Category: Demolition

Categories
Demolition Downtown Historic Preservation

It’s Just One Building…Right?




The 2002 short video …it’s just one building created by Alan Brunettin and produced by Margie Newman is now available on YouTube. …it’s just one building remains a powerful and moving piece, and the downtown focus is relevant in light of renewed interest in the riverfront. (Not to mention the fact that we still have threatened downtown buildings.) The haunting score by Dan Rubright and the images selected by Lynn Josse from the archive of Landmarks Association of St. Louis are as a poignant a combination now as they were eight years ago in the thick of the battle to save the Century Building.

Categories
Central West End Demolition Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern

Doctors Building Site: Still Empty

by Michael R. Allen

In April 2008, Mills Group demolished the mid-century Doctors Building at Euclid and West Pine the Central West End. An under-appreciated modernist gem fell for a supposed “Citywalk” — a mixed-use building with residential condominiums and street-level retail. Although located in a preservation review district, the building’s demolition was approved by the Cultural Resources Office without a Preservation Board hearing. Fans of urban infill like the Park East Tower and Nine North Euclid down the street rejoiced.

Now, two years later, the site is a vacant lot with a pre-Softball Village condition. Crushed pieces of the Doctors Building are still strewn about the site. In September 2009, Mills announced that a part of Department of Housing and Urban Development financing had fallen into place, but there has been no news since then.

In some instances, the call for preservation may rightly be called an impediment to some developer’s ready-to-build plan. In the case of the Doctor’s Building, it was not so.

Categories
Demolition Downtown Lafayette Square Preservation Board

Neighborhood Involvement and Two Preservation Board Decisions

by Michael R. Allen

Among other things, the Preservation Board of the city of St. Louis hears appeals from property owners who have their demolition permits denied by the professional preservation planning staff of the Cultural Resources Office (CRO). However, use of that power to do the right thing does not always lead to preservation of historic buildings. In the past, this writer has covered the impact of the city Planning Commission’s statutory power to overturn Preservation Board decisions on appeal. That’s a route used by owners bent on wrecking their old buildings. Make no mistake: The appellate power of the Planning Commission and the power of the “emergency” demolition permit remain substantial obstacles to smart preservation policy in the city.

However, in this country, private owners have broad and legally-defensible property rights. Even with the best policy, owners can still take down sound, significant buildings. Hence, there are other paths taken by property owners in the wake of the Preservation Board’s upholding denials of CRO appeals. Here are two divergent outcomes.

2217 Olive Street (Downtown West)

The old two-story commercial building at 2217 Olive Street in western downtown is best known for its last tenant, the Original Restaurant. Built as a house in 1888 and converted to commercial use in 1929 following the widening of Olive Street, the building was vacated in the mid-1990s. The owners sought a demolition permit that was denied by CRO. In September 2007, the Preservation Board upheld denial on appeal. In January 2008, the Preservation Board rejected a new application for demolition, despite a growing hole in the roof. The building was still sound under the definition established by city preservation law.

The owners put a small for-sale sign on the building, but gravity took its course. The hole grew until most of the building’s wooden roof and floor structures collapsed. The walls started failing. In September 2009, the owners again applied for a demolition permit. This time, CRO approved the demolition permit application due to the severe deterioration of the building.

The site is now paved as a parking lot, while a vacant lot next door (where a 19th century residential stone retaining wall and steps remain) is being seeded with grass. One notable aspect to the loss of 2217 Olive Street is that there was no objection — or indication of support — by downtown organizations, property owners or residents. The only forces working against demolition were the Preservation Board and CRO, joined by preservationists including this writer who testified at the two public meetings. Neighborhood investment in the decision would have strengthened the preservationist case and helped facilitate a sale of the building. Alas, downtown lost another retail storefront — for now.

1624 Dolman Street (Lafayette Square)

In August 2009, the Preservation Board considered the appeal of the CRO denial of a demolition permit application for the house at 1624 Dolman Street in Lafayette Square. The Zumwalt Corporation, erstwhile seller of overhead doors located to the south facing Lafayette Avenue, owns the row of which this house is a part. Zumwalt attempted to rehabilitate the row before, but abandoned the project.

Early last year, the front wall of the house collapsed. There was no serious structural failure to the building since like most every bearing-wall building this one had its joists running between the side walls. The front, unanchored to the building, bowed out until it lost the compressive strength needed to remain standing. No big deal — this happens a lot in the city, and our masons know how to close such wounds.

Yet Zumwalt decided to see if demolition would be possible. The company was met with fierce neighborhood opposition, and a half-dozen residents testified against the demolition at the August 2009 Preservation Board meeting. The Board upheld denial with no votes to the contrary.

The Zumwalt Corporation, which apparently is a good neighbor, then proceeded to rebuild the front wall. Now the row is intact and sound, and someday will be rehabilitated. Those who think that every Preservation Board denial will be met with a continued press for demolition should take note, but those who would infer that all’s well that ends well with a Board denial are misled by this example. What is apparent is that strong neighborhood support for preservation is key to actually saving buildings.

Categories
Demolition Marine Villa South St. Louis

More St. Louis Carnival Supply Demolition Photographs

by Michael R. Allen

Reader Anthony A. sent me these photographs of the St. Louis Carnival Supply Company buildings being demolished. These photographs date to March 22nd and show some of the painted signs underneath the metal cladding. Since the wreckers did not remove the cladding first, the signs were never fully revealed. The buildings are now reduced to rubble piles.

Categories
Demolition Marine Villa Preservation Board South St. Louis

Carnival Supply Building Demolition Underway

by Michael R. Allen

The weary old St. Louis Carnival Supply building — or, rather, buildings since two buildings comprise the structure — is being pushed into the Big Sleep. The south St. Louis landmark, located at 3928 S. Broadway in Marine Villa, is being demolished this month to make way for expansion of a parking lot serving a strip retail center next door. In December 2009, the St. Louis Preservation Board unanimously approved demolition on the condition that the owner, KOBA LP, first obtain a building permit to make facade improvements to the three-story commercial building to the north, which was originally proposed for demolition.

At this point, readers would learn very little from any further complaint about the demolition. How easy is it to take a stand against something that already happened? Oh, easier than tying your shoes — but not as useful. There is a bigger lesson to be learned for ever-wired local preservationists: politics is still local.

When I spoke on historic preservation matters at a meeting of the Chippewa-Broadway Business Association (CBBA) in August 2009, the proposed demolition was a hot topic. Nearly all local parties were opposed to the demolition, although not simply on the basis of architectural merit or urban character. There was considerable concern that the proposed Grace Hill clinic slated to move into the retail strip center will draw patients away from St. Alexius Hospital across the street. St. Alexius has been a neighborhood fixture for over a century, and active in local affairs, including the Business Association.

The community rallied around the hospital, and the first attempt by KOBA LP to secure a demolition permit from the Preservation Board in August — for both buildings — was denied. Aldermen Ken Ortmann (D-9th) and Craig Schmid (D-20th) as well as the CBBA were opposed. Things changed, though, and agreements were reached. The opposition withered. the Preservation Board’s action made it clear that KOBA LP would not be able to get a permit for the building at 3928 S. Broadway, so they withdrew plans to wreck it. By the time of the December Preservation Board meeting, I was the only person to speak against demolition. The game had changed, at the community level.


The demolition contractors did not remove the 1960s metal panels from the 1890s-era commercial building, so the only glimpses of the colorful older signs on the facade come through big holes. The old signs look playful and fun; hopefully there is a photograph of the building before cladding somewhere.

Of course, the buildings are both sound and without the later concrete block addition at the rear of the property, there is now plenty of space for extra parking behind the historic buildings.

Alberta Street runs between the building under demolition and the building being preserved. This intact street is typical of Marine Villa. Vernacular brick houses of varied form, height and setback create a delightfully organic streetscape. Alas, the solid frame of two corner commercial buildings will soon be gone, and a parking lot exit will spill out onto this quiet residential street.

Categories
Demolition Downtown Green Space JNEM Riverfront

National Park Service Sponsors Look at Lost Riverfront Architecture

by Michael R. Allen

Photograph of St. Louis riverfront buildings from the Historic American Buildings Survey.

 

The nation’s only urban national park, the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial with the stunning Gateway Arch by Eero Saarinen, has long been haunted by a shadow architectural history. To make way for one of the world’s most full-realized modernist landscapes, St. Louis wrecked forty blocks of historic riverfront buildings. The significance of these buildings in American architectural history was such that in 1939, eminent architectural critic and historian Siegfried Gideon came to St. Louis to deliver a lecture on the doomed buildings. Gideon not only spoke about the unparalleled mass of cast-iron facades and storefronts found on the riverfront, he implored the city to change course and preserve the riverfront’s commercial buildings.

Gideon’s cry went unheeded, and plans to create a national memorial to westward expansion on the St. Louis riverfront progressed. Fortunately, the memorial’s architectural achievement matched what was lost. Still, the memorial site has a psychological scar tissue to any who know what was lost there. The National Park Service has had some difficulty in interpreting the pre-memorial riverfront so that both the memorial and the prior riverfront architecture are suitably honored.

Thus, the current “Faces of the Riverfront” exhibit at the Old Courthouse is a welcome endeavor, and, given current events, quite timely and inspirational. (The exhibit runs through August 22, through the unveiling of designs by finalists in the current design competition.) The National Park Service gave artist Sheila Harris access to its extensive photographic record of riverfront buildings lost to build the memorial, and she painted in watercolor renderings of the documented buildings. Harris’ paintings transform the hard, stoic documentation taken before the riverfront death knell into soft, humane snapshots of a still-living urban landscape.

Sheila Harris speaks at the exhibit’s opening reception on February 14th.

For the next few months, visitors to the Old Courthouse will be greeted by an exhibit that properly honors the life of the riverfront, in the space once occupied by the courtroom where the Dred Scott trial unfolded. Superintendent Tom Bradley, staff historian Bob Moore and exhibits manager Caitlin McQuade deserve credit for working with Harris to create the exhibit, as does Sheila Harris’s sister NiNi Harris (author of the new book Historic Photos of the Gateway Arch.)
Alongside the paintings are rarely-seen items from the Memorial’s collection of salvaged portions of riverfront buildings. Those who have seen the items on permanent display in the Old Courthouse often wonder what else remains, and here are a few answers. The expected cast iron pieces are joined by a more obscure terra cotta piece. The only problem withFaces of the Riverfront is that the fragments and watercolors pique a visitor’s interest in seeing the source photographs, of which none are on display save as wall-sized backdrops. Perhaps those photographs will be made public as part of a future Memorial project.
Categories
Churches Demolition St. Louis County

Bethany Deaf Church in Kirkwood Demolished

by Michael R. Allen

Kirkwood’s local historic district ordinance did not prevent the new owner of the Bethany Deaf Church (photograph via link) at 310 E. Argonne from demolishing the building around Christmas. A reader writes that the wreckers destroyed the front doors rather than salvage them, but that the rose window may have been saved.

Categories
Demolition Fox Park Marine Villa Preservation Board South St. Louis

At the Preservation Board Yesterday

by Michael R. Allen

Carnival Supply Building to be Demolished

Yesterday, the St. Louis Preservation Board voted unanimously to permit demolition of the old St. Louis Carnival Supply Company building at 3928 S. Broadway (see “Old Carnival Supply Buildings Return to the Preservation Board”, December 18. The motion to permit demolition made by David Richardson is conditional; owner KOBA LP must first obtain a building permit for facade improvements to the building at 3924 S. Broadway.

Alderman Ken Ortmann (D-9th) and the Chippewa-Broadway Business Association had previously opposed demolition of both buildings. At the meeting yesterday, Cultural Resources Office (CRO) Director Kate Shea announced that she had received letters of support for demolition of 3928 S. Broadway from both parties and that CRO was changing its position as well. Five residents of the Marine Villa neighborhood sent letters of opposition. I was the only person to testify against the demolition, following KOBA LP owner Ken Nuernberger (ordinarily a preservation-minded developer). As I told the Preservation Board, no matter what cladding covered 3928 S. Broadway and no matter what happens to the other building, the decision still was one between a historic corner commercial building and a surface parking lot.

A Row House By Any Other Standard…

Another matter before the Preservation Board was also of great interest. The owner of the house at 2248 Nebraska in the Fox Park Local Historic District wants to install aluminum windows on her home. CRO staff said they would have approved the windows, except that the house is part of an adjoined row of houses and that the windows would alter the character of the row. CRO recommended denial, but the Board voted unanimously to allow use of the windows. Richardson and Mary Johnson both stated that they believed that the local district standards applied to fee-simple houses and contained no language that enabled CRO to take into consideration neighboring buildings — even if connected — in making a decision about an individual permit.

Categories
Academy Neighborhood Demolition North St. Louis Preservation Board Schools SLPS

Good News and Bad News on Page Boulevard

by Michael R. Allen

Preservationists should send their thanks to Better Family Life, a cultural and educational organization that is uplifting African-American St. Louis while rehabilitating one of our city’s irreplaceable historic schools. In 2005, Better Family Life purchased the shuttered Ralph Waldo Emerson School at 5415 Page Boulevard. This year, the organization began a $4.5 million rehabilitation that will convert the school into an educational and cultural center.

Currently, a construction fence surrounds the school. Workers are on site most days, and a lift was in front today. The daily activity at Emerson School has not been this high since the school’s last day of classes in June 2003. When the school closed, few predicted that any serious buyer would step forward so soon. The landmark could have become an abandoned wreck.

Designed by William B. Ittner and completed in 1901, the brick school is one of the earliest of Ittner’s schools in the hybrid “Jacobethan” style that he helped popularize. Ittner began working for the St. Louis Board of Education in 1898, and did not turn to the Renaissance styles until a few years into his tenure. Emerson School is a handsome early work utilizing the architect’s open floor plan. The grace of the landmark shall be with us for generations, thanks to Better Family Life.

If only all good news from St. Louis’ built environment did not have to be counterbalanced by bad news. Just two blocks east of Emerson on the south side of mighty Page Boulevard at Union Boulevards, another north side landmark is meeting a sad end. The corner commercial block at 5986-98 Page Boulevard, written about on this blog several times before, is finally falling to the wreckers. I offer here an image of the building in better days, and will spare readers yet another demolition photograph.

The corner building is a younger building than Emerson School, with a completion date at 1905. The two-story building is part of the Mount Cabanne-Raymond Place Historic District and could have been reused utilizing historic tax credit programs. Surely, commercial storefronts and apartments enjoy far more demand in the city than cultural centers. However, the building had the wrong owner, the Berean Seventh Day Adventist Church, which will be building a parking lot on the site.

In February 2008, the city’s Preservation Board voted 5-2 to deny a demolition permit for this building. Then, in June 2009, the city’s Planning Commission arbitrarily overturned the Preservation Board decision.

The story got stranger after that when the church failed to meet the requirements of the Planning Commission decision but began demolition this summer without a permit. City officials called a halt to the wrecking, but the wreckers had already delivered fatal damage by removing most of the roof. Now the rest of the building will be removed legally. Page Boulevard will have a completely disjointed, unhinged intersection with Union Boulevard. Two prominent thoroughfares shall meet at an intersection as full of character as any generic suburban intersection anywhere in the United States. This city, it should be stated, deserves better. It deserves what it had before.

Categories
Adaptive Reuse Demolition Forest Park Southeast North St. Louis St. Louis County

Some Thoughts on Our Gasometer(s)

by Michael R. Allen

The impending demolition of the two gasometers in Shrewsbury draws me back to the demolition of the gasometer in Forest Park Southeast. Once one of two gasometers at Laclede Gas Company’s Pumping Station G and built in 1901 (rebuilt in 1942), the Forest Park Southeast gasometer was a landmark for over a century. When Highway 40 was first built, the gasometer’s prominence greatly increased, and it was one of several iconic structures — the St. Louis Science Center’s McDonnell Planetarium, the grain elevator at Sarah and Duncan, Barnes Hospital — that gave a magically urban character to an otherwise dull trip down the highway. Within Forest Park Southeast, the gasometer’s web of steel served as a backdrop to views from backyards, bedrooms and sidewalks. The gasometer was a strange remnant that had outlived its purpose — regulating the supply of the city’s gas system — but not its industrial charm and connection to the past.

In 2006, developers successfully listed Pumping Station G in the National Register of Historic Places (read the nomination by Susan Sheppard and Doug Johnson here). The State Historic Preservation Office insisted that the gasometer be included, and the gasometer was listed as a contributing structure. However, the official landmark status provided no protection. The developers had never intended to try to save the structure.

An eloquent plea for preservation from historian and then-St. Louis University professor Joseph Heathcott, “Getting creative with the region’s exceptional industrial heritage”, appeared in the February 8, 2007 issue of the St Louis Post-Dispatch, but there was no strong effort to preserve the gasometer. There was plenty of discussion, however, among architects, Forest Park Southeast residents and preservationists. The alternative ends for the gasometer were obvious. Several European cities, including London and Vienna, have converted iconic gasometers into equally iconic apartment and office buildings. Others have maintained the structures as urban artifacts. Heathcott’s article alluded to the imaginative possibilities.

Photograph of Viennese gasometer reuse project from Wikipedia.

Alas, imagination did not win out. Neither did National Register protection; the city’s Cultural Resources Office approved demolition of the gasometer without bringing the matter to a public hearing at the Preservation Board. Demolition of the gasometer was completed in the middle of 2007.


Today, the Pumping Station G site is largely vacant. The pumping house (1911) still stands, vacant but slated for rehabilitation. The developers who wrecked the gasometer sold the site to different developers, who have yet to devise plans for the site. In the end, the gasometer could have remained standing as a resource for its neighborhood and a icon for the city. Perhaps a new owner would have been interested in the challenge of finding a new use for the structure. Now, the gasometer is gone, and two of its three sisters soon also will be gone.

That leaves St. Louis only one chance to reclaim a gasometer: the gasometer at the vacant Pumping Station N, located just south of Natural Bridge Road on Chevrolet Avenue in north St. Louis. Can we rise to the challenge of retaining an endangered structural type, or will we let it fall too?