Category: North St. Louis

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Events Hyde Park North St. Louis People

Today’s Rehabbers’ Club Meeting in Hyde Park

by Michael R. Allen

Under the cover of great weather, this morning the Rehabbers’ Club made its way to Hyde Park for its monthly meeting. The meetings follow a show-and-tell format designed to expose city residents to dedicated rehabbers and developers, unique projects and the city’s many fantastic neighborhoods.

Today, the meeting began at the Friedens United Church of Christ Fellowship Hall at 19th and Newhouse, where Friedens Neighborhood Foundation YouthBuild Program Director Brian Marston discussed the new YouthBuild academy and its rehabilitation of the church’s long-vacant historic school building. Afterwards, I gave a short walking tour that went through the park and ended at what will be a spectacular rehabilitation project: developer Peter George’s rebuilding of the Nord St. Louis Turnverein.

Included on the tour was a garden that Friedens has dedicated in honor of Marti Frumhoff, founder of the Rehabbers’ Club as well as the Publishing Group.

While attendance was atypically low, typical of summer meetings, the crowd’s mix was noteworthy: a former president of Metropolis, a 37-year resident of Hyde Park, a micro-developer who is taking on the difficult rehab of five historic buildings in Old North, one of the earliest members of the Rehabbers’ Club, a Riverfront Times reporter, a resident of Carondelet, a young family seeking to buy and rehab in Hyde Park and myself. Marti’s desire to connect all of us continues to realize success.

Categories
Missouri Legislature North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit Act Back, Still Seems to Benefit Only McKee

by Michael R. Allen

On Monday, Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton convened a bipartisan group of House leaders to forge a compromise version of the controversial economic development bill (HB 327) that Governor Matt Blunt vetoed. The new bill, which may be heard by the end of August or in September during a special “veto session,” includes a modified version of the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit Act.

The modified version has reduced overall eligible project size to 50 acres, a move that still seems to benefit only developer Paul J. McKee, Jr.’s north side land assemblage project while bailing McKee out from the political problems of pursuing a larger plan. No other developer could qualify for the revised version, which seems even more helpful to McKee’ project than before while recuperating some of the rhetoric of critics of the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit Act

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North St. Louis Preservation Board The Ville

Mayor Slay Makes Case for Preserving Doctor’s Building in the Ville

by Michael R. Allen

MayorSlay.com is ahead of Ecology of Absence in making the case for preservation of at least one of the buildings in the Ville whose fate will be considered at Monday’s Preservation Board meeting. I’m certainly not complaining.

Writing about the Doctor’s Building, the mayoral voice states:

After neighbors and the alderman noticed the demo and reported it, the City’s buildings inspectors ordered the owner to stop. If he wishes to continue, the building’s owner will have to make a persuasive case for demolition before the Preservation Board.

Given its place in our history and the fact the federal historic designation makes tax credits available for the building’s rehabilitation, I can’t imagine what that case would be.

Read more here.

Categories
Missouri Legislature North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Kinder Blogs, V-logs on Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit Act Proposal

by Michael R. Allen

Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder has a blog entry with video:
Revitalizing Our Cities Can Happen If We Work Together. The blog entry and video address the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit Act, part of the economic development bill vetoed by Kinder’s supposed cohort and fellow Republican Governor Matt Blunt.

Kinder’s video includes footage of buildings on Chouteau Avenue that are already under renovation, as well as dramatic shots of him looking over a parapet apparently at Vin de Set.

Categories
Fire North St. Louis Old North

The Strength of Old North

Some neighbors in Old North went through a kitchen fire on Saturday. The fire did not do major damage to their house, but did take out their power lines and ability to occupy the house. However, the response to the fire was classic Old North. I was at an event when I received a message from my neighbor Barbara telling me of the damage. Immediately, I left the event to help my neighbors. I arrived to find a crew of neighbors already tackling the job of gutting the fire-damaged areas. My neighbors were in good spirits.

Barbara immediately turned her attention to the job of boarding up the damaged doorway and windows on the first floor of the rear wall, where the fire was most extensive. Another neighbor who is a general contractor was set to handle the matter after visiting the prisoner he is mentoring, but we decided to give him a good break. Barbara and I joined neighbors James and David to frame our the affected openings and to cut and screw in playwood. When we all left, the house was secure and its residents could focus on other tasks at hand. The board-up took less than two hours, due to the knowledge of the group — all of us had framed our board-ups before.

Only in Old North? Perhaps not. The response nonetheless demonstrated the unique talents of my neighbors, our get-it-done attitude and the prevalent concern for our neighbor’s needs. Ours is a strong neighborhood spirit, and one on which to count when times are tough. We take the communitarian spirit of a village and add the know-how and street smarts of a city. This is a great neighborhood!

Categories
North St. Louis Preservation Board The Ville

Thirty-Nine Demolition Permits in The Ville on July Preservation Board Agenda

The preliminary agenda for the monthly meeting of the city’s Preservation Board (to be held Monday, July 23) contains many demolition permits:

For preliminary review:

4232 and 4234 Aldine; 1707, 1709, 1711, 1717, 1820, 1824, 1825 and 1826 Annie Malone; 1922 Belle Glade; 3950, 4320 and 4448 Cote Brilliante; 4547 Cottage; 4409, 4411 and 4417 Garfield; 4549, 4551 (front) and 4551 (rear) Kennerly; 4402 Maffitt; 4147, 4153,
4220, 4224, 4234, 4446 and 4649 Dr. Martin Luther King; 4357, 4446, 4617 and 4559 North Market; 4364 St. Ferdinand; 1825, 2510 and 2512 N. Taylor; 3013 Vine Grove, all in the Ville historic district.

On appeal:

Residential buildings at 3911 and 3961 Blair Avenue in the Hyde Park historic district;

A two-and-a-half-story storefront and apartment building at 4635 Martin Luther King Drive in the Ville historic District;

A two-story storefront building at 5286-98 Page Boulevard in the Mount Cabanne/Raymond Place historic district;

A two-story rectory at 4716 Vermont Avenue in the Central Carondelet Historic District.

Also on the agenda are five nominations to the National Register of Historic Places.

Categories
Clearance Housing North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Pruitt Igoe

Pruitt-Igoe Demolition as Seen in "Koyaanisqatsi"

Someone has posted a long segment from Godfrey Reggio’s 1983 film Koyaanisqatsi that includes the famous aerial footage of the vacant housing project and the explosion-based demolition that took down the entire complex between 1972 and 1974.

The Pruitt-Igoe sequence begins at 2:49.

Thirty-three acres of the originally 57-acre Pruitt-Igoe site at the southeast corner of Cass and Jefferson avenues remain vacant to this day.

Categories
Historic Preservation JeffVanderLou North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

One Lovely Storefront Building in JeffVanderLou

This beautiful corner commercial building stands at the southeast corner of Glasgow and St. Louis avenues in JeffVanderLou. (The mansard-roofed tenement to the east is also worthy of appreciation.) The date is likely some time in the 1880s. The front elevation on St. Louis is clad in white Missouri limestone over a cast-iron storefront and under a galvanized sheet metal cornice. One charming detail is the recessed, chamfered storefront entrance that creates one of those delightful corner triangular stoops found on many local commercial buildings. The limestone wraps the corner on Glasgow, but after one window bay the wall is brick. Overall, the stylistic effect is Italianate.

One detail that mesmerizes me when I look at this building is on the side elevation, where the galvanized cornice ends. Here, brick corbelling continues the cornice line. However, the classical formalism of the bracketed cornice gives way to abstract masonry, where all angles are right and nary a curve can be found. The tenor of the cornice line changes sharply, but the line itself extends so that even the secondary elevation has an articulated crown. The different treatments only give the eye yet one more different element to look at — one more demonstration of the expressive qualities of 19th century architectural vernacular.

This building is large for a corner commercial building, with ample space on the upper floors for residential or office uses. It is located just two blocks east of Grand Avenue. At the corner of Grand and St. Louis, the even larger Grand-St. Louis Building, recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is about to undergo renovation. While blocks south and east of the corner of St. Louis and Glasgow are marked by open land and vacancy, the blocks west and north are mostly occupied and well-kept. This building is at a pivotal point in JeffVanderLou, and its future reuse is both feasible and meaningful for the neighborhood.

The building is owned by VHS Partners LLC, a holding company controlled by developer Paul J. McKee, Jr. as part of his large-scale north side redevelopment project. Hopefully its preservation is part of his plan; he is fortunate to own such a unique building with amazing potential.

Unfortunately, according to records on Geo St. Louis, the city Building Division condemned the building for demolition on May 8, 2007. A separate two-story alley building behind this building has also been condemned for demolition, although given the fact that brick thieves have removed nearly two whole walls, the condemnation is more understandable. The storefront building at the corner is in sound condition.

Categories
Missouri Legislature North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Old North

Burse’s Response to News of McKee’s Plans

by Michael R. Allen

Old North St. Louis Restoration Group President John Burse drafted a letter to the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch regarding Paul McKee, the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit Act and the site assembly experience Burse has gained working on projects in Old North.

For some reason, the Post chose to publish other letters on these matters, and never published Burse’s eloquent letter from the front line.

But you can read it here.

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.