Categories
Adaptive Reuse South St. Louis

SLU Says It Can’t Reuse the Pevely Buildings; Local Designers Beg to Differ

by Lindsey Derrington

Saint Louis University recently stated that it has “studied the Pevely buildings extensively and determined they [do] not meet the needs of a modern health care facility,” effectively justifying its proposed demolition of the entire National Register-listed complex at Grand and Chouteau avenues for a new doctor’s building. Yet the original 1915 Pevely corner building and 1943 Pevely smokestack — the two structures the Pevely Preservation Coalition seeks to preserve — occupy a mere sliver of the university’s nearly 10 acre site between Grand and Chouteau Avenues and 39th and Rutger Streets. This begs the question: “Why?”

Charrette participants working at Landmarks Association's office.

This past Saturday, November 19, the Preservation Research Office, Landmarks Association of St. Louis and nextSTL took on this question with the Pevely Dairy Design Charrette. The four hour charrette proved an incredibly positive event aimed at finding practical solutions for the university to incorporate these historic buildings into its medical campus. The event far exceeded our expectations, with a pool of sixteen diverse participants consisting of architects, graduate students from SLU’s urban planning program, a mechanical engineer, and even a SLU doctor weighing in.

After a thorough discussion of the site’s dimensions, SLU’s extensive landholdings in the area, and the university’s probable needs, participants subdivided into four groups. Each focused on a different approach, including converting the corner building into doctors’ offices with a larger modern addition, adapting it into market-rate housing and ancillary facilities for the medical school, finding additional on-site locations for new buildings, and generating an overall site plan to connect this corner to the rest of the university.

Discussing ideas at the charrette.

The charrette was characterized by the matter-of-fact study that its designers bring to the workplace and classroom on a regular basis. Idealistic, or even hopeful rhetoric was wholly absent, because it turns out that this design “problem” is no problem at all. Each group presented multiple scenarios of how to preserve these buildings while still accommodating the university’s needs. The take-away was that the task is almost too easy, and that given more time, even more solutions could be found.

Their plans will be presented at the Preservation Board meeting on Monday, November 28. Hopefully board members will see past SLU’s influence and political clout to what is so clearly apparent: these structures can and should be incorporated into the university’s larger medical campus to serve patients, doctors, and students in a manner that enhances the built environment rather than destroys it.

Categories
Adaptive Reuse Hyde Park North St. Louis

Films in the Night on Mallinckrodt Street

by Michael R. Allen

Hopefully some readers are aware of the worthy efforts of the Rebuild Foundation to transform historic buildings in Hyde Park into creative spaces where art and community converge. So far, the Foundation has purchased three buildings around Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, and work is well underway on two of the buildings.

1415 Mallinckrodt Street

The Rebuild Foundation’s adaptive reuse philosophy is rooted in great respect for the historic materials and craftsmanship found in Hyde Park’s architecture. Yet the Foundation, under the direction of artist Theaster Gates and project manager Charlie Vinz, has embraced the potential to transform tradition. That is, their rehabilitation work in interpretive instead of restorative. Since they are working on damaged, vacant buildings, the approach seems correct. These are not buildings in pristine repair with all of their features intact.

Instead, these buildings offer a narrative of decline through their distressed conditions. Rebuild Foundation uses what is left of the original fabric to forge a new architectural story of rebirth — one told through leaving some things in place, reworking others and bringing new materials and designs into the mix. The buildings gain a temporal relationship to the larger arc of the neighborhood, and their details do not mask that.

Preservation Research Office has been a supporter of the Foundation’s work, and we have twice provided curated film screenings for Foundation staff and volunteers. Our most recent night took place at the end of a work day on Saturday. To tired and productive workers we offered a selection of 16mm educational films — including the dazzling Bakery Beat — once part of the St. Louis Public Schools’ library. This is the same collection once used for the cine16 series, but now it is under our stewardship.

We hope to expand programming from the collection in the future, but in the mean time we enjoy opportunities to connect it to new audiences. The cultural heritage of the city can create unexpected moments as it is redeployed and reinterpreted today. Old buildings, old films, old craftsmanship — all continuous threads that make our city a remarkable and living place.

Categories
Downtown Preservation Board

Preservation Board Considering Cupples Station Building 7 Demolition

by Michael R. Allen

The Graham Paper Company Building (now known as Cupples Station Building 7) shown in a photograph in the Station Masters files in the collection of the St. Louis Building Arts Foundation.

On November 9, Kevin McGowan applied for a demolition permit for Building 7 at Cupples Station (originally the Graham Paper Company Building). The city’s Cultural Resources Office denied the permit, and McGowan appealed the denial to the Preservation Board. The appeal will be considered at the Board’s meeting on November 28. Since it is an appeal, the matter requires a quorum of Preservation Board members to be present for any vote. (Currently eight of the nine spots are filled.)

On appeal, the threshold for approval of demolition is high. The Preservation Board will face arguments from McGowan that the building cannot be stabilized at a reasonable cost, including his recent assertion that demolition costs $2 million less than stabilization. Board members might hear that the building was far too gone to be saved when McGowan originally purchased it in 2004, despite the fact that his company purchased it for rehabilitation.

The burden of proof rests with the appellant, so Preservation Board members need to dig deep in learning the facts. What was the condition of the roof and collapsed structure when McGowan purchased it? What measures has his company taken to prevent the spread of damage? How many building code violations have been found, and when, and did McGowan’s company ever take steps to comply with the code? Have there been offers from other developers to purchase the building, and, if so, why has a sale not taken place? And, of course: How much money does stabilization really cost, and can it be phased?

Cupples Station is an architectural treasure that has faced countless threats over the years. In fact, over half of its original warehouses are gone, leaving just eight remaining. Yet the importance of the remaining buildings has been recognized by St. Louis mayors going back to Vincent Schoemehl, who rescued the complex from demolition to build a new hockey arena.

Preservation of the warehouses has been a goal of nearly every city administration since then, and now only two warehouses are vacant. One of these is slated for rehabilitation, and the other should be. Assembling a workable plan for Cupples Station Building 7 with an intractable owner will be difficult, and will take time. Preservation Board denial of the appeal is a first step in making sure that a plan emerges. Yet Mayor Francis Slay needs to go further and protect the building from an emergency demolition order from the Building Commissioner — a step that would thwart the Preservation Board’s authority.

Categories
Demolition North St. Louis St. Louis Place

Two For One, 20th and Warren Streets

by Michael R. Allen

Demolition of the fire-damaged corner store at 20th & Warren streets is nearly done (see “Lost: Corner Store, 20th & Warren”), In the process of demolition, wreckers have knocked loose a large section of the corner of the adjacent multi-family building. While the two buildings shared a party wall, they were not internally connected and the survivor was not threatened by the fire next door.

Of course, our demolition regulations do not protect adjacent vacant buildings, and we lose a few each year to careless demolitions next door. Meantime, the damaged buildings will sit awaiting owner or — most likely — city demolition efforts. Residents of the 1900 block of Warren lose a corner building and have to watch the wrecked building next door slowly collapse until it too gets leveled.

Categories
Events

Pevely Dairy Design Charrette, November 19

We are pleased to join the Landmarks Association of St. Louis and nextSTL in sponsoring a design charrette for the Pevely Dairy plant at Grand and Chouteau. The charrette takes place next Saturday, November 19, from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. Details appear on the flier here.

Categories
Midtown

The Palladium Is Worth Saving

Following up on our recap of last week’s Midtown music and architecture tour, here’s a short video by Kevin Belford that makes the case for the importance of the Palladium.




Stay tuned.

Categories
Demolition St. Louis County

Brownhurst and the Logic of the “Campus”

by Michael R. Allen

Brownhurst awaiting its demise.

Last week, St. John Vianney High School demolished the venerable Brownhurst mansion in Kirkwood. The demolition was no surprise, given that the Marianists had set September 9 as the date for a “serious” buyer who would relocate the large house. The terms of the order were not met, although there was a chance for preservation more serious than anyone expected.

Although Brownhurst had sat vacant for 22 years on the Vianney campus, suffering neglect, and although the Marianists pushed a rather difficult demand that any buyer relocate the house, an anonymous philanthropist stepped forward. This person would have given $2 million toward renovation of Brownhurst as a non-profit incubator — a gift that seemed to reconcile the Marianists’ concern that there was no feasible or fundable reuse of the house and the Kirkwood Landmarks Commission’s steadfast efforts to save Brownhurst.

Yet the Marianists rebuffed the offer, and set Brownhurst on a path toward demolition. The Shingle Style house, built in 1890 for Daniel Sidney Brown, is now just a memory to its generations of admirers. Even to the very end, the house showed that demolition was a wasteful and willful act – the solid stone masonry, intact original shingles, porch columns and sash and countless bits of the graceful character of the mansion were defiant reminders of the solid beauty in our midst.

Brownhurst’s architect remains a mystery, according to architectural historian Matthew Bivens, whose research on the house has been extensive. Those who have destroyed the house, on the other hand, are well-known. While their actions are reasonable within the framework of maintenance of the private school campus, the underlying framework deserves scrutiny.

Vianney’s mission is education, not expansion and preservation of protected land. Yet its stewards have placed their real estate ahead of their mission and stewardship of the larger values of their society. Brownhurst was a work of architecture that was of value not just to Kirkwood but to the region. Upon purchase, Vianney ought to have embarked upon a plan to either do right through ownership, or to find a party that could.

Instead, the school invested in the rest of its campus, and let a local landmark decay to a severe point. Then, at the eleventh hour, the school cast aside a generous and impressive offer to allow the community to maintain Brownhurst. Here the school’s mission – education, which includes imparting the traditions of art and history – would suggest that preservation was more important than concerns about the “campus.” After all, a campus is just malleable land, while a beautiful building is a tangible and visible reminder of the potential of the human mind.

Alas, in this day and age, educational institutions seem more intent on amassing and protecting real estate than in ensuring that their missions are enjoined to the values of their communities. Whether Brownhurst “served” Vianney would have been a decent question had Brownhurst been a pole barn, but given the house’s historic and architectural pedigree, utility ought to have been only a secondary consideration. If our region’s institutions subsume great architecture to the myopic logic of use, the preservationist’s task is clear: preventing these works from ever being owned by institutions who judge commitment to community, culture and heritage by the crude standard of momentary utility.

Categories
Midtown

Exploring Midtown’s Musical History

by Michael R. Allen

On Saturday night I sat in the balcony watching some 250 dancers heating up the floor at the Casa Loma Ballroom. Even my two left feet were itchin’ to join the action at this weekend’s Nevermore Jazz Ball and St. Louis Swing Dance Festival, a multi-night, multi-venue extravaganza. Credit goes to two of this town’s most go-getting young people, Christian Frommelt — former PRO intern — and Jenny Shirer, for bringing the scene to our town in a big way.

We started at the Castle Ballroom (1908), located at the northeast corner of Olive and T.E. Huntley streets.

On Friday, Kevin Belford and I had a small part in the weekend’s festivities as guides for a tour of musical and architectural heritage sites in midtown. Many of our guests were from out of town, so we enjoyed getting to promote neglected aspects of our cultural heritage to them. If St. Louis could tell the stories that Kevin Belford has told in his book Devil at the Confluence and elsewhere, our national image would be much different — and far more compelling to cultural tourism.

Kevin Belford discusses the bands and musicians that played the Castle Ballroom.

We started at the Castle Ballroom, originally opened in 1908 as Cave Hall, and wended our way across the fields of what was Mill Creek Valley. There we chased the ghost flats of musicians as well as the glory days of Laclede Town. Back up to Locust Street, we saw how St. Louis’ music industry lived side-by-side with the rising automobile age in the early part of the twentieth century.

The main entrance to the Palladium on Enright Avenue as it appeared in 2009.
The south elevation of the Palladium (1913) on Delmar Boulevard is where the entrance to Club Plantation was located (at right here).

Our tour ended at the Palladium, built in 1913 as a roller rink but most significant as a ball room later known as Club Plantation. While the Castle Ballroom is now on the path to finding a good owner and new life, the Palladium faces the threat of demolition and the interest of the Veterans’ Administration that wishes to expand the Cochran Veterans Hospital to the north.

We were surprised to see work in progress at the Sweetie Pie's building west of the Palladium. Looks like the VA will have a hard time getting the whole block.
Categories
Historic Preservation

National Trust Requests Naming Input for “National Treasures”

From Preservation Action

One of the major components of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s restructure plan, Preservation 10X, includes a focus on the identification of and subsequent advocacy for 100 “National Treasures.” These resources are meant to be historic places of national significance, or that raise national preservation issues.

Since this program is going to be a major initiative of the Trust, and many individuals have been providing suggestions as to what the name should be, the Trust has decided “…to use data-driven research to help in making this name decision to give us the best chance for success.” In short — they want input! According to an announcement by President Stephanie Meeks, “…the name needs to be a proper noun (no verbs). It needs to be short and memorable. It needs to convey the importance of these places and signal the commitment of the Trust to their protection. We are asking friends close to the Trust to provide name ideas that we can test in our upcoming research. If you have suggestions, please send them to names@nthp.org by November 23.”

Categories
Clearance Demolition North St. Louis Old North

One Building For An Extra Lane

by Michael R. Allen

This is the former Greyhound maintenance building (built around 1950) at the northeast corner of Cass Avenue and Hadley Street, currently being demolished by the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT). While the building’s loss has been shown on MODOT’s plans for the new bridge landing on Cass Avenue since 2005, the actual demolition could not be more clearly pointless.

For one additional westbound lane of Cass Avenue, an entire building gets taken down — at public expense. This building and another one to its north are in great shape, with brick walls and steel roof trusses. These one-story clear-span buildings would make excellent retail stores (a supermarket in this building would be pretty cool), offices, warehouses or even just garage space. However, MODOT’s allocations are generous enough to remove considerations like wisely using existing resources, or not buying nearly entire city blocks in order to get a 20 foot easement.

Then again, with the loss of the Brecht Butcher Supply Company buildings to the west in 2007, and subsequent demolition of nearly every other building north of Cass Avenue from 14th to 10th streets, the demolition fulfills the eventual clear-cut of the south end of Old North St. Louis. Whether new buildings take the place of the old is uncertain, Crown Mart and scrap yards notwithstanding.