Category: Midtown

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Historic Preservation Midtown Planning

Good and Bad on Locust Street

by Michael R. Allen

The PW Shoe Lofts project is heading toward completion at the northeast corner of Locust and Theresa avenues in the emerging Locust Street Business District. The project is an exciting step in the connection of the Grand Center district, with its large institutions and emphasis on arts, with the Locust Street area, a more organic mix of pedestrian-scaled development. The PW Shoe Lofts is the connector between the two area, and its occupancy will do a lot to help bridge an abrupt gap.

When complete, there will be 33 loft apartments inside of the former Pedigo-Weber Shoe Factory. Albert Groves, architect of the Masonic Temple, the front buildings at City Hospital and other buildings, designed the plain, handsome building, which was built by Murch Brothers and completed in 1918. (The one-story addition dates to 1948.) The Zane Williams company, former occupant, hired Renaissance Development to develop the building and Garen Miller to design the rehab. One of the best parts of the project is that the 33 units will be served by only 15 internal parking spaces, so the project does not create too much new parking in an area that has excessive supply. The end result will be a cool, urbane housing option near St. Louis University.

However, there are a few urban design problems on this end of Locust Street. Beside the blank back wall of the Moto Museum across the street, there is a bigger gulf here: the space immediately east of the PW Shoe Lofts.

East of the PW Shoe Lofts is the vacant lot where once stood a fine two-story livery stable. St. Louis University demolished the building in 2007, after it was included in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the West Locust and Olive Streets Historic District. In the place of the livery stable, built in 1885-1889 and later remodeled as an automobile dealership, stands a pernicious auto-related use: a seldom-used parking lot serving Chaifetz Arena. East of that lot, the university and Alderwoman Marlene Davis )D-19th) vacated Josephine Baker Avenue to create an even larger urban gulf between the vibrant end of Locust Street and Midtown.

Moving east, we have a fine row of four historic buildings — two of which are owned by St. Louis University, which promises eventual rehabilitation. These are the two at left in the photograph above. At very left is a fine, broad-front automobile sales building built in 1914 and designed by Clymer & Drischler (3331-9 Locust Street). To its right is an older three-story brick building with a fine iron fire escape on its front elevation (3327-9 Locust Street). Designed by Godfrey Hirsch, this building started life as a carriage repository owned by Joseph Long. These buildings are vacant.

The other two buildings in this row are in active use. There is the refaced building with a modern front at 3323 Locust Street, first built in 1891 but altered later to keep up with the demands of tenants trying to hawk cars on Automobile Row. Its more iconic neighbor at 3321 Locust Street is the firehouse-like Underwriters Salvage Corps No. 3 building, built in 1892 and designed by K.S. Evans. That building serves as a private residence.

All in all, these four buildings showcase a breadth of age, height, material and storefront treatment common in a historic commercial district. The variety is held together by the common vocabulary of human-scaled materials and ample fenestration.

What impulse compelled St. Louis University to place a windowless monster next to these four buildings? While the university’s new library warehouse is essentially a remodeling of a building that had long lost its windows, the completion was earlier this year. The university had the choice to place this warehouse in many locations, and it chose a pivotal connecting block in a commercial district trying to renew itself. Wealthy St. Louis University could have funded any number of architectural programs on the important Locust Street elevation, but it chose to go with a forbidding, bland EIFS wall interrupted only by utilitarian steel entrance and garage doors.

Plainly, the warehouse is a disruptive force in the Locust Street Business district. The placement of dumpsters in front on the building on Locust is yet another failing. Here, the university could have invested in the pedestrian scale of Locust Street, and instead it bluntly subsumed the commercial district to its own utility — just as it did with the livery stable demolition.

Meanwhile, two blocks east, Renaissance is working on the old Kardell Motor Company Building at 3141 Locust Street and an adjacent United States Tire Company building at 3147 Locust Street. Once covered by a nasty slipcover, the old showroom’s fine glazed terra cotta has been restored. The Kardell Motor Company Building dates to 1916 and was designed by Preston J. Brashaw, while the United States Tire Company Building is the work of Stephens and Pearson. Bradshaw’s mastery of ceramic expression is concentrated here, while in larger works like the Chase Hotel, the Paul Brown Building and the Coronado Hotel it is more diffused through large brick masses. The Kardell building is an architectural cream puff, and its restoration is testament to the vision of Renaissance and other parties working to revive Locust Street.

On one block, a developer is going so far as to remove slipcovers and restore damaged terra cotta. On another, there is a new faceless warehouse. Such contradiction cries out for resolution through a sensible master plan. Much of Locust Street between Jefferson and Theresa is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places. How about design guidelines for new construction as well as rules and restraints on parking for a next step?

Categories
Mid-Century Modern Midtown Rehabbing

Mid-Century Modern Preservation in Grand Center

by Michael R. Allen

Grand Center, Inc., deserves recognition for a small but important step toward preservation of our mid-century modern architecture. Earlier this year, Grand Center completed renovation of the Loyola Building at 3840 Washington Boulevard just west of Vandeventer. This playfully articulated two-story building and a one-story wing to the west were designed by architect Isadore Shank and completed in 1958. Built as offices, Loyola Academy across the street once used the two-story section for classrooms. The one-story section was owned by a church group. The building is part of a row of modern buildings all enjoying the same setback; see Toby Weiss’ post “Mid-Town Washington Boulevard” on B.E.L.T for more information.

The crisp modern lines are drawn here through smooth limestone. However, there is textural depth added through the patterned brick spandrels and what seems to be a painted wooden spandrel at the main entrance (at left) that reminds me of a patterned fir applique on Shank’s Miller House (1963).

The detailing here is not as extensive as on Shank’s elaborate DeBalieviere Building (1927) at Delmar and DeBaliviere, but it has similarities. The introduction of wall texture through patterns is similar, as is the breakdown of the potential monotony of repeated patterns through the articulation of the fenestration. This is a cool little building, and not well known among Shank’s work.

Grand Center has recycled this office building as artists’ studios and the home of the Pace framing company. The redevelopment organization could have done no better — the Loyola Building did not need a lavish rehab. A little repair and painting renewed the mid-century strut, and all is well in the world.

Categories
Demolition DeVille Motor Hotel land use Midtown Streets Urbanism

Dead Zone

by Michael R. Allen

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to spend some time at the site on Locust Street where the livery stable demolished by St. Louis University in 2007 once stood. The site would be located at the northwest corner of Locust and Josephine Baker Avenue, except that the university requested that Josephine Baker be removed.

The occasion was the filming of This Was the Future, a short documentary on the efforts to save the DeVille Motor Hotel (more on that film later). For the film, interview subjects were invited to select a site where a historic building once stood that is now an empty hole in a vibrant area. While it is hard to choose from some of the harsh empty lots we have in this city, I settled on what has to be one of the worst urban planning disasters in recent years.

The two-story livery stable building was a bridge between the emergent renewal in the Locust Street Business District and the more established revitalization of Grand Center. Grand Center’s motto is “the intersection of art and life,” an acknowledgment of the power of crossroads. Here stood a building that was a crossroads, and now we have an asphalt chasm, and not even a literal crossroads since one of the two streets here is now gone.

Even as a warehouse, the livery stable exuded more life than the parking lot on a busy night. On a Saturday afternoon, not a single car was parked on the lot, and few were parked at nearby meters. Clearly, the lot is there for special events. However, trading the potential of daily urban activity in a rehabilitated building for the occasional overuse of a parking lot makes no sense in a central city location. Not at all.

The side effect of the livery stable debacle is the spatial segregation (through building density) of Grand Center from the emergent area on Locust and of Renaissance Place (through removal of Josephine Baker) from St. Louis University and Locust Street. Human-scale urban renewal has finally come to Midtown on Locust Street and at Renaissance Place, and a potential connection between those successes is lost, and replaced with a land use that not only divides but is totally alien to the surrounding urban fabric. We could have done so much better.

Categories
Central West End Demolition Historic Preservation Midtown North St. Louis

Commercial Rows Fall On Vandeventer

by Michael R. Allen

Once upon a time, on April 21, 1886, the city government issued a building permit for a continuous row of seven adjacent stores with flats above at 1121-33 N. Vandeventer. P.G. Gerhart was the developer of the $12,000 project. The result was a graceful building in the Italianate style. Striking cast iron columns supported the spans of each wide storefront opening. A wooden cornice capped the stone-clad front wall, and decorative brick corbelling continued the cornice line to a side entrance on Enright, above which the parapet wall formed a pediment to mirror the surround of the entrance. The handsome commercial row was located at a prime corner in the sought-after Midtown neighborhood, home of the city’s wealthy and middle class movers and shakers.


This was not the only such endeavor on Vandeventer, a major north-south artery here. Nor was it the Gerhart family’s only commercial row on the street. The presence of a street car line on Vandeventer along with the residential population of the area drew developers to an intensive building boom that lasted between 1875 and 1900. During that time, at least sixteen rows of adjacent stores like the Gerhart row went up. Most of these were two stories. Vandeventer must have had an urban character like no other street in the city, what with the effect of so many well-designed rows of shops.

Flash forward over 120 years, and the row is facing its demise in December 2008. After sitting vacant for a half-decade, the old row had ended up owned by someone who wanted it gone. The condition at the time of demolition was good, with no structural failures and all of the character-defining pieces still in place. The rise and fall and rising-again of Midtown had taken its toll on Vandeventer, depleting the stock of such rows to a handful by the dawn of the 21st century. Now the oldest survivor met its demise, and the street is poorer for it. Vandeventer north of Lindell Boulevard is marked by vacant lots and low-density new construction, with a handful of surviving historic buildings. This row was keeping its block on the good side of architectural wasteland status. Today, the site is yet another muddy lot adorned by spindly grass blades and blowing debris.


During demolition, wreckers from Bellon Wrecking staged work in accordance with the building’s party walls, leaving isolated sections standing untouched between areas that were demolished.

Photograph by Paul Hohmann.

Architect Paul Hohmann photographed the demolition while it was underway, and has posted an extensive number of photographs here.

The loss of the row at Vandeventer and Enright delivered a sharp blow, but it was not the only one in 2008. In July, demolition commenced at the third of the surviving rows on Vandeventer, located at 1121 N. Vandeventer. The Guardian Angels purchased the site for construction of a new facility earlier in the year.


This row contained six storefronts arranged symmetrically along Vandeventer. The storefronts also had fine cast iron columns with Ionic capitals, and the second floor had arrangements of Roman-arched windows as book ends. This row dates to a permit issued on October 18, 1895 to Mrs. L.A. Crosswhite for six adjacent stores and flats. A.M. Baker served as architect, and Thomas Kelly was contractor. The row was totally vacant when I photographed it in 2006, but its loss was still jarring. Again, this stretch has lost its landmarks, and the site of this row is now another vacant lot with a sign promising new construction in the future.

Now the only remaining commercial row on Vandeventer is the Gerhart Block, developed by another Gerhart, at the southwest intersection of Vandeventer and Laclede. The Gerhart Block dates to 1896 and was designed by August Beinke. Its French Renaissance style has strongly eclectic traits and its historic integrity is stunning. The Gerhart Block and an adjacent building on Laclede Avenue were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2003; read the nomination by Lynn Josse here.


The sad fact is that this all that remains of the commercial rows of Vandeventer. There is some solace in that what survives is one of the most exquisite and well-preserved rows on the street, with landmark designation, demolition protection and tenants.

Categories
Architecture Central West End Demolition Historic Preservation Midtown

SLU Purchases Mansion on Washington Boulevard, Plans Demolition

by Michael R. Allen

The house at 4056 Washington in 2007.

In October, St. Louis University paid $150,000 for the mansion at 4056 Washington Boulevard. The house was in foreclosure. Underneath layers of paint are the lines of idiosyncratic gilded age St. Louis architecture. Built in 1891, the house was clearly influenced by the popular Romanesque Revival style, evinced here through rusticated stone lintels and window surrounds. However, the wooden cornice has qualities of the Italianate style and the mansard roof and turreted bow evokes the French Renaissance Revival style seen in the design of St. Louis City Hall, the Frederick Judson House to the east and other buildings from the period. What a delight!

The mansion stands just west of the University’s Manresa Center, an interesting complex that originally was the site of the stately McPherson Mansion and later the Marydale convent before becoming the St. Bonaventure Franciscan friary. Since 2000, the University has owned the complex and maintained it as a retreat space. Since acquisition, the university marked the entrance with an inappropriate version of its signature gate. SLU has also purchased all lots between the Manresa Center and the mansion at 4056 Washington.

Demolition of the Saaman-owned houses underway in April 2007.

This block was once an elite street in the emerging Central West End, but the glory days have long since passed. Most of the block’s parcels are now devoid of buildings. In 2007, Saaman Corporation infamously wrecked three houses on the north face of the block to deal a huge blow to the historic character of the street. Hopefully SLU will not make a similar move with its newly-acquired building. Perhaps the university could incorporate the house into the Manresa Center, adding extra space and helping to retain some of the center’s dwindling historic context.

UPDATE: As Vanishing STL discovered, the university applied for a demolition permit on December 4. Alas.

Categories
Art Midtown

Get Rid of a Lamp, Support a Cool Project

Find out more here.

Categories
Demolition Historic Preservation Midtown

Locust Street Building Demolished

by Michael R. Allen


A few people have asked me about the current demolition of a building at 3126 Locust Street in the Locust Business District just east of Compton Avenue.

The building being demolished unfortunately could not be included in a recent Locust Street Automobile Row Historic District extension due to heavy alterations. While remaining sections of the building show a Spanish Revival facade of stucco and brick, the building was clad in metal paneling until very recently. The installation of the panels damaged the facade, and the owner — Scott Pohlman, who developed the residential building next door to the east — elected to demolish the building and build a new residential structure on the site.

In 1888, this was the site of the new First Christian Church building. The present building sections date to 1913 and 1919. A 1919 city directory shows Gill Piston Ring Company and Standard Roller Bearing as tenants. The tenant listing is not surprising; “Automobile Row” on Locus included perhaps more parts manufacturers and distributors than automobile dealers and distributors. Companies like these made St. Louis the “Second Detroit” (almost first).

While 3126 Locust may have been salvaged, and I think it could have been, at least there is a redevelopment plan leading to a beneficial trade-off. There have been too many parking lots added in recent years, especially by St. Louis University — which makes no secret that parking, not development, is its end goal.

Categories
Demolition Midtown

SLU Demolished Wagner House Last Week

by Michael R. Allen

As of last Friday, the two-story Italianate house at 3438 Dr. Samuel Shepard Drive in Midtown, known as the Wagner House, was gone.

Here’s the time line of the demolition:

February 29: St. Louis University closes on the sale of the house.

February 29: St. Louis University applies for demolition permit.

March 4: Building Division approved demolition permit. Since the house stands outside of the Midtown National Historic District and within the Nineteenth Ward, which has no preservation review, the city’s Cultural Resources Office did not get to review the permit.

March 12: Workers begin removing interior fixtures and millwork.

March 17: Demolition of the house begins.

March 21: Demolition complete.

Read more at Vanishing STL: SLU Strikes Again! Destroying the Wagner House at 3438 Samuel Shepard.

Categories
Architecture Housing Midtown

Art House Could Help Grand Center Come to Life

by Michael R. Allen

Would you believe that there could be an attractive row of contemporary townhouses within a short walk of Grand Avenue in Midtown?

Behold the Art House, proposed for construction on Grandel just west of the perpetually-under-rehabilitation Merriwether House. Sage Homebuilders is the pioneering company daring to build actual housing in “Grand Center.” Forum Studio designed the townhouses.

So far, you can only see it in a Flash animation on your computer. Hopefully soon you will be able to walk through the completed buildings themselves and enjoy the smart views their generous windows will create.

Despite many visible failings in historic preservation and urban planning, somehow Midtown has attained two of the finest contemporary buildings in the city, the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the Contemporary Art Museum buildings. Art House would add one more unique contemporary building to the confused Midtown landscape. Amid parking lots and surviving historic buildings, perhaps we will find a crop of thoughtful, elegant, humanely-scaled residential architecture. If Art House can prove its own success by selling quickly, Grand Center’s longtime refusal to seriously consider the need for residents might start to wither as other developers get in line.

As we have seen downtown, a healthy market cuts through bureaucracy pretty quickly — and solidly on the side of more people, more buildings and more life.

Categories
Architecture Historic Preservation Midtown Storefront Addition

Thoughts on Storefront Additions

by Michael R. Allen

Sometimes I wonder if the mid-twentieth century practice of adding storefront sections to the front of historic homes is a St. Louis phenomenon. Certainly, we have many interesting examples here on major east-west streets like Delmar, Natural Bridge, Cherokee and Forest Park. These are symptoms of explosive population growth and changing land uses.

The example shown here is located at 3808 Olive Street, between Spring and Vandeventer, in Midtown. (The Central Apartments stood across the street.) Here we have a limestone-faced Queen Anne home dating to the 1890s. The architect may be Jerome Bibb Legg, a prolific residential architect who designed the other home remaining on this desolate block; Legg’s name appears as owner or architect on several building permits on this block.

In front we have a pressed-brick storefront from the middle part of the twentieth century. A door at right leads to the original entrance of the home. This photo does not show the quirky gesture in which the builder reused stone from the porch to build a side wall that connects the house to the storefront.

Weird? Yes. Useful? Also, yes. While not a candidate for listing on the National Register of Historic Places as a 19th century house, the hybrid building offers some interesting potential for reuse. Perhaps the alteration of the house itself could make it eligible for National Register listing. What is needed is a local survey of such storefront-bearing houses, followed by national comparison. This strange building could be a treasure!