Categories
Missouri Legislature North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Ask Your State Senator About the Griesheimer Amendment

by Michael R. Allen

No St. Louisan that I know has seen the text of Sen. John Griesheimer‘s amendment to the Quality Jobs Act (SB 282), scheduled for consideration by the Economic Development, Tourism & Local Government Committee on Wednesday. According to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the amendment would create a $100 million subsidy for land acquisition related to development projects larger than 75 acres in the city of St. Louis. The amendment also has the backing of Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder, who is credited with making the proposal.

Supposedly, the subsidy is sought by a St. Charles County developer for a project in north St. Louis. While this developer knows about the amendment, neither my state senator nor my alderperson knows a thing about a proposal with huge ramifications for the city of St. Louis and its residents.

We need to know exactly what is being proposed — and why it is being proposed hastily without input from St. Louisans. A program like the one proposed potentially could be beneficial to the city, with proper input from seasoned urban developers, citizens and St. Louis elected officials.

City residents, please contact your state senators:

Harry Kennedy, D-1st: (573) 751-2126
Jeff Smith, D-4th: (573) 751-3599
Maida Coleman, D-5th: (573) 751-2606

You can send email using this form.

Also, here are the current members of the Economic Development, Tourism & Local Government Committee:

John Griesheimer, R-26th, Chair: (573) 751-3678
Chris Koster, R-31st, Vice-chair: (573) 751-1430
Jason Crowell, R-27th: (573) 751-2459
Kevin Engler, R-3rd: (573) 751-3455
Jack Goodman, R-29th: (573) 751-2234
Carl Vogel, R-6th: (573) 751-2076
Victor Callahan, D-11th: (573) 751-3074
Harry Kennedy, D-1st: (573) 751-2126
Ryan McKenna, D-22nd: (573) 751-1492
Wes Shoemyer, D-18th: (573) 751-7852

Again, emails can be sent using this form.

Lt. Gov. Kinder can be contacted at (573) 751-4727 or ltgov@mail.mo.gov.

Categories
Brecht Butcher Buildings Demolition North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Old North St. Louis Building Division

Brecht Butcher Supply Buildings Under Demolition; Permit Altered

by Michael R. Allen

Two weeks ago, the A.G. Mack Contracting Company began wrecking the Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings at the northeast corner of Cass and Florissant avenues in Old North St. Louis. The historic buildings, owned by Blairmont Associates LC (30% owned by developer Paul J. McKee, Jr.), have sat empty since their purchase by the current owner in 2005. On October 6, 2006, a large fire struck the buildings and caused extensive but not insurmountable damage.

On October 31, 2006, the city’s Building Division issued an emergency demolition permit for the eastern two buildings of the three-building group. According to demolition inspectors, the two-story western building was to be spared while the other buildings would be wrecked with city money.

Then, suddenly, salvagers removed the cornice from the two-story section beginning January 8. Demolition started on the two-story section, and a complaint to the city led to information from Demolition Supervisor Sheila Livers stating that all three building would be wrecked.

The city’s Geo St. Louis website shows that the original wrecking permit issued October 31, 2006 was replaced by a new one issued January 12, 1007.

The reason for the change is unknown. Obviously, the loss of the two larger buildings would have diminished the visual impact of the two-story building. Yet leaving some part — a part not at all damaged by the fire — of the historic row would have been better than nothing.

(Photograph from February 8, 2007. Most of the two-story section is demolished now.)

Categories
North St. Louis People St. Louis Place

Two Good Things About St. Louis

The Royale Treatment – Eddie Silva (St. Louis Magazine, February 2007)

Is this an article about Steve Smith or the cultural future of this city? Does it really matter, with prose this lovely?

Cool to be Kind – Molly Languir (Riverfront Times, January 31)

Amid depopulation and big-time real estate maneuvers, a quiet revolution is occurring on the near northside. Its leaders are the gentle Catholic Workers from the Karen House community, some of my favorite neighbors.

While some might read articles like this and think we have a fine counterculture, others could come to the conclusion that many St. Louisans have redefined the city’s cultural identity. Forget the easily replicated allure of new condos or the sports teams that other cities have. The really original things about St. Louis may pass undetected by most people, but they are providing desperately needed cultural continuity. Some people seem to truly think that St. Louis is a great city, and they translate these thoughts into actions.

In fact, so many interesting people live here one could easily stop thinking about the old guard forever, if only they stopped stealing houses, leveling neighborhoods and pulling the city further into decline.

Categories
JeffVanderLou North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Old North St. Louis Place

Three Neighborhoods, Thousands of People

by Michael R. Allen

If anyone tuned into last night’s excellent program on the 6:00 p.m. news program of KMOV Channel 4, you would have seen a compelling, tightly-edited report from Russell Kinsaul.

Just don’t get the wrong idea. More is at stake here than Old North St. Louis with its eager young middle-class white rehabbers. The “Blairmont” project encompasses the lives of thousands of people, and the biggest impact is on a largely poor, African-American population. This population may not survive the development apparently envisioned by Paul McKee’s McEagle Properties. (That project is in line to receive a large subsidy from the state of Missouri should a proposed bill amendment go through this week.)

The concerns of renters in JeffVanderLou are as politically important as those raised by homeowners in Old North St. Louis. In fact, the fact that both share the same concerns show that the near north side already enjoys incredible diversity — and an unfortunate deep bond in fear over the possible changes to come.

In the future, that bond and that diversity could be improved by thoughtful, careful redevelopment efforts. Clearance would erase the potential for retaining the existing population that has maintained the cultural fabric of the area despite incredible obstacles posed by decades of disinvestment.

Instead of viewing the area as a potential blank slate, would-be developers should see an area already possessing a great array of architectural, cultural and social resources. The focus needs to be on filling the gaps harmoniously to create a strong urban fabric for three very cool neighborhoods.

These neighborhoods already are rebuilding block by block, neighbor by neighbor, house by house. While Claire and I are a part of this effort, so are many other people. We look forward to many others joining us in the next decade, and to seeing our fellow near north siders stick around for the good future we share.

Categories
Missouri Legislature North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Blight Proposal Being Rushed In State Senate

by Michael R. Allen


Tax subsidy backer cites St. Louis blight – Virginia Young (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 8)

Imagine the possibility of a massive state-backed subsidy for large-scale urban revitalization in St. Louis.

Bet you don’t imagine it being spearheaded by senators from St. Charles County, arriving in a hurry with little warning and with almost no knowledge of the proposal among St. Louis development insiders.

What could be carefully-crafted, responsible policy seems to be rushed and made without the insights of those with the experience at the “tough sledding” of development work in depressed parts of St. Louis.

With some refinement, such a policy proposal might be appropriate. At the moment, the proposal raises concerns in St. Louis.

Categories
Hyde Park North St. Louis

Good Work in Hyde Park

by Michael R. Allen

There is a brand new force for good in Hyde Park! The Friedens Neighborhood Foundation is on a roll with an uplifting message of community empowerment, education and rebuilding one of the city’s most needlessly distressed neighborhoods. Based at the historic Friedens United Church of Christ at 19th and Newhouse, the organization is working rehabbing historic church-owned buildings and launching the first northside YouthBuild Academy. The YouthBuild schools provide construction education to teens who have dropped out of high school, and provide students both a G.E.D. equivalent and exposure to the work needed to revitalize their own neighborhoods. What could be a better match than the new academy and the Hyde Park neighborhood, one of the city’s most endangered architectural assets?

Please peruse the Friedens Neighborhood Foundation website and consider making a donation of time, talent or treasure to one of the most inspiring neighborhood organizations in the city. The foundation truly is confronting the social causes and physical symptoms of neighborhood decline. We can’t let them fail.

Categories
Downtown Green Space

Studying Downtown Park Space: Less is More

by Michael R. Allen

According to a post on MayorSlay.com, the Gateway Foundation has chosen a team led by Thomas Balsley and Associates of New York and Urban Strategies of Toronto to develop yet another master plan for the ribbon of disconnected parks known as the Gateway Mall.

Meanwhile, the Downtown St. Louis Partnership seems close to closing a deal to develop part of the north side of the 800 block of Locust as a plaza.

With the Gateway Mall, nearly perpetually under construction and study since the 1920s, the city has a chance to make relevant a mostly unused belt of green space of dubious utility. With the plaza on Locust Street, the city could see a project that will end up as much an albatross as the mall did. A wiser plan would be to take the existing green space and bring it back to life instead of creating more open space downtown.

Enclosure and density in balance with open space are the hallmarks of a thriving city. Seeming random and unplanned open space are tell-tale signs of a city struggling with its own identity. That’s a struggle St. Louis need fight no longer; downtown has the amazing modern grounds of the Gateway Arch, the Gateway Mall and the American original Lucas Park. As the Gateway Mall study shows, what is needed is reconsideration and enhancement of existing space — not creation of more poorly-christened park space.

What better testament to the city’s success could there be than a dynamic, visually punctuated Gateway Mall and a sleek new tower on the 800 block of Locust Street?

Categories
North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Blairmont Site Assembly Heading to the Long Final March

by Michael R. Allen

Has Paul McKee Jr.’s Blairmont juggernaut slowed? Not likely. However, word on the street is that they various active purchasing companies — including Sheridan Place LC, MLK 3000 LLC and Dodier Investors LLC — are making contracts with close dates as far off as May. The hold-up may be due to capital flow issues, or perhaps it’s a strategic timing to avoid greater scrutiny in the wake of recent publicity.

If the hold-up is due to lack of working capital, that is not difficult to understand. A scan of their last day of recorded deeds, January 24, shows four sales totaling $333,500.00.

These purchases are a house and lot at 2219-21 Benton Street with a deed of trust for $80,500.00, a house at 2545 Warren Street ($86,250.00), a house at 2507 North Market ($92,000) and a house at 2911 James Cool Papa Bell.

These prices are very high for older homes in the St. Louis Place and JeffVanderLou neighborhoods, but there’s good reason for the elevated prices: these four homes were occupied and maintained up to date of the sale. No doubt, the families that owned and occupied these homes were not about to sell out their little acre for pittance, even in the face of the usual rumor-mongering Blairmont’s agents have been caught perpetrating.

As the Blairmont machine heads onward in the later stages of site assembly for the “bulldoze the ghetto” project, the last remaining properties are owned by reluctant owners, unyielding owners and unknowing owners. Now that the machine is trying to buy hold-outs and hard-to-locate owners, we may be witnessing the greatest displacement of residents since this whole messy business started in 2002. In the first few years, when few realized the plot, Blairmont purchased properties at sheriff’s tax sales and bought vacant land and buildings. Then, the agents began soliciting sales and picked up properties owned by folks ready to sell. They also began making inroads with public agencies, including purchase of the old Benton School site at 2333 Benton from the Board of Education and a disposition from the Public Administrator’s office.

Now, all that is left are people who own property that they have intended to maintain as residences and businesses. Now, all that is left is a full-on assault against the strongest parts of near north side neighborhoods. That, and a grab for the crucial public lands.

What will our political leaders say as hundreds of north side residents are displaced and a tremendous public land-grab is planned? So far, they are mostly silent.

Categories
Central West End Forest Park Southeast Green Space

The BJC Park Lease and the Public Sphere

by Michael R. Allen

To all those people who bemoan the fact that some citizens are hesitant to grant BJC Healthcare a 99-year lease of a supposed forgotten corner of Forest Park: please examine the public sphere in the age of neoliberalism. Under policies at all levels of government, the ideal of the public good has become politically gauche. To talk openly about holding the stewardship of park land by our city government over the economic benefit of BJC’s expansion seems a political third rail, when even twenty-five years ago widespread opposition would have been a given, and few city officials would dare have favored a 99-year lease of public land to a private hospital group headed by a real estate developer.

In the past few years, we have watched the public school system sell off or discard assets of the public trust; not so long ago, the public hospital system was dismantled; city government has gone from a collective trust among citizens to provide for their needs to a near-sighted machine for favors, cobbled-together compromises and defensive gestures. Things that should belong to the citizens have been sold off or promised to private interest, and there seems to be widespread acceptance among leaders that government is now a tool for endorsement and acceleration of market forces. Once, government was the check against those forces that ensured that no matter what the city’s commercial fortunes the citizens had good parks, clean water, schools and the infrastructure needed for living.

While the opposition to the Forest Park lease may be more symbolic than anything given that BJC already has a lease on the land it is posed to get, the opposition recognizes the precedent the lease sets for future “needs” by big corporations like BJC. The lease makes law the trend of using city government to aid the powerful at the expense of safeguarding the public trust.

In that light, the lonely votes of opposition cast by Alderman Jeffrey Boyd (D-22nd) and Aldermanic President James Shrewsbury on the perfection of the lease deal are not foolish or ignorant acts. After all, BJC could seriously have chosen many other lands for the expansion project; the site is a red herring of epic proportion. They are the bare minimum we should expect of our elected officials in an age in which the very purpose of democratic government is under attack by hyper-capitalists who have managed to influence our government, nonprofit and intellectual spheres. This attack should be resisted everywhere, but it is especially pernicious on an urban city with relatively scarce resources like St. Louis.

Thankfully, we have two representatives in city government who are wary of the attack on the public sphere. We may every well have a third, if Comptroller Darlene Green votes against the lease when the final and binding vote by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment takes place.

Categories
2007 St. Louis Election Northside Regeneration

Blairmont’s Associates Giving to Both Shrewsbury and Reed

by Michael R. Allen

The two candidates for president of the Board of Aldermen have reported campaign contributions related to the “Blairmont” effort.

According to his 40 day before the primary election filing, Jim Shrewsbury received $750.00 from Eagle Realty Company on November 10, which represents the Blairmont family of companies. In fairness, Eagle Realty Company does appraisal work for the St. Louis Development Corporation and the Land Reutilization Authority and may have other cause to make this donation.

In his report, Lewis Reed shows that he raised in one day an astounding $4,000 in contributions from companies related to developer Paul J. McKee, Jr. including one of the Blairmont holding companies. On December 7, 2006 the following companies connected to McKee donated $1000 each: Create, LLC; Havenwood, LLC; Boardwalk Corporate Centre LLC; and Allston Alliance, LC. Allston Alliance LC is one of the Blairmont holding companies, owning the Cass Avenue Schnucks site; its registered agent is John Steffen, head of the Pyramid Companies. (On Reed’s report, Allston Alliance lists a return address of 906 Olive Street, Suite 600, same as the Pyramid Companies.) While Steffen’s role is unclear, McKee reported a 30% ownership stake in Allston Alliance LC. Also in fairness, McKee is chairman of BJC Healthcare that is seeking to renegotiate its lease of part of Forest Park. Shrewsbury opposes that renegotiation.

While these contributions may not amount to influence, they should be noted. The silence by public officials and candidates on the “Blairmont” project is notable. The private control of an entire ward’s future should be of utmost concern to all elected officials, since such control ultimately threatens the role of government to shape development to be responsible both to city residents and to existing law.