ST. LOUIS—On the same day as provisions of a voter-approved ballot measure expanding access to paid sick leave took effect, Missouri’s House Speaker told reporters Thursday that legislation reforming the measure would take priority over a bipartisan bill that would provide tax credits to developers looking to create housing and mixed-used developments out of office buildings in St. Louis and elsewhere.

“For me, Prop A has to be addressed before we do anything like that,” Speaker Jon Patterson said. There’s really no point in trying to attract businesses when you’re telling them with Prop A that it’s going to be very difficult for you…you have these sick leave provisions that can lead to criminal penalties. I think you are doing things that are working against each other, so I don’t see a point in doing one without making sure that Prop A is addressed.”

Proposition A raised the minimum wage beginning Jan. 1 with future raises to $15 by 2026, and as of May 1, allows workers to start earning paid sick leave depending on the amount of business receipts or the number of employees at a business. A House bill repealing the sick leave requirements entirely passed out of the chamber but has languished in the Senate where at least two days of extensive Democratic filibusters and bipartisan negotiations have failed to reach a compromise.

Senate Bill 35, which now sits in the house, establishes the “Revitalizing Missouri Downtowns and Main Streets Act, and is seen as a way to jumpstart redevelopment of office buildings in downtown St. Louis and elsewhere which are vacant and in cases like the Railway Exchange building, have become eyesores.

The bill would allow for tax credits up to 30% and as much as $50 million annually in exchange for converting the buildings into residential uses along with retail or other commercial uses.

It’s unclear how a holdup of the bill would impact the proposed redevelopment of the former AT&T tower in downtown St. Louis. The managing partner of a Boston firm behind the effort recently testified that the project could not move forward without it, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Goldman Group could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Steve Roberts, D-St. Louis, called the AT&T project “a massive undertaking” and said not having the incentives “makes the project more difficult.”

With just two working weeks left in the General Assembly, time and other priorities become a factor.

Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin said Thursday that in addition to getting the state budget done by the required date of next Friday, her main goals are fixes for Proposition A and passage of a measure that would send an abortion question back to voters after they approved a rollback of the state’s near-total ban in November.

“I believe we will get done everything that we need to get done in a timely fashion. When the budget’s ready we’ll go to that and when we come to a decision on Prop A we’ll get to that.