Paul McKee testified at a trial in May 2018 related to St. Louis’s use of eminent domain on the Buster Brown building that “there’s no process for paying it back, but I’m more than happy to sit down with the state” to discuss the credits issued in that deal.

In another transaction flagged by the attorney general’s team, NorthSide said it purchased a property on Madison Street in December 2012 for $275,000. But in July 2016, the St. Louis Circuit Court awarded $180,732 to the original seller of the property in an eminent domain proceeding, not NorthSide.

In a statement, NorthSide attorney Paul Puricelli said the payment represents “statutory fines relating to the failure to meet technical reporting requirements, the reimbursement of the state’s litigation costs and expenses and the amount that (NorthSide) would have been required to spend to vindicate itself of all claims in what was expected to be prolonged and expensive litigation.”

“With this matter’s resolution, (NorthSide) looks forward to focusing all of its attention to building on the success it has achieved in North St. Louis, with the relocation of the NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) facility and its 3,100 jobs, and the recent opening of the GreenLeaf Market/Zoom C-store project creating 72 new jobs,” the statement concluded.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that the Attorney General's office doesn't believe the total damages could not total $7.1 million because the counts in the lawsuit were filed separately.

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