Author: Michael R. Allen

Categories
Downtown

Mayor’s Office: Area Around Cupples Station Building 7 to be Restricted

From Kara Bowlin, Press Secretary, Office of the Mayor

Starting Tuesday, access to the area around 11th and Spruce Downtown will be limited because portions of the historic Cupples 7 building have become structurally unsound. The City will restrict access to the building to make sure no one gets hurt.

City engineers have determined that the building is unstable enough that the City will close 11th Street from Spruce to Poplar and half a block of Spruce east of 11th Street on Tuesday after the morning rush.

Cupples 7 was built in 1907. The City routinely inspects it and has repeatedly cited the owner because of its deteriorating condition. Severe damage to the building’s roof has exposed the interior of the building to the elements. But, representatives from Ballpark Lofts III LLC, the building’s owner, say it does not have enough money to make the needed repairs to shore up the building. So far, no one has stepped forward with enough money and a plan to protect the structure.

“Building inspectors regularly inspect the building,” said Building Commissioner Frank Oswald. “It’s our job to protect our City’s residents and visitors from unsafe buildings. Unfortunately, we no longer feel confident in this building’s structural integrity. To the untrained eye, the building seems stable at the street level – but years of a severely damaged roof have taken a toll on its stability.”

Cupples 7 is one of nine Cupples buildings. It is one of only two Cupples buildings that has not yet been renovated – and is the only Cupples building without a renovation plan in place.

Any proposed repair or demolition of this building, a designated City Landmark and in a National Register Historic District, will be subject to review by the Cultural Resources Office.

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Categories
Lewis Place North St. Louis

Scenes From the Lewis Place Festival

This year’s Lewis Place Festival took place on Saturday, September 17, and commemorated the community’s perseverance against the tornado damage that struck on New Year’s Eve last year. The Festival is sponsored by Lewis Place Historical Preservation, one of the city’s most committed neighborhood organizations.

This year, Lewis Place Historical Preservation gave out Distinguished Service awards to Centennial Christian Church, Alderman Terry Kennedy (D-18th), Preservation Research Office Director Michael Allen, Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Missouri and Nile Trice for their efforts to help Lewis Place secure funding and assistance to deal with the tornado. Nile Trice’s efforts deserve special commendation; the 13-year-old raised $1,600 for tornado relief at her birthday party and plans to use her birthday parties as fundraisers for worth causes for years to come. We were honored to be part of efforts that include this inspiring young lady.

Ngoma in Motion opened the festivities.
The Centennial Christian Church Choir performing "Lift Every Voice and Sing."
Bungalows on the 4700 block of Lewis Place.
Food, drink and entertainment were abundant at this year's festival.
Categories
Chicago

The Chicago School of Architecture in Less Than 90 Seconds

by Michael R. Allen

I found this neat little video in which inimitable Tim Samuelson explains the design principles of the Chicago School in under 90 seconds, using Chicago’s Marquette Building (1895, Holabird & Roche) as an example.

The video is part of a series produced by the MacArthur Foundation in 2009 that celebrate the restoration of the Marquette Building — work that included reconstruction of the lost cornice. Watch the videos here.

Categories
Adaptive Reuse Mid-Century Modern Midtown

Saucer Saved!

by Lindsey Derrington

Despite the rain and cold, a small group of students, news outlets, and supporters — including the building’s original architect, Richard Henmi — gathered at the former Del Taco saucer this afternoon to hear current plans for the building from developer Rick Yackey and Alderwoman Marlene Davis. The news was good – with the help of Klitzing Welsh Associates, an architectural firm specializing in historic rehabilitation (including the mid-century modern Washington Avenue Apartments at Tucker and Washington), Yackey will restore the saucer back to its historic 1967 appearance to accommodate two national tenants.

While reluctant to state which ones, the developer said he is in negotiation with chains of a far “higher caliber” than the building’s former occupant, but which would include “food and coffee” amongst their offerings. Simple renderings showed the saucer’s original rounded storefront restored in place of the current drive-thru to expand the interior to 4,800 square feet. Yackey also plans to rework the surrounding, which will hopefully include improving access from Grand Avenue and Forest Park Boulevard. And while the renderings failed to show outdoor seating beneath the saucer’s cantilevered roof, he said that a patio is definitely part of the plan.

Yackey is seeking Missouri historic rehabilitation tax credits for the project so all renovation plans will go through the State Historic Preservation Office. This means the building will be in good hands, and that all alterations made to its exterior will be in keeping with its historic appearance. These will surely include the now painted-over clerestory windows wrapping around the saucer’s rear which are not reflected in current renderings. Apart from this temporary oversight, we can hope to see a restored and fully occupied saucer next year — ideally, according to Yackey, by March 2012 when the new Grand Avenue bridge is set to open.

South elevation drawing by Schwarz & Van Hoefen, 1966.

When asked, architect Richard Henmi, who designed the saucer in the mid-1960s while an associate with the firm of Schwarz & Van Hoefen, replied, “I think it’s good. I like it. It pretty much keeps the original intent of the building.” In light of renderings which essentially show the saucer returned to the same striking design he envisioned almost fifty years ago, there wasn’t much more for him to say. But hopefully, come next year, we’ll all being saying much more than that as we’re riding our bikes, walking our dogs, and strolling our kids to have lunch and cup of coffee at the coolest mid-century modern patio this side of the Mississippi. And for St. Louis, that’s saying a lot.

Categories
South St. Louis Southampton Theaters

Avalon Theater: Price Reduced

The Avalon as it appeared in August 2009.

The listing price for the Art Deco Avalon Theater at 4225 S. Kingshighway has dropped to $249,900. View the listing here.

Suffering from deterioration since closing in 1999, the 647-seat Avalon is one of the city’s few remaining neighborhood single-screen theaters and part of our early modern past. The Avalon was built in 1937 and designed by A.F. and Arthur Stauder, a prolific father-and-son firm that designed many modern churches in St. Louis (St. Gabriel the Archangel, St. Nicholas).

Categories
Mid-Century Modern Midtown

Flying Saucer Announcement Wednesday

by Michael R. Allen

We are getting closer to knowing what the flying saucer will look like in its new life. On Wednesday, September 14 at 6:00 p.m., in front of the beloved building itself, at 212 S. Grand Boulevard, developer Rick Yackey will hold a press conference. Yackey is expected unveil the awaited renderings of what the former rehabilitated Phillips 66 gas station at Council Plaza will look like in its new life as a retail building.

We can expect an adaptive reuse plan that includes an addition to the building that adds enough space to create two spaces for tenants. Perhaps we will even get a slice of information about the new tenants. Hopefully the plan includes making the corner of Forest Park Boulevard and Grand Avenue, which lacks sidewalks at its intersection, more pedestrian friendly and safer for residents of Council Plaza to use.

At the least, we will see the concept for reviving one of the city’s most beloved mid-century landmarks. Rick Yackey has embraced one of the region’s largest preservation upswells in recent years. A renewed flying saucer not only will provide an example of successful adaptation of a difficult purpose-built building, but testament to the power of public engagement of the built environment.

Categories
Clearance Infrastructure JNEM PRO Collection Riverfront South St. Louis Urban Renewal Era

Photographing the Changing Face of St. Louis

by Christina Carlson

I recently had the opportunity to digitize several photographs for the Preservation Research Office spanning from the 1930s to the 1980s. The photos consisted primarily of pictures of historic buildings and other structures in St. Louis, but also included were snapshots of parades, fairs and local people. Although many of the photos were of great interest– revealing buildings, people and spaces now forgotten — a few in particular caught my attention.

The Old Cathedral amid riverfront clearance around 1942. Photographer unknown.

At first glance this snapshot appeared to me as nothing out of the ordinary, simply another picture of the substantial efforts at demolition which took place in mid-century St. Louis. However, on a second look I recognized the iconic nature of this photo. The church in the center of frame is The Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, which sits adjacent to the Gateway Arch ground. I realized that this image captures the moment of destruction for a large swath of the riverfront area which began in 1939 and ended by 1961. Despite the conjecture of many who saw the riverfront area as a vital, ethnically and cultural diverse area, demolition of some of the oldest buildings in St. Louis was approved in 1939. In a twist of irony, much of the Eastern portion of the city was destructed to make way for a memorial to Westward expansion.[1]

Construction of the ramps connecting Interstate 44 to Interstate 55, circa 1964. The City Hospital is in the background. Photographer unknown.

Another photo I noted was one on the opposite end of the spectrum, as it portrayed the construction of the lanes of Interstate 44 where it merges into Interstate 55 south of downtown St. Louis. This image evokes a different moment in the city’s history, one in which it suddenly became much easier for those in the rapidly expanding suburbs to reach downtown, and to leave it. Although the history of suburban development in the post-war years is well known, the story in St. Louis was particularly evident. As the population shifted outward, many buildings within the city were demolished, leaving in their wake parking spaces and empty lots.

Side by side, these two images powerfully convey prominent themes in the history of St. Louis: the destruction of older, more diverse districts and the construction of vast networks of suburbs, supported by the presence of major freeways bypassing downtown. Although there are a variety of themes present in the photographs I digitized – family ties, segregation, religion, wealth, poverty – none were so prevalent as the drastic restructuring of the face of the urban landscape in St. Louis in the middle of the twentieth century.

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Categories
Events Southwest Garden

Tomorrow: Southwest Garden Architectural Tour By Bike

Gurney Court in Southwest Garden

Thursday, September 8 from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Meet at 4950 Southwest Avenue

Southwest Garden hosts an Architecture Tour by Bike this week, Thursday, Sept. 8, 6 pm – 7:30 pm, led by Harold Karabell. Registration will begin at 5:30. Learn more about the eclectic architecture in the Southwest Garden Neighborhood. Meet at 4950 Southwest Avenue. Wear a helmet. The tour group will travel at a leisurely pace. You can register for the event on Facebook. A donation per rider is appreciated.

Categories
Historic Preservation James Clemens House Northside Regeneration St. Louis Place

Clemens House Update

by Michael R. Allen

Readers are always asking what is the status of the James Clemens, Jr. House complex, which includes the mansion designed by Patrick Walsh (1860), a dormitory addition (1887) and the chapel wing by Aloysius Gillick (1896). The complex has been owned by Northside Regeneration LLC or its predecessors since 2005, and two years ago was the site where Mayor Francis Slay signed into law the master redevelopment agreement for Northside Regeneration.

Northside Regeneration had partnered with experienced historic rehabilitation developer Robert Wood Realty to redevelop the Clemens House as senior citizen apartments with a small museum component. However, on January 1, the developers failed to make their deadline for selling tax-exempt low-income housing development bonds authorized by the Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC). The developers told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that other options for the historic buildings would be explored as well as re-application to MHDC.

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Categories
Missouri Public Policy

Smart Changes for the Historic Tax Credit Program

From Deb Sheals, Public Policy Committee Chair, Missouri Preservation

As most of you probably know by now, the Governor has called a special session of the legislature, to begin on September 6th. The centerpiece of the special session is a massive Economic Development bill that will impact almost all existing tax credit programs, including Historic.

The proposed legislation will make many changes to the HTC program, including a seven year sunset, elimination of the ability to combine historic and other tax credits, and a first ever cap on annual allocations for small projects. (Up to this point, projects requesting less than $275,000 in tax credits have not been counted against the overall cap, which allowed owners to plan without uncertainty about when development incentives may become available.) The new law would create a separate $10 million cap for small projects.

Capping the small deal exemption would have an arguably minor impact upon redemption totals, but affect many program users. In spite of large numbers of projects, the overall cost for this category is low. In FY2010, small projects made up 72% (159 of 172) of the total number of approved projects, but all of those only accounted for 28% of the dollar amount of credits issued (just over $11 million). This would cut one of the most effective state incentives available for modest redevelopment projects. Smaller developers cannot afford to deal with the funding uncertainty that would come with a new cap.

The bill calls for a complete end (sunset) to the program in seven years. This uncertainty will shut down development many years ahead of that time, since it often take many years to get a redevelopment project underway. Alternate language calling for a regular review of the program offers a much more reasonable way to handle this issue.

Other troubling proposals include eliminating the ability to use Historic and Low Income credits in the same project (stacking). This change would be especially damaging to efforts to reuse important resources such as vacated historic schools, which can be very hard to redevelop, but adapt well to new low-income senior and workforce housing.

The proposal also cuts the overall cap to $80 million per year. Although this is a drastic reduction, it is being paired with administrative changes that are expected to make the program much easier to use, which will soften the blow a bit. It seems prudent to accept a slightly lower cap ($100 million is much more reasonable) as long as that is tied to administrative changes.

Ask your legislator to support the small deal exemption and oppose a sunset.

It will make a difference if they hear from us.

Don’t know your legislator’s name or contact information? Look here.