Bond sale to fund business incubator
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
April 14, 2010
St. Louis County sold nearly $7.1 million in bonds on Tuesday to add a small business incubator in Creve Coeur and to renovate its current ones. Slightly more than $5 million in bonds, along with $2.4 million in federal money, would go for a new incubator to provide lower-cost office and wet and dry laboratories for companies that are just starting and need bare-bones space. As the companies grow, they would move to incubators that provide more services and eventually would leave to stand entirely on their own. The county would use $2 million to upgrade current incubators. The county sold the bonds in two series roughly half in tax-exempt bonds and the remainder in Build America taxable bonds with a federal interest subsidy. The effective combined interest rate is 3.63 percent. The county would use $500,000 a year in revenue from River City Casino in Lemay to retire the 20-year bonds. Hutchinson, Shockey, Erley & Co. of Chicago was the successful bidder among two for the tax-exempt bonds and Wells Fargo Advisors was the successful bidder among three for the Build America bonds.
