by Michael R. Allen
Word is circulating that the St. Louis Housing Authority is considering selling its headquarters building at 4100 Lindell Boulevard to a group of investors who seek to demolish it and build a CVS Pharmacy to compete with the nearby Walgreens. The St. Louis Housing Authority’s three-story modern building began life in 1956 as the St. Louis office of the Sperry-Rand Corporation. The architect was then-fledgling Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum. The Sperry-Rand Building is derived from International Style principles, especially the neutral colors, the recessed floors, the concrete piers, wide large windows and the applied outer metal bars. While not as accomplished as the firm’s later National Register-listed Plaza Square Apartments, this is a fine building and a subtle component of the group of modern buildings on Lindell Boulevard west of Grand Avenue. Its loss, especially at the hands of a public entity, would be a blow to the already-threatened modern landscape of Lindell Boulevard.
UPDATE: A reader sent me a note to state that there has also been discussion about replacing the building with a taller residential building.