Category: LRA

Categories
Events Housing LRA

Big Big Tour In a Buyers’ Market, This Sunday

For real estate, we have a buyers’ market at the moment. Why not go shopping?

If you are looking for real estate to buy, rehab or just admire, the free annual city housing tour known as the Big Big Tour is back this Sunday, March 30. Founded by Marti Frumhoff, the tour is actually a coordinated open house day for properties available in the city of St. Louis. People start at Central Reform Congregation between 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., where they get the map of open houses and peruse the Homebuyers’ Fair that includes booths and information from mortgage brokers, neighborhood organizations and real estate businesses. This year’s Homebuyer’s Fair will include a booth where Old North resident Barbara Manzara will have information on how to purchase real estate from the city’s Land Reutilization Authority. That alone is worth a visit — but so are the dozens of houses you can inspect and, yes, even buy on Sunday.

Categories
Abandonment Demolition Historic Preservation LRA

Just Couldn’t Make It

by Michael R. Allen

Until last month, this modest storefront building stood at the southeast corner of Delmar and Leffingwell avenues. According to city building permits, the building dates to 1881 and was originally four stories tall. Looking carefully at the building, I detected evidence of infill of the third floor sills and window openings just below the parapet wall, which lacks a creasing course. The shortened height and partly-filled windows are obvious, marring the building’s appearance. Still, handsome details like the iron storefront and arched side windows remained evident.

Once part of a robust, dense urban neighborhood just north of Mill Creek Valley, the building and an alley house behind it fell into the hands of the city’s Land Reutilization Authority. All of its neighbors were gone. Across Leffingwell stands a large housing project, while adjacent to the east is a lot owned by N & G Ventures LC, a holding company controlled by Paul McKee. South of here is the hulking campus of Wachovia Securities, formerly A.G. Edwards & Sons. Any semblance of the historic walking neighborhood in which this building played a commercial role was long gone. The city itself lost the mometum needed to keep even diminished buildings in use.

Befitting, the building’s east wall partly collapsed in December. On February 6, the Building Division approved a demolition permit and wrecking commenced. The neighborhood could have used a corner anchor, even as one small representation of its old form. Yet the building just couldn’t make it. Besides, would the time have ever come again for this lopped-off old building?

Categories
Architecture Historic Preservation LRA North St. Louis Old North

A Middle Path?

by Michael R. Allen


Above is the grim scene that I encountered two weeks ago after a blustery winter storm: the vacant city-owned building at 2917-21 N. 13th Street in Old North St. Louis had suffered a roof collapse. The building, built around 1880, stands one block north from my house in the densest section of a neighborhood famed for its loss of building density. Mt neighbors and I were aghast to see what misfortune had struck a vacant building already beset by misfortune.

The building and an adjacent building to the north form a graceful row that hugs the sidewalk line. Before, the buildings’ back walls had fallen. Loose bricks on the parapet of the alley side elevation had caused the Land Reutilization Authority to consider emergency demolition, but LRA backed off after the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group reminded LRA that they were trying to market the poor buildings for historic rehabilitation.

Now, the mansard roof with its two dormers had completely collapsed outward and the flat roof above had fallen inside of this part of the row. But again the Restoration Group acted quickly. Development Coordinator Karen Heet fended off the Building Division and managed to get the debris out of the public right-of-way (a favorite demolition excuse) within 24 hours of the collapse.

Karen has posed a very interesting idea for reusing the buildings. A look at the rear of the row helps underscore her logic.


Rather than try to rebuild the buildings, which have lost significant building material, Karen would like to try something else. She suggests demolishing the interiors and retaining only the front and side elevations. Inside, a developer could build a new building on the old foundations using the existing brick walls as facades. The new building could be modular and modern, allowing Old North to offer a different housing unit while retaining the impressive street face of this row. I think that idea is worth attempting.

There are many historic buildings in the city with severe damage that are ineligible for historic rehabilitation tax credits. Some of these buildings are located outside of historic districts and are never going to eligible for such designation. Others are buildings that once were contributing to historic districts but have had so many sections collapse their rebuilding would count as “reconstruction” and not “rehabilitation” and thus would be ineligible for both state and federal historic rehab credits. Still others are badly remuddled old buildings that don’t count as contributing resources in districts.

In such cases, a straightforward attempt at replicating the old building fabric may be cost-prohibitive or simply limiting. The old Archigram concept of using masonry walls as armaments for modular housing offers an intriguing solution to situations where we have a pretty wall and little else. In other cases, more of the original building may be retained than in others. The important thing is that we don’t commit to a dichotomy in which the only common form of rehab is the tax-credit project and the only alternative is demolition for new construction. There is a full spectrum of architectural options, and saving any of the embodied energy in an old building at all is far more green than starting completely fresh.

Anyone interested in purchasing and rebuilding the buildings on 13th Street can call Karen at 314-241-5031.

More information on the row, including earlier photographs, can be found here.

Categories
Architecture Historic Preservation LRA National Register North St. Louis Wells-Goodfellow

Two Craftsman Buildings in Wells-Goodfellow

by Michael R. Allen


While photographing a building across the street for work, I stumbled across this Craftsman gem on Ridge Avenue (just west of Hamilton Avenue) in Wells-Goodfellow. The size of the brackets on the porch end of the roof is incredible. Brackets, half-timbering and wide gable roofs were hallmarks of the Craftsman style, which was part of the revival style craze that dominated American residential architecture between 1890 and 1930. The Craftsman style drew upon the Arts & Crafts movement as well as historic rural European vernacular styles. St. Louis has great examples in north and south city, especially west of O’Fallon Park and in Tower Grove South.

Coincidentally, this home is only a few blocks from one of the city’s most prominent Craftsman landmarks, the Wellston Station at 6111 Martin Luther King Drive.


Photo by Rob Powers for Built St. Louis

I don’t know much about the house on Ridge, but I co-wrote the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Wellston Station. The Station was built in 1911 and designed by Martin Arhelger for the St. Louis Transit Company, the streetcar arm of United Railways. United Railways held the monopoly on mass transit in the city until 1963 when it was subsumed into the Bi-State Development Agency.

Under its wide roof, the Wellston Station provided covered boarding, and a shelter with waiting rooms and toilets, for the first fixed-track streetcars on Easton Avenue (now MLK). Wellston Station was the destination for the last streetcar run in the city’s history: the run of the Hodiamont street car in 1966. For years after that, the building served as a bus shelter, but the grandeur was out of scale with cash-strapped Bi-State. Bi-State aimed to convert the building to a farmers’ market, but in 2006 abruptly turned it over to the Land Reutilization Authority. In May 2007, the National Park Service placed the Wellston Station on the National Register. That designation has not yet led to redevelopment, although a burger joint still rents the front end of the waiting room area. (The waiting room has always had a storefront at the street side.)

Two Craftsman gabled buildings in Wells-Goodfellow — one a domestic building, the other a remnant of a once-robust public sector economy. May they both be part of the city’s future.

Categories
Demolition Grand Center LRA Midtown

Grand Center and the Central Apartments

by Michael R. Allen


Demolition is nearly complete on the Central Apartments at 3727 Olive Street in Midtown, and there is still no answer to the big question: What were they thinking?

The better question seems to be: Were they thinking?

Central Apartments in 2005.

The graceful apartment building is the latest victim of the indecision of Grand Center, Inc., the redevelopment corporation charged with revitalizing the midtown area. While the Central Apartments has been owned by the city’s Land Reutilization Authority since 2001, its fate has been under the control of Grand Center. Since the apartment building fell empty in 2001 — it was partly occupied with storefront tenants up to the time of closing — Grand Center has failed to articulate a vision for its reuse or demolition. After languishing for several years boarded and deteriorating, the building fell to wreckers in December apparently at Grand Center’s request.

The Building Division considered the demolition an emergency, and some reports of brick loss on the west wall circulated. However, the brick loss was spalling of face brick, and the concrete structure of the building was as solid before wrecking began as it was when people were living there just six years prior.


Alas, the potential for reuse in December 2007 was perhaps greater than ever. Thanks to the work of Restoration St. Louis, Steve Trampe and other developers, there finally is an apartment housing market in Midtown. These developers have seen the obvious need for off-campus housing for St. Louis University students and have rehabbed large historic buildings for housing. Two blocks from the Spring Avenue mall entrance to the SLU campus, the Central Apartments had an obvious market.

While the 3700-3800 block of Olive Street has long lost any semblance of cohesive historic character, and lies outside of the Midtown National Historic District, the block retains a few buildings and many lots the could be developed. The William Cuthbert Jones House and the former Lindell Exchange (later Wolfner memorial library) on the south side of the block were recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Historic rehabilitation and new construction could transform that block from its current dullness.

Built in 1916, the Central Apartments possessed an elegant front elevation adorned in the Renaissance Revival style. With a sound structure, mostly solid masonry and largely intact interiors — revealed when exterior walls were knocked off of the building — the building was in good shape. The building could have provided the high-density urban housing one would assume is needed to make a thriving arts and entertainment district function as a real neighborhood.

Why Grand Center did not make rehabilitation of the building a priority is a mystery. Too often, such a senseless demolition is the result of deliberate bad planning. Here, it seems the result of no planning and no deliberation whatsoever.

Categories
Historic Preservation LRA North St. Louis Preservation Board West End

Preservation Board Spares House on Bartmer

by Michael R. Allen

At its monthly meeting on Monday, the St. Louis Preservation Board wisely voted 5-2 against the demolition of a Shingle Style frame house at 5594 Bartmer Avenue in the city’s West End neighborhood. The house was built in 1898 and while not the most exquisite example of the Shingle Style in the city (that may be on nearby Cabanne Place) is one of probably less than two dozen remaining homes in the style. The demolition was proposed as a preliminary review, with no actual permit under consideration. Preliminary review is often used by potential applicants and staff of the Cultural Resources Office (CRO) to gauge Board opinion without beginning formal application process.

In this case, Alderman Frank Williamson (D-26th) brought the matter to CRO two months ago, citing citizen complaints about the condition of the home. The house has been vacant since at least 1998 and is owned by the city’s Land Reutilization Authority. The house is located outside of any national historic district where tax credits would be able to be used in its rehabilitation. However, the 5400 and 5500 blocks of Bartmer show an unusual collection of large historic homes with consistent deep setbacks and early 20th century period styles. Blocks to the west also show consistency. There is no doubt that some historic district on Bartmer is possible.

Two months ago, CRO staff presented the matter to the Preservation Board, which elected to defer consideration for 60 days while staff prepared a thorough report on the building’s condition and reuse potential. Ald. Williamson appeared at the first meeting and said that he wanted to tell the citizens something was going to happen, although demolition was not the only outcome he would accept.

CRO staff prepared a report that covers issues of condition, historic integrity and potential market value. Among other conclusions, the repprt showed that not only is the house “sound” under the definition established by the Preservation Review ordinance, it retains almost all of its original architectural features inside! Staff strongly recommends preservation of the house. Meanwhile, Ald. Williamson decided to support demolition. Two citizens sent letters of opposition, including blogger Douglas Duckworth (read his letter here). On Monday, the Board heard testimony against the demolition from myself and in favor from Myron Jefferson, who is building a new house at 5596 Bartmer to the west. Jefferson stated that he would not have built his house if he had known the house next door was not going to be torn down.

According to CRO Director Kathleen Shea, the LRA has agreed to make the house at 5594 Bartmer a priority for its limited marketing efforts. Apparently LRA will not seek its demolition until it has drawn attention to potential buyers. While the gesture is small, it’s the most that LRA can do — and more than usual. Ald. Williamson might want to coordinate with LRA in finding a creative future for the house.

Board Member Mary Johnson told the Board that the board would impede the “development project” of “developer” Jefferson unfairly if it voted down the demolition. Johnson cited Joe Edwards’ Moonshine Hotel project in the Delmar Loop as an example where the Board allowed demolition of a historic building, the Ronald Jones Funeral Chapel, for a development project. Edwards is demolishing the chapel but reconstructing its front and some of its side elevations as part of the hotel project.

Board Member David Richardson retorted that Jefferson was not the owner of the property next door. Jefferson does not seek to purchase the house at 5594 Bartmer and was not the applicant for demolition. In making the motion to accept staff recommendation, Board Member Anthony Robinson explained that builders can’t control vacant property when building a new house. Robinson said that when he built his residence, his block had five vacant houses and six vacant lots. All of the houses have been rehabbed and all but one of the lots built upon since Robinson finished his house a few years ago.

Voting in support of the CRO staff recommendation authored by Director Kathleen Shea were Melanie Fathman, John Burse, Robinson, Mike Killeen and Richardson. Voting against were Johnson and Ald. Terry Kennedy (D-18th). Chairman Richard Callow abstained from voting.

Categories
land use landbanking LRA St. Louis Board of Aldermen

3500 North Grand: One of LRA’s Many Available Buildings

by Michael R. Allen


Photo from Land Reutilization Authority.

This three-story commercial building with a distinctive chamfered corner stands at 3500 N. Grand Boulevard (northeast corner of Grand and Hebert) in the Lindell Park neighborhood. Formerly home to a bank, this building in the Classical Revival style was built in 1909.

This is just one of the thousands of properties owned by the city’s holding agency, the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA). LRA seeks $15,000 for this building — a price below market value. A recent sales contract fell through and the building is again on the featured properties section of LRA’s website.

Last September, I published a blog entry entitled “LRA’s Problem With Marketing: It Needs to Start.” I chastised LRA for leaving properties that had sold in the featured properties list without adding new ones. One year later, I am pleased to report that LRA’s website features only available properties on this list. I am not pleased to report that the online list still represents the bulk of LRA’s marketing efforts.

While many blame LRA itself, that’s a cop out. As a municipal authority, LRA is hidebound to funding and operational binds placed on it by those with budgetary and legislative authority. Ultimately, each of us city residents is a stakeholder in LRA. LRA’s staff cannot effect major and necessary policy changes related to the disposition of city-owned buildings and land — but our elected representatives can.

Categories
Brick Theft LCRA LRA North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Pruitt Igoe St. Louis Place

Latest Brick Rustling Casualty in St. Louis Place

by Michael R. Allen

In the last two weeks, brick rustlers have reduced this Romanesque Revival two-flat at 2318 Howard Street to the tell-tale mess of sagging floors supported by internal walls. The four brick walls are completely gone, with the bricks taken to one of the yards that gladly fence bricks stolen from the north side. Some veneered McMansion in the Phoenix suburbs could end up with a thin face of brick taken from this house to raise money for rent, crack cocaine or any number of other needs and desires. I took the photograph above last summer; the building was remarkably intact

The building stands (barely) on city block 2318, bounded by Howard on the north, 25th on the west, Mullanphy on the south and 23rd on the east. This is two blocks north of the former Pruitt-Igoe housing project site in an area of St. Louis Place that resembles

The ownership pattern on the block is rather strange:

2346 HOWARD ST BLAIRMONT ASSOCIATES LTD CO
2344 HOWARD ST PIE
2342 HOWARD ST PIE
2336 HOWARD ST PIE
2334 HOWARD ST LRA
2326 HOWARD ST PIE
2324 HOWARD ST N & G VENTURES LC
2322 HOWARD ST PIE
2320 HOWARD ST PIE
2318 HOWARD ST PIE
2316 HOWARD ST L C R A
2314 HOWARD ST PIE
2312 HOWARD ST BLAIRMONT ASSOCIATES LTD CO
2308 HOWARD ST BLAIRMONT ASSOCIATES LTD CO
2306 HOWARD ST BLAIRMONT ASSOCIATES LTD CO
2304 HOWARD ST LRA
2300 HOWARD ST PIE
1617 N 23RD ST LRA
2305 MULLANPHY ST PIE
2321 MULLANPHY ST SIMS, OTHIA L & LUCILLE D
2323 MULLANPHY ST BELK, OLIVER L & KATHALEEN
2325 MULLANPHY ST MOBLEY, IDA N & JOYCE MCCALL
2327 MULLANPHY ST MOBLEY, IDA N
2329 MULLANPHY ST 1615 N 25TH ST LLC

In addition to one LCRA holding here we have the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority (PIE), Land Reutilization Authority (LRA), N & G Ventures LC and Blairmont Associates LC, two of Paul McKee’s companies, and a smattering of private owners.

Categories
Documentation LRA North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Old North St. Louis Place

New Blairmont Map Online

by Michael R. Allen

We have a new Google Earth map of north St. Louis properties owned by companies controlled by developer Paul J. McKee, Jr. See the map here.

The map, created on March 13 and sent by a concerned resident of the St. Louis Place neighborhood, shows 637 properties owned by McKee’s companies.

For reference, this map includes pinpoints on adjacent properties owned by city-owned corporations like the Land Reutilization Authority, Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority and the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority. Also included are properties owned by Pyramid Construction and the partnership between the Regional Housing and Community Development Alliance and the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group.

Categories
LRA North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Sheridan Place

by Michael R. Allen

The Blairmont family is using a new name for acquisitions: Sheridan Place LC, likely named for Sheridan Avenue which runs through the near north side of the city.

Sheridan Place LC was incorporated on March 24, 2006 by the CT Corporation System. Its first deed was filed October 30, 2006, three days after this blog reported on the then-latest Blairmont entity to be used for acquisitions, Dodier Investors LLC.

On the first few deeds filed, Sheridan Place LC listed its address at Eagle Realty Company’s old address, 721 Olive Street Suite 920. On the deeds in type is reported the name Roberta Defiore as manager, but her name is crossed out and the name Bridget G. Calcaterra is handwritten. Calcaterra signed the deeds. Later deeds use a Brentwood address for the company’s mailing address but show Calcaterra’s name in print.

If the name Bridget Calcaterra seems familiar to some of you, it’s probably because she recently served as Deputy Director of the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) of the City of St. Louis. She was also director of Operation Impact, a city program designed to help neighborhoods get privately-owned nuisance properties into the hands of the LRA which then seeks development projects for those properties. Readers can draw their own conclusions.

As an aside, the Blairmont scheme is growing to such epic proportions that I think it’s high time that the parties responsible begin to engage the affected communities. If the end goal is a massive development project, they will need allies here — assuming we all get to stay. If a Blairmont agent is reading, consider the smallest gesture of contact — a call to the head of a neighborhood group or a meeting with an alderperson. Those of us living in the near north side don’t want to stop something good — but we don’t have any reason to believe that what you are proposing is good. Dialogue might resolve the fears and animosity brewing here, and cut my sarcasm in half (maybe).