A group that advocates for more recreational spaces in the St. Louis area has sued over the planned sale of a downtown park.
The Open Space Council for the St. Louis Region filed its legal challenge on Tuesday. It asks a judge to halt the sale and force a vote in April as required by the city charter.
In October, the Board of Aldermen voted to sell a portion of Interco Plaza to a development group organized in part by Square co-founder Jim McKelvey. The company had previously redeveloped the former headquarters of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which sits just south of the plaza on Tucker Boulevard.
The city’s website includes Interco Plaza, which is a .71-acre plot of land with sidewalks, benches and some green space, on its list of St. Louis parks. And the lawsuit argues that the city has held it out as a space for recreation or beautification since it opened in 1981.
Because of that, the council argues, it falls under a 2007 charter amendment that requires a public vote when the city wants to sell park land. There is no official definition of “park” in either the city charter or its code.
The city argues that the Board of Aldermen never officially designated the plaza as a park by ordinance.
