Ballwin, Missouri

Unlike many of our neighbors, we’re a full-service community. We do not contract out to other agencies. With the exception of trash collection, water and sewer, we do it all with our own employees.” Ballwin offers a wide range of recreational opportunities for all ages, including a 64,000-sq.- ft., indoor community center with a pool, a fairly new outdoor aquatic facility, and a nine-hole golf course that is one of the best public courses in the region. The city takes care of its own policing, public works, parks & recreation, essentially going above and beyond to make the community safe and offer a high quality of life. And it has received numerous awards recognizing those initiatives. Another unique attribute is the tax base. Ballwin has roughly 500 businesses, mostly of a smaller variety. Kuntz clarifies, “We are not, strictly, a bedroom community. We are on a major east- west thoroughfare that connects the city of St. Louis out to Jefferson City in the west, so our commercial corridor carries a lot of heavy lifting. In fact, the residential component supports our retail sector so successfully that, since 1987, the city of Ballwin has been able to roll back to zero our local property tax. So, the city itself relies on no local property tax. About 50 percent of our budget is reliant upon the retail sector, but it’s not of a magnitude you would expect of a large urban downtown area. We have many mom- and-pop operations, and also a lot of name- brand entities here, such as Target, Lowes, and Starbucks, so citizens don’t have to leave the community for them.” What is challenging for Ballwin in the evolving retail environment of brick and mortar vs. ecommerce is to retain its uniqueness, so people will continue to shop local rather than online. The focus is to create additional awareness about opportunities for redevelopment. Retail stores such as Hobby Lobby and Old Navy have chosen to relocate from a larger space, elsewhere, to a smaller space in Ballwin. And