Categories
Churches North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Pruitt Igoe

St. Stanislaus Kostka: A Preface

by Michael R. Allen

Stewardship has been a watchword of the struggle between St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, located at 1413 N. 20th on the near north side, and the Archdiocese of St. Louis, led by Archbishop Raymond Burke. The lay board of St. Stan’s has asserted their ownership of the parish and its property against the Archdiocese’ claim of ownership. At the heart of the dispute is a conflict over the best way to practice stewardship of the physical and pastoral fabric of the parish. The Archdiocese’s point is that the parish is but a unit of the larger church, and that centralized stewardship balances the interests of the region’s many parishes. The board of St. Stan’s makes the counterargument that localized stewardship of the parish puts both control and responsibility for the future of the parish on the shoulders of those who know it best — its board, pastor and members.

The backdrop is the tumultuous recent history of the DeSoto-Carr neighborhood where St. Stanislaus Kostka has been located since the church was built in 1891. After World War II, most of this neighborhood was cleared for the massive Pruitt-Igoe housing project, which entailed clearance of nearly every building between Jefferson, Cass, 20th and Carr streets save the Roman Catholic churches of St. Bridget on Jefferson and St. Stanislaus Kostka on 20th Street.

St. Stan’s shared an uneasy property line with the housing project. Then came the clearance of the neighborhood across 20th street and the construction of the Vaugh Homes. The old Polish church was surrounded by dull monolithic housing towers. The gentle, humanist architecture of the church and parish buildings was in sharp contrast to the modernist developments around it. Socially, the environment was changed forever. The parish was no longer a group of people who walked to mass, sharing an ethnic identity as well as a neighborhood. Members fled the city, but not the parish. The church survived even as its neighborhood disintegrated, first with the new housing projects and later with the downfall of the same.

By the early 21st century, St. Stan’s had endured so much uncertainty its members could hardly be blamed for a defensive posture. Since 1972, the cleared Pruitt-Igoe site was a desert of scrub trees and dumped debris. At one point in the early 199s, Mayor Freeman Bosley floated a ridiculous scheme to build an 18-hole gold course and large subdivision centered on the Pruitt-Igoe site. The plan could have wiped out St. Stan’s, and at least would have again put its context at risk.

The golf course plan died amid political opposition, though, and a change for the better came to the area around St. Stan’s. Starting in 2002, the Vaughn Homes site had been remade into Murphy Park, a successful and attractive mixed-income development. However, developer Paul J. McKee, Jr. also began buying large amounts of property around the Pruitt-Igoe site, with rumors yet another clearance scheme circulating. In 2004 and 2005, the Archdiocese closed dozens of city parishes.

No wonder many members of St. Stanislaus Kostka vigorously defend their right to hold ownership to the parish. If the entire neighborhood that once composed the parish could be cleared wholesale multiple times, clearance of the church was an easy possibility. If even strong parishes in densely-populated parts of south city could be closed, why not a parish in ravaged north city whose members mostly lived outside of the neighborhood?

No one at St. Stan’s has ever accused the Archdiocese of specifically wanting to sell out the property or close the parish; the issue is more a matter of principle than fear. History set the odds against the parish surviving, and any step toward beating those odds was one worth taking — even defiance of the Archbishop.

Categories
Media North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Two Important Articles on North St. Louis

by Michael R. Allen

Two important articles on north St. Louis went to press this week:

Once again the Riverfront Times‘ Kathleen McLaughlin is a football field ahead of other reporters. In “More North St. Louis Smoke Signals from Paul McKee and McEagle Properties” she not only gets quotes from a McEagle spokesman, she gets this one: “I don’t think there’ve been any decisions made on whether there’s even a project.” This is pivotal information, and unfortunately the RFT buried this story on its blog rather than publish it as a front-pager. Please read it.

In the St. Louis American, Team Four principal William Albinson has a commentary clearing up a lot of the myths surrounding the “Team Four Plan.” Albinson’s conclusion — that the myth is a convenient and polarizing excuse — should resonate with a lot of readers here. Hopefully his words will also provoke readers of the American to rethink the narrative of development in north St. Louis.

Categories
Brick Theft North St. Louis Northside Regeneration St. Louis Place

Brick Rustlers Decimate Wright Street Block

Five years ago, almost every residential unit on the 1900 block of Wright Street in St. Louis Place was occupied. These units were rentals in conditions ranging from good to poor. None of this housing was rehabilitated, but the buildings on the block were in solid condition with average deterioration for their age.

The buildings formed a balanced array of different vernacular styles. On the south side of the street, east of a vacant lot, was a brick-faced, mansard-roofed, three-story former single-family home. That house was vacant. East of that, a side-gabled two-story two-flat. East of there was a row of flats — two stories with attic, side-gabled brick with striking and simple details.


Across the street was a flat-roofed two-flat probably built a little later than its neighbors. (See photgraphs of this side of the block before rustling.) This building had a Romanesque Revival arched window on the first floor and a dentillated tin cornice above terra cotta garlands. To the west was a two-story alley house reconfigured to face Wright Street, probably after the demolition of the house that stood in front of it.

West of that, another house set back — three stories, dormer on the front of the roof, corbeled brick cornice. That house stood next to a few vacant lots. Completing the north street face was a three-story half-flounder two-flat with a front dormer. The house had brick corbels at its cornice, perhaps replacing an earlier wooden cornice. This house was very typical of late 19th century vernacular tenement buildings in the city. It shared a wall with the block’s crown jewel, a three-story row of flats with mansard roofs, cast iron balconies, detailed limestone keystones and decorative brickwork.

The block’s architecture was amazing, yet typical of the stock of the near north side. The conditions of the buildings were likewise typical. The block needed improvement, and the houses rehabilitation, but in many ways the block was doing a lot better than most in the neighborhood.

Then, in 2005, came an investor from St. Charles County. Not Paul McKee, but another notorious large-scale developer named Doug Hartmann. Hartmann bought the ornate row on the north side of the street, relocated the tenants and started rehabbing the building. Then his mortgage scheme caught up with him, work stopped, and the building sat open and empty.

Later that year, the other big developer came to the block. McKee’s holding companies started with the flat-roofed house and evicted the tenants. The holding companies took another 18 months to acquire the rest of the block, save Hartmann’s property and the vacant house. Everyone moved out. A small glimmer of hope emerged when the titles to Hartmann’s properties were cleared and some of his investors acquired the row, but no work resumed. Last spring, illegal dumping started at one of the McKee houses (see my post “Silence is Golden” from May 2007). Then a plague descended on this block and all over St. Louis Place — brick thieves.

Never before had north city seen such a geographically-concentrated amount of brick rustling. Brick rustling is the activity in which unlicensed workers demolish abandoned properties solely to steal the bricks and sell them to brick yards for quick cash. What happened on Wright Street happened on Montgomery, St. Louis, Coleman, Garrison and many other streets in St. Louis Place and Jeff VanderLou. The rustling began in early 2007 and continues to this day. The targets seem to primarily be McKee-owned property. While the buildings are easy opportunities, and many of these buildings had been occupied only recently and thus unavailable for rustling, the timing has prompted much suspicion of a concerted effort on someone’s part.

Earlier this year, the thieves had made their way through most of the buildings. The flat-roofed building and the exquisite row were standing intact until this February, when rustlers hit hard and fast, taking out pivotal front corners. For some reason, the thieves didn’t tackle the alley house. On a vacant block, brick rustling goes undetected. Even when someone sees it happening, chances are good that the person will dismiss the work as legitimate — or simply not care. Those who do need to call 911 at every instance; some reported instances have indeed led to arrests of thieves.

In February, Alderwoman April Ford-Griffin (D-5th) responded to the situation on this block by ordering emergency demolition of all of the buildings, including the alley house. Demolition is nearly complete. Who can blame her? With no hope for the buildings, their condition posed a public safety hazard as well as a sign of neglect. No one wants to live near the spectacle of a group of rustled buildings — it’s a frightening sight, one that drives visitors and homeowners alike to prettier places. The rewards of rustling to the thieves are small and immediate, but the reward to anyone wanting to buy out more residents of St. Louis Place is large and enduring.

The irony is that under the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit, McKee can receive tax credit money for the emergency demolition work that Alderwoman Ford-Griffin ordered, should he pay his bills before applying. Demolition work is reimbursed 100% by the credits. Attractive nuisances, indeed.


Additional coverage is available at St. Louis Patina: “St. Louis Place Blockbusting” (March 8, 2008) and “I Would Have Lived There” (March 6, 2008).

Categories
Events North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Meeting on McKee, North Side Development Tomorrow Night

Someone left this announcement in the comments section:

neigborhood meeting
Sts Teresa & Bridget Church
3636 N Grand
March 12 2008
7pm
Discuss what is happening on the northside and what you/we/I can do about it. This is a call out to all near north side residents. Let your voice be heard. The future is now. All are welcome. See you there. Topics include but are not limited to

Paul McKee
LRA
Team Four
Future Development of the North Side

Alderwoman April Ford-Griffin will be in attendance with information of future devlopment.

Categories
Abandonment Architecture North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Old North

How Not to Board Up a Broken Window

by Michael R. Allen

Here is the entrance to the Fourth Baptist Church at 13th and Sullivan in Old North St. Louis. You can see that someone has broken the window at right, and that someone has very poorly attempted to board over the damage. Hint: If the broken area still shows, you haven’t boarded over the damage.

In August 2007, someone threw a rock at the window and caused the spider-web-like broken lines. Neighbors tried to get the owner, a nearly-defunct congregation, to board up the broken window. I cut my hand taping the damage to stabilize the glass. Several Citizens’ Service Bureau complaints led to the congregation’s finally boarding up the broken glass. Then, this December, the other side of the doorway gets the same treatment — from vandal and owner. Neighbors still haven’t seen a full repair.

The church building itself is an important landmark, and deserves better treatment. The congregation does not have the funds to maintain the building; they vacated in 2002. Meanwhile, the building has become a nuisance to neighbors as the congregation refuses to commit to selling and won’t make even small efforts to stay abreast of vandalism.  Hopefully Fourth Baptist will board up the broken window and sell their church to someone who will invest in the future of the church and the neighborhood.

Categories
DALATC Missouri Legislature Northside Regeneration Public Policy

DED Seeking Comments on Rules for Distressed Areas Tax Credit

Via Pub Def: Draft “Land Assemblage Tax Credit” Application Ready for Comments

Feel free to discuss the rules in the comments section here. I will be posting my analysis in February.

Categories
Demolition JeffVanderLou North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

We’re Losing the Intersection of Glasgow and St. Louis

by Michael R. Allen

The lovely urban setting shown here (in a photograph contributed by Anthony Coffin) will soon not exist. Shown here, looking south, are the northeast and southeast corners of the intersection of Glasgow and St. Louis Avenues in the city’s JeffVanderLou and Lindell Park neighborhoods. The west corners are occupied by historic houses, creating a contrast that is visually arresting without being jarring. The east corners are marked by these commercial buildings — the iconic, turreted flatiron and the imposing three-story stone-faced mass across the street (subject of a July 2007 blog entry of mine).

Adjacent to the three-story storefront building is an elegant stone-faced tenement building with mansard roof. Behind the storefront building is a flat-roofed two-story alley house — a vestige of the neighborhoods’ historic density. The group is a complementary group of particularly refined examples of old-school St. Louis vernacular forms. Across the street, the flatiron building is almost unparalleled among surviving commercial buildings in north St. Louis. Both the shape and the metal-clad turret (with surviving detail!) are singular. While beautiful in itself, the corner building is dramatized by the fact that it bookends a largely intact row of residences. Whoever designed the corner building understood how to finesse the dynamics of its lot shape and location.

Obviously, the corner and the neighborhood have seen better days. Three out of the four corners here are vacant and owned by holding companies controlled by Paul J. McKee, Jr. After McKee bought these buildings, trouble set in. Last year, knowing that the consequences in north city are low, brick rustlers ravaged the alley house and tenement on the southwest corner. Perhaps the bricks went to a larger brick yard just a few blocks away; perhaps they went to the county. We can be sure that the bricks have long left the city and the state, and that the buildings have since suffered partial collapses.

On December 21, the city’s Building Division ordered emergency demolition of the tenement, alley house and storefront at the southeast corner. On December 26, the Building Division ordered demolition of the flatiron and the attached city-owned house to its east. One can see that the tenement was severely damaged and that the alley house was indeed in danger of collapse. But the emergency situation of the two storefront buildings seems to be that they are near the other buildings and the Building Division needs more buildings to demolish.

Sure, the flatiron building has some brick spalling evident, mostly on its St. Louis Avenue elevation where thieves stole decorative brick awhile ago. But where are the public safety issues with it and the other commercial building? Did inspectors go inside of these buildings and find hidden conditions necessitating demolition? Or are we seeing the careless attitude that continues to render north side residents second-class citizens when it comes to historic preservation?

Looking at the details of these fine buildings is heartbreaking. The flatiron’s storefront, with corner entrance to store and punctuating brick arched entrance to the stairs, is odd. The metalwork on the turret shows sharp detail over 100 years after fabrication and painting. The slight height difference between the other commercial building and tenement along with the tenement’s setback accentuates the corner building perfectly. Intact wooden cornice details on this pair draw the eye upward. One could spend hours looking at these buildings — and must do so soon. These photographs date to last week; the alley house is completely gone as of this writing. Your tax dollars are, as they say, at work.

Here are links to the demolition permits:
2845 St. Louis Avenue (flatiron)
2854 St. Louis Avenue (tenement)
2858 St. Louis Avenue (commercial building and alley house)

(All photographs by Anthony Coffin; more here.)

Categories
DALATC Kansas City Missouri Missouri Legislature Northside Regeneration Public Policy

Bill Would Lower Acreage Requirements for Distressed Areas Tax Credit

by Michael R. Allen

Missouri State Senator Yvonne Wilson (D-9th), who represents Kansas City, has filed SB 814, a bill that would decrease the size of a project eligible under Missouri’s Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit (DALATC). Wilson’s bill would set the minimum project size at 40 acres, with an applicant required to own only 30 of those acres. The credit now requires projects to be 75 acres and applicants to own a minimum of 50 acres.

While there are numerous structural flaws with DALATC, and while 40 acres is still a fairly disruptive project size for urban areas, Wilson’s proposal is a step in the right direction.

Perhaps not coincidentally, reforming the DALATC is one of the planks in the 2008 Missouri Public Policy Agenda for the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.

Categories
DALATC North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Public Policy

McKee’s Holding Companies May Be Preparing for Tax Credits

by Michael R. Allen

There may be movement afoot on the part of developer Paul J. McKee, Jr. to get ready for an application for Missouri’s Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit. On October 26, four holding companies owning land in north St. Louis — Blairmont Associates, VHS Partners, Noble Development Company and N & G Ventures — each filed deeds of trust covering all property purchases made before 2006, when McKee’s holding companies began filing individual deeds of trust for each property.

Each company’s deed is for the same amount, $3 million and granted by the Corn Belt Bank & Trust Company of Pittsfield, Illinois. Two years ago, Corn Belt granted a loan of $2.8 million to McKee’s Allston Alliance for the purchase of the vacant Cass Avenue Schnucks store.

Each company’s deed was signed by Paul J. McKee, Jr. in capacity as manager of the other limited liability companies that act as sole members of the holding companies. Blairmont Associates’s sole member is BMA Partners, VHS Partners’ is Vashon Developers, Noble Development Company’s is NDC Venturers and N & G Ventures’ is NGV Partners.

Under the terms of the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit Act, a land assembler is eligible for up to 50 percent of the purchase costs of land. At the maximum eligible amount, these recent deeds of trust would entitle McKee’s companies to $6 million in tax credits.

Categories
North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

LLCs and LCs Linked to McKee Change Agents

by Michael R. Allen

On October 24, several companies linked to developer Paul J. McKee’s north St. Louis real estate project switched registered agents.

Holding companies Babcock Resources LLC, Blairmont Associates LC, Dodier Investors LLC, MLK 3000 LLC, N & G Ventures LC, Noble Development Company LLC, PATH Enterprise Company LLC, Sheridan Place LC and VHS Partners LLC switched from anonymous third-party agency through CT Corporation System to PEM Agency Corporation (whose own registered agent is Glenn Mitchell, Director of Property for McEagle).

Holding company Allston Alliance LC switched agents to PEM Agency Corporation from developer John Steffen.

Three companies used for loans to the holding companies, Salvador Equity Management LLC, Rice Capital Group LLC and Parkburg Fund LC also switched agents from CT Corporation System to PEM Agency Corporation.