by Michael R. Allen
Blue Shutters Development has ambitious plans for the Hyde Park neighborhood. Eventually, the developers would like to rehabilitate dozens of historic buildings in the neighborhood, including the damaged Nord St. Louis Turnverein on Salisbury Avenue. So far, the firm’s efforts have been concentrated on the 2000 block of Mallinckrodt Street. Two homes, shown here, have been fully rehabilitated and offered for sale at market rate.
The house on the right is a great project because it’s the type of house many developers would write off — it’s frame, it’s small and it has a limited return on investment. Blue Shutters and its principal Peter George deserve credit for preserving it early on.
This work would be impossible without the state’s historic rehabilitation tax credit. Relatively small projects like these would have a tough time competing for credits if there was a blanket cap on the program.
Hyde Park often seems like a world of bad news, but a few projects lately have slowly shifted the balance. Let there be more.