Mayor Dan Hurt cast the deciding vote Monday night to force Drury Development's Chesterfield Valley properties into the Downtown Chesterfield Special Business District, overriding objections from the longtime hotel operator who told the council his company just wants to be left alone.

The 4-4 council tie forced Hurt to break the deadlock. The expansion adds four parcels to the SBD: the Drury Plaza Hotel at 355 Chesterfield Center East, the Hyatt Place Hotel at 333 Chesterfield Center East, Bishop's Post and the RedKey building at 16123 Chesterfield Parkway West, and the former theater parcel at 595 Chesterfield Center.

The district, created in 2025 to fund services at the $2 billion Downtown Chesterfield redevelopment of the former mall site, can levy up to $0.85 per $100 of assessed value. It is not currently collecting taxes. If the district begins collecting, assessments for the first five years through 2030 are based on land value only; after that, improvements count too. Construction is already underway at the 80-acre site, where utility work and grading began in late 2025. The full buildout calls for 2,363 residential units, 605,000 square feet of retail, and more than 1 million square feet of office space.

Tim Drury, president of Drury Development Corporation, told the council he only learned about the possible expansion in late April. He characterized the additional tax burden as costing his company millions.

"All we want is to be left alone," Drury said. "When you put us in the district, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage."

Before casting his vote, Hurt called Drury a "good corporate citizen for decades" but sided with the expansion.

Mark Kohl, Drury Development's senior vice president of development, told the council that 75% of properties proposed for expansion oppose inclusion and that all of those opposed are third parties unaffiliated with the mall redevelopment. He argued that The Staenberg Group's parcel ownership structure gives TSG majority control of votes in the property-owner election that must follow the council's action.

Ward III Councilmember Lane Koch, who voted against the expansion, echoed that concern at the meeting: "What we're voting on seems ridiculous to me. It is impossible for this to go any other way."

TSG senior vice president Tim Lowe countered that the SBD is city-controlled, not developer-controlled, and that the city sets the tax rate annually through a public process.

The council vote does not itself impose a tax. It authorizes the next step: an election among property owners within the expanded district. No date has been set. The city attorney said at the meeting that TSG's ownership structure would give the developer majority control in that election.