Categories
Missouri Missouri Legislature Public Policy

Communities First

by Michael R. Allen

Today the Missouri Senate will convene to consider the “economic development” bill (HCS SS SCS SB 8 ) passed by the House last week that would cut neighborhood and Main Street development across the state. The bill’s most damaging provisions are those that cap the issuance of historic tax credits for “small” projects at $10 million a year and one that would prohibit stacking the 9% low income and historic rehab tax credits. Anyone who has observed the renewal of urban neighborhoods and small towns across the state knows that small projects have led the way, and that stacking historic and low income tax credits have made transformative projects like Dick Gregory Place in St. Louis’ Ville possible. The use of these credits has created economic growth that has outpaced the US GDP, strengthened real property values and created wealth for thousands of Missourians.

At right, a long-abandoned building rehabbed using low income and historic tax credits. At left, a neighborhood coffee shop owned by neighborhood residents. This is 14th Street in Old North.

These tools are not being curtailed to save the state money, or to cut back on tax credits. The Republicans in the legislature are not conservatives in any fiscal sense, because their leadership wants only to remove some credits to create new ones for cargo warehouses in suburban St. Louis, to lower the state corporate income tax and to increase the amount of money available each year — and the categories of eligible spending — for the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit (DALATC). While the leadership in the houses fortunately has failed to find consensus on how to shift available tax breaks from middle-class property owners to wealthy investors, there seems to be a possibility that the bill might be reconciled in conference if the Senate passes it.

Passage of the bill, and Governor Nixon’s signature, would be mistakes. Missouri’s strength comes from people who care about their communities enough to invest in their homes and buildings housing small businesses. These are people fighting similar patterns of disinvestment across the state, found on large scales in parts of St. Louis and Kansas City but also in small towns robbed of vitality and local wealth by corporate chains like Wal-Mart. The historic tax credit has enabled average people to reclaim their communities, and create skilled construction and professional jobs in the process. Not only have vacant or aging buildings been revitalized, but wealth has been created in local economies. Developers with larger capacity have joined these efforts by tackling big buildings.

Odd Fellows Hall in Ironton, Missouri sits vacant. Historic tax credits could help make reuse feasible.

Every year, the legislature seems to increase the flow of incentives toward activities that create wealth at the expense of communities. Cuts across the board would be one thing, and a philosophically consistent tax policy another. That is not what is on the table right now. Government policies that threaten local economies are far from conservative in any traditional sense. The legislature is looking at curbing proven, sustainable community development in order to enable large-scale economic activity that may not create wealth for struggling communities. Our state will suffer if these changes move forward.

Categories
Demolition Midtown

That’s What Happens Without Demolition Review

by Michael R. Allen

Earlier this year.
Yesterday.

This week, the city said farewell to the Midtown commercial building at 3714 Olive Street just west of Spring Avenue. Sitting behind the massive Coronado Hotel on a block nearly devoid of historic buildings, the two-story building has been a fairly anonymous part of the urban fabric for most of its years. However, as its context diminished, the building became a more important part of potential development of small businesses in Grand Center. The arts district had become a plane of parking space and institutional users, with nary a spot for a coffee or cocktail aside from a few places on Grand Avenue.

The loss of this building makes the dichotomy between Grand Center’s super-scale and its cultural pretensions (“art” and “life” of the sort one finds on, say, Cherokee Street require storefronts) even more stark. Yet the bigger issue is that the building’s demolition never received review by the Cultural Resources Office. This block is outside of the Midtown Historic District, and located in the 19th Ward. the 19th Ward does not have demolition review aside from historic districts and official landmarks.

Now the south side of the 3700-3800 block of Olive Street is down to just four historic buildi ngs, including the National Register-listed William Cuthbert Jones House at 3724 Olive Street and the Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge-designed Wolfner Memorial Library for the Blind (originally Southwestern Bell’s Lindell Exchange) at 3842-44 Olive Street. Two buildings with storefront additions, including one at 3808 Olive Street, also remain. The north side of the street has also been a mess, especially after the demolition of the Central Apartments in 2007.

The alien landscape of this block is the definite result of a once-curable lack of preservation planning. Hence, demolition of 3714 Olive Street makes a strange sort of sense.

Categories
Historic Preservation

Adding On

by Michael R. Allen

Creative preservation on Main Street in Imperial, Missouri.

The parapet of the one-story commercial building gasps out its date of construction, 1918, as the old building heaves under its new addition. What can one say about this project? At least the owners saved the existing building. At least the owners traced the contours of the historic building’s front parapet end blocks and pediment, and its stepped side parapets. Why, the only parts of the original building that are covered up are the roof and the rear wall!

Categories
Missouri Public Policy

What The House Is Voting On

Today the House Committee on Economic Development passed economic development bill HCS SB 8 by 21-4 vote. Included in the bill, to be considered by the full House as soon as tomorrow, would be major and devastating changes to the state’s historic rehabilitation tax credit as well as changes to the low income housing and distressed areas land assemblage tax credits.

Here are excerpts from the official substitute summary.

Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits

For each fiscal year beginning on or after July 1, 2011, the substitute limits to $80 million the total amount of credits that the Department of Economic Development can approve.

For all applications for credits approved on or after July 1, 2011, no more than $125,000 may be issued for eligible costs and expenses incurred in the rehabilitation of certain eligible owner-occupied residential property.

For each fiscal year beginning on or after July 1, 2011, the substitute limits to $10 million the total amount of credits for projects receiving less than $275,000 that the Department of Economic Development can approve.

For all credits authorized on or after July 1, 2011, the substitute reduces from three years to one year the time period that the credit can be carried back and from 10 years to five years the time period that the credit can be carried forward.

A taxpayer who receives a low-income housing tax credit for a project not financed through tax-exempt bond issuance cannot be eligible for a historic preservation tax credit for the same project.

An application for final approval and issuance of a tax credit must include a cost and expense certification by an independent licensed certified public accountant with any accrued developer fees stated separately. The department will have 120 days from receipt of the application for final approval to determine whether the completed project meets required standards and to issue tax credit certificates equal to 75% of the eligible costs and expenses verified to that date. If a taxpayer receives tax credits that include an amount attributable to accrued developer fees, he or she must submit within six years of completion of the rehabilitation an additional cost and expense certification verifying the total amount of developer fees actually accrued and paid. If the amount of the tax credits issued and attributable to developer fees exceeds the amount of developer fees actually accrued and paid, the taxpayer is liable to repay 25% of the excess. A taxpayer or his or her authorized representative may appeal any official decision on a preliminary or final approval to an independent third party appeals officer designated by the department.

Low Income Housing Tax Credit

For each fiscal year beginning on or after July 1, 2011, the substitute limits the total amount of low income housing tax credits that can be authorized for projects not financed through tax exempt bond issuance to $110 million, authorizes the tax credit to be carried forward for five years, and reduces from three years to two years the time period that a low income housing tax credit can be carried back.

Beginning July 1, 2011, the substitute limits the total amount of low income housing tax credits that can be authorized annually for projects financed through tax exempt bond issuance to $20 million.

Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit

This substitute expands the definition of “eligible project area” for purposes of the distressed land assemblage tax credit program to include a “redevelopment area” as defined in the real property tax increment allocation development act that contains at least 300 acres in 80 or more parcels, includes or previously included in excess of 10 million square feet of commercial building space, and is located within a “low income community” as defined in 26 U.S.C. Section 45D.

The five year restriction during which an applicant can receive a tax credit for all interest costs under the act is removed. Engineering costs, attorney=s fees, and architectural and planning costs are now authorized “acquisition costs”, and the allowable tax credit for demolition costs is increased from 50% to 100%. An applicant can file for the tax credit quarterly rather than annually.

The annual program cap is increased from $20 million to $30 million, although the aggregate program cap remains at $95 million. A process is established for allocating the annual $30 million in tax credits, depending upon the number of eligible applicants, provided however that if there are more than two applicants, no single applicant can receive more than 50% of the available tax credits. The sunset date is extended from August 28, 2013, to August 28, 2016.

Categories
Hyde Park Missouri North St. Louis O'Fallon Penrose Public Policy St. Louis Place The Ville

Capping Neighborhood Revitalization

by Michael R. Allen

In the past few weeks, proponents of the possibly impending economic development deal crafted between leaders in the Missouri House and Senate have made excuses for proposed cuts to the historic rehabilitation tax credit: “it was going to be cut anyway.” This rationale has led many St. Louis political leaders, developers and even usually-opinionated bloggers to concede that the state’s proven revitalization tool will have to be lopped to make way for a brave new future of subsidies for new cargo warehouses.

The corner building at 1530 Salisbury Avenue in the Hyde Park Historic District is now vacant.

We’ve heard that the “big buildings are done,” a statement that one could not safely make at the corner of 8th and Olive streets in downtown St. Louis, or in the railyard industrial areas of Kansas City. We have hard that it’s time for “new money” and new economics, a line that fails to mention that the cargo warehouse credits as written would only go to new construction, and that warehouses are not know for either welcoming pedestrian flanks or for innovative architecture. Worst, we have heard that a $10 million limit on historic tax credit awards of $275,000 or less is somehow protection of neighborhood microdevelopment.

The LRA-owned building at 2037 Adelaide Avenue is within the proposed O'Fallon Historic District.

To be sure, having some nod toward small projects is better than none, but what we have on the table is an annual $90 million issuance of historic tax credits in which small projects will only get $10 million – not a penny more. The $80 million majority of credits will go to the big projects – the ones that some proponents have claimed are “mostly done.” This skewed ratio prevents small developers and property owners from direct competition with large development operations, but it represents a move to cut small projects to over half of activity we saw in Fiscal Year 2011.

The vacant house at 2609 Rauschenbach Avenue in the newly-designated St. Louis Place Historic District.

According to data from the Missouri department of Economic Development (DED), in Fiscal Year 2011, the state issued around $21.5 million in historic rehabilitation tax credits to projects that received $275,000 or less in tax credits. This activity represents 165 of the 385 projects to which DED issued historic tax credits. Of course, the total issuance was $116.2 million, so the small projects were far from the majority. Yet they account for around 43% of all projects that used the historic tax credit.

A formula based on caps of $10 million for small projects and $80 million for large projects will end up slowing the pace at which neighborhood revitalization can take place, in small towns and big cities. In St. Louis, the effects could be most harmful in distressed neighborhoods across north St. Louis where new historic districts are being created or have been created in St. Louis Place, the Ville, Penrose, O’Fallon and the Wellston Loop. Literally thousands of north St. Louis buildings will be eligible for the Missouri historic rehabilitation tax credit by the end of the next year, in addition to buildings in the rest of the city. Will these buildings have fair access to an incentive designed to bring them back to productive use?

The answer to that questions rests with the General Assembly, as well as to backers of the tax credits for the cargo warehouses. Those who advocate for neighborhood revitalization can fight for a mechanism that may bring us more jobs, which the region does need, but they should not let their guard down when it comes to the mechanism that often is what stands between a rehabilitated, human-scaled building and a vacant lot or gas station.

The building at 4210 W. Cote Brilliante Avenue is in the Cote Brilliante Avenue in The Ville Historic District, which goes for state approval in November.

This is no either-or proposition – St. Louis will not be an attractive place for new investment if it neighborhoods aren’t improving. Missouri can’t give us unlimited money, but we can make sure that what we get doesn’t rob resources from neighborhoods that can’t afford lobbyists in the Capitol this week. A $10 million cap is too low. At least the cap should be based on last year’s activity of $21 million, so we don’t lose the momentum that is transforming tough blocks into great places to live.

Categories
Events Mid-Century Modern

St. Louis Part of the DOCOMOMO US National Tour Day, October 8

We are delighted that when thousands of people are exploring mid-century modern architecture across the United States, St. Louisans will be part of the national scene!  St. Louis will stand alongside such well-known bastions of modern architecture as Palm Springs, Los Angeles and Detroit.  It’s about time that the city that launched an architectural revolution in airport terminal design, built the nation’s most iconic modern monument and supported the careers of designers like Harris Armstrong, Eric Mendelsohn and William Bernoudy is included.

DOCOMOMO has invited ModernSTL to participate in the 5th Annual DOCOMOMO US National Tour Day. Our contribution to this American celebration of the Modern Movement is “Gateway To Modernism: Modern Architecture Tour of St. Louis City & County.”

This is a chartered bus tour from 9 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 8, 2011.

The tour, narrated by ModernSTL board members Toby Weiss and Michael R. Allen, will highlight outstanding examples of mid-century modern architecture in the Metro St. Louis region, driving through and stopping at spiritual, commercial and residential sites. The highlights will be a tour of architect Harris Armstrong’s Ethical Society Building (1962) led by architect (and Armstrong scholar) Andrew Raimist and a tour of Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum’s Priory Chapel (1962) with a special guest.

Space is limited to 100 people, and reservations are required. $25 per person. Get your tickets here.

Categories
Events

St. Louis Brick Documentary Screens Again Tuesday

Green vitreous brick accents the patternwork in the front parapet of the building at 4101 Alice Avenue in the O'Fallon neighborhood.

The next screening of Bill Streeter’s exciting documentary on St. Louis’ most beloved building material, Brick By Chance and Fortune will take place Tuesday, October 4 at 9:00 p.m. at Off Broadway (3509 Lemp Avenue). Buy tickets here.

The documentary includes interviews with many historians and preservationists familiar to readers of this blog: St. Louis Building Arts Foundation founder Larry Giles, B.E.L.T. author Toby Weiss, Vanishing STL author Paul Hohmann, Missouri Historical Society President Robert Archibald, historian NiNi Harris and Preservation Research Office Director Michael R. Allen.

Categories
Abandonment North St. Louis

Cotton Belt Freight Depot: RFT’s Best Old Building

Looking south down the side of the Cotton Belt Freight Depot.

The Riverfront Times occasionally slips in a “Best Old Building” among its annual “bests.” This year, to our delight, it is the cementitious wonder of the north riverfront, the Cotton Belt Freight Depot. The honor is timely; the city issued the building permit for the 750’ x 30’ transfer depot on October 18, 1911. The five-story warehouse cost $165,000 to build and was completed in 1913.  Currently the distinctive building awaits reuse.

Categories
Downtown

Cupples Station Building 7 In Context

by Michael R. Allen

Cupples Station Building 7 before the barriers went up.

This week started with the city’s Building Division moving ahead to surround Cupples Station Building 7 at 11th and Spruce with barriers to protect the public from potential collapses. Spruce Street between 10th and 11th streets is partially closed. This jarring reminder of the old warehouse’s rough condition was followed by owner Kevin McGowan’s statements that he will not preserve a building that he has owned — and let deteriorate — since 2004. The building’s condition is not yet dire enough to demand a death sentence, of course.

Spruce Street closed. View east from 11th Street. Cupples Station Building 7 is at right.

McGowan can pursue an emergency demolition permit if he wishes, or he can apply for a standard demolition permit. Either way, according to Mayor Francis Slay, the permit will go to the city’s Cultural Resources Office and likely to a public hearing at the Preservation Board. Preservationists are wondering if this will be a battle similar to that waged on behalf of the Century Building, of if McGowan will be led to the light of second chance emanating from a certain flying saucer. Either way, the fate of Cupples Station Building 7 will be a serious civic question, and the Mayor’s investment in the question is coming early.

Cupples Station Building 7 at right.

What is at stake is not simply a fine warehouse with gloriously sculptural masonry details, designed by the esteemed local firm of Eames & Young and completed in 1907. The quality of the remaining built environment of Cupples Station, diminished now to nine buildings, lies in the balance. So does the pedestrian quality of downtown south of Walnut Street. This area has long been isolated from the humane scale of north downtown, due to the Gateway Mall and the presence of several hostile 1980s skyscrapers on Market and Chestnut streets. Both the new Busch Stadium and Citygarden have softened the transition from parts of downtown that are pleasant to walk and this neglected zone, and rehabilitation projects at Cupples have populated the area with office workers and a few restaurants and bars. Now is not the moment to reverse that momentum.

View southwest toward Cupples Building 7. The Robert A. Young Federal Building, currently undergoing major rehabilitation, is in the background.

Furthermore, the block of Spruce on which Cupples 7 sits is the last place where there are Cupples warehouses present on both sides of the street. Until very recently, when another Cupples warehouse was foolishly lost in 2004, both faces of the block had two majestic red-brick buildings apiece. Even without one, the set is impressive, as is the visual line of brick on the south side leading to Busch Stadium’s Cupples homage.

Detail on north elevation of Cupples Station Building 7.

On the western end of the block, Building 7 and its earlier neighbor across the street, built in 1900, anchor the corners. Here the genius of Eames & Young’s plan is evident in the convergence of scale, height and materiality contrasted ever-gently with variations in window proportions, cornice profiles and bay divisions. These buildings make a fine set in which no one of them is identical to any other. That variety is irreplaceable, and currently the backbone of any hope there is to build out south downtown with more architecture of this quality. Cupples Station Building 7 must be saved.

View east down Spruce Street toward Busch Stadium. Cupples Station Building 7 is at right.
Categories
Downtown

Looking Inside of Cupples Station Building 7

by Michael R. Allen

I shot this short video from the roof of the parking garage south of Cupples Station Building 7. While the view doesn’t show the extent of damage, it provides a sense of the interior condition. All of this could have been prevented by temporary roofing.