee.
After a public hearing, the board approved a major subdivision plat adjusting the boundary of two M-3 mixed-use lots and relocating a city alley at 111 and 121 South Meramec Avenue, adopting it as Ordinance No. 6994 — a step the Plan Commission had recommended on February 2. The developer, named in the minutes as Clayton City Ventures, LLC, plans to renovate the 121 South Meramec office building into roughly 118 residential apartments with ground-floor commercial space.
The board introduced, on a first reading, an ordinance authorizing taxable industrial revenue bonds for the 121 South Meramec project, requested by School Lot Development, LLC. The minutes record the ceiling:
The City is authorized to issue Taxable Industrial Revenue Bonds in a principal amount not to exceed $60,000,000.— March 10, 2026 — Meeting Minutes [#q1f53b846]
In return, the minutes state, the company would enter a performance agreement to make payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) to the city, with the bonds payable solely from project revenues and not from taxation.
The board separately approved the project's parking arrangements. It adopted an ordinance approving a parking lease with Clayton City Ventures, LLC, a memorandum resolving a lapsed prior lease with Revive Capital Development, LLC, and a loading-dock use agreement for 121 South Meramec — Ordinance No. 6996, and a resolution setting a modified parking ratio for the development (Resolution No. 2026-03).
The board authorized a production agreement with Contemporary Productions to bring the Sababa Jewish Arts & Culture Festival to Clayton, adopting it as Ordinance No. 6995. The ordinance passed on a unanimous roll call.
The board adopted an ordinance approving fiscal-year 2026 salary-range adjustments for the city's non-represented (non-union) employees — Ordinance No. 6997. It then awarded two contracts to Byrne & Jones Sports Construction: a lighting-replacement project at Oak Knoll Park, adopted as Ordinance No. 6998, and a pool-grates replacement at the Shaw Park Aquatic Center, adopted as Ordinance No. 6999.
The board also approved a task order to Oates Associates, Inc. for engineering design on three recurrent stormwater-flooding sites — Wydown Boulevard, Francis Place, and West Polo Drive — adopted as Ordinance No. 7000. The minutes record the funding source:
A total of $359,500.00 was approved by MSD for the Wydown Boulevard, Francis Place, and West Polo Drive stormwater issues.— March 10, 2026 — Meeting Minutes [#qba809e28]
That Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District approval included an estimated $46,889.81 in design fees.
Who was there
The minutes record that the board met with all six members and Mayor Bridget McAndrew present.
What they debated
At the public hearing on the subdivision plat, the chair asked for questions from the board and the audience and, seeing none, closed it before the vote.
The bond ordinance had only its first reading on March 10; in the debate an alderman noted the meeting would hold the ordinance over for a second reading and passage at the next session, and framed the reuse of an existing building as the reason to support it:
the things that make this easy to say yes to are that we're reusing an existing building— March 10, 2026 — Meeting Transcript [#q0935b962]
In presenting the parking math, staff said the structure would hold 118 apartments and 96 on-site spaces, but that the applicant would conservatively assume 80 on-site spaces and lease another 80 in the city's Brentwood Garage, for 160 total; the lease, an alderman was told, would run at the prevailing market rate until 2075.
Staff described the Sababa festival at the meeting as a day-long regional event of food, art, and live entertainment, held on the third weekend in October and expected to draw between 2,500 and 4,000 guests.
On the salary ordinance, staff said the compensation system targets the 85th percentile of comparator cities. On the lighting bill, the board caught that the ordinance's title mistakenly referenced a tennis center rather than Oak Knoll Park, a scrivener's error to be corrected on execution.
Staff told the board at the meeting that it expects MSD to reimburse essentially the full cost of the work through its OMCI program.
Also at the meeting
- Parks Superintendent Justin Whipple addressed the board to answer questions on the Oak Knoll Park lighting project.
- In end-of-meeting reports, members noted the first Citizen Finance Committee meeting and a second Economic Development Committee meeting, a Clayton Community Foundation Wydown restoration meeting and the related engineer-selection process, and the Shaw Park renovation's design phase pending FEMA funding.
Public comments
The certified minutes record no speakers during the meeting's open forum — the open-forum item reads "None." The transcript corroborates this: at the start of the meeting the mayor opened the floor to anything not on the agenda and, seeing no one in the audience and no online hands, moved to the first agenda item.