Categories
North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Loans to NorthSide in the News

by Michael R. Allen

The news of the failure of Corn Belt Bank and Trust is hitting St. Louis a little late — the bank failed in February. Now the failure is newsworthy because of the fact that the Pittsfield, Illinois-based bank loaned $14.8 million to holding companies controlled by McEagle Properties and its Chairman, Paul J. McKee, Jr.

McEagle was not Corn Belt’s only St. Louis customer. Corn Belt had a branch office in Clayton and made numerous real estate loans in the St. Louis market. To date, only one of those loans has been resolved through a deed of release filed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The problem with Corn Belt was that it was undercapitalized. Illinois regulators first issued a cease and desist order in December 2008 ordering the bank to resolve many problems with its management including “engaging in hazardous lending and lax collection practices.”

According to McKee, the loans with Corn Belt had the interest rolled into the loan so that there were no monthly payments. While such an arrangement was desirable to McKee (and, frankly, any other customer!), such loans sound exactly like “hazardous lending.”

Corn Belt is one of two banks that have made loans to the NorthSide project. The other bank is the Bank of Washington in Washington, Missouri. In January, the Bank of Washington extended a line of development credit to McEagle with a maximum amount of $27.6 million. Securing this loan are the holdings of six McEagle north side holding companies (Larmer, Union Martin, Babcock Resources, Dodier Investors, MLK 3000 and Sheridan Place).

Perhaps related to the loan to the NorthSide project is the loan of $20 million in Capital Purchase Program funds to the Bank of Washington in May. These funds were created as part of the Obama administration’s stimulus funding initiative.

L.B. Eckelcamp, bank chairman and prominent Republican political donor, told The Missourian in May that “[the funding] will allow us to remain extremely well capitalized and still increase our ability to take deposits and make loans by more than $100,000,000.”

Categories
Edwardsville, Illinois Historic Preservation Metro East Planning

Edwardsville Residents Rally for Buildings Housing Small Businesses

by Michael R. Allen

My coverage is a little late, but I wanted to give a shout out to the 50 people who demonstrated against demolition of historic commercial buildings last Friday in downtown Edwardsville. The Belleville News-Democrat (perhaps the region’s best daily paper) has coverage here.

The bottom line: a law firm wants to demolish six small-scale storefront buildings now home to small businesses. These buildings are all historic, with some older than 100 years. However, some of the buildings were reclad or greatly altered over time. Indeed, some of them are barely recognizable as historic buildings.

However, the tenants and others oppose the move not just because these buildings are old. The opposition stems from recognition that downtown Edwardsville needs buildings like these to retain small business and vital street scapes. Giant new office buildings take away not only the low rents that foster commerce, but the differentiation in a block face that makes it a welcoming environment. Preservation here is not essentially about saving something old, or something pretty, but something that encourages a mode of business conducive to building community. Maybe someday someone will restore the facades of these buildings, but even if that never happens the buildings are working just fine.

Downtown Edwardsville’s commercial district has seen a resurgence of small business activity, and retaining storefronts is essential to future growth. Like many downtowns, Edwardsville’s has plenty of surface lots where a new office building could be built. There is no reason why the lawyers seeking their own building and the small businesses cannot coexist.

Categories
Brick Theft Historic Preservation North St. Louis St. Louis Place

Brick Thieves Assail Presumed Legacy Property

by Michael R. Allen

Criminals can work pretty damn fast, as the condition of the McEagle Properties-owned house at 1930-6 St. Louis Avenue shows. Two weeks ago, the vacant house was sound. Last Wednesday, the side wall had started to come down at the hands of the north side vultures (see “The Precarious Condition of Two Houses on St. Louis Avenue,” (August 12, 2009). Today, almost all of the ell of the old house stood destroyed. The bricks no doubt have cycled through Pope’s or one of the other yards around 25th and University, then on to hands more legally clean of fencing stolen goods but no less complicit.

Meanwhile, McEagle has taken no visible step to safeguard the over 150 historic buildings that it owns in north St. Louis, or work with residents to report brick thieves, who prey also on other buildings. Perhaps no one has seen the activity here. After all, thieves picked apart many buildings to the south of this house, McEagle emptied the three houses to the east of this building and two of the three buildings across the street is vacant. Four years ago, the brick thieves would have been afraid to pick on this block, and now they seem to be able to rule the roost.

However, what is done is done. Complaining about the past won’t secure a future for the McEagle-owned historic buildings across north city. What will do the trick is actual preservation planning: architectural survey of St. Louis Place and JeffVanderLou, listing of eligible buildings and districts, placement of the 5th and 19th wards in preservation review (solely the responsibility of the alderwomen) and strict rules about security and stabilization as part of the redevelopment ordinances facing the Board of Aldermen. If McEagle and planner Mark Johns of Civitas are serious about saving “legacy properties,” it’s time to tell us how they will do that.

The facts on one hand: Brick thieves demolishing McEagle buildings. Historic buildings deteriorating and left open to the elements. On the other: A promise. Promises don’t save historic buildings, or we’d all be rehabbers. I don’t mean to condone or chastise McEagle for the past failures, but urge the developer and city leaders to take action now as part of the negotiation. If McEagle lacks the capacity, then it should work openly with the city and other developers who can bring funds for preservation planning, stabilization and rehabilitation. We can’t save everything, and we’ve lost a lot. (We lost more in St. Louis Place and JeffVanderLou before McEagle arrived, in fairness.) Yet we can take the circumstances we have and turn a developer’s promise into action that will reassure residents of north St. Louis that McEagle is as serious about the attempt as it is about the sell.

Categories
Fairground North St. Louis Storefront Addition

Storefront Additions: West Florissant and Linton

by Michael R. Allen

The striking group of vacant buildings at the northwest corner of West Florissant and Linton Avenues (3900-4 West Florissant Avenue, technically) in the Fairgrounds neighborhood has long attracted the attention of photographers, amateur architectural historians and passer-by. The colorful name on the liquor store sign at the corner, Lucille McQuade, tempts the imagination to conjure Lucille. Sassy liquor store owner, sitting behind the corner with a quick no bullshit face for the teenagers trying to buy a Colt? I don’t know, but I do know Lucille’s old store is not long for this world.

Two years have passed since I took the first photograph in this post. The three buildings now look even worse. Well, the corner building (built in 1933) is same and sound, although the enamelled sign board has been crumpled by a would-be thief. The two-story house, built in 1896, was first robbed of limestone keystone and voussoirs above the second floor windows. Then came the fire in May of this year that triggered collapse of most of the building structure. The formal front elevation struggles to maintain its composure, and the side walls are largely intact. However, anything wooden has fallen down where gravity has lured all buildings forever.

Yet all is not lost, because the house’s commercial front (built some time after 1933) is intact. This front actually covers the front and wraps around the side. Bricks from the house have fallen through the roof, perhaps, but this fireproof building addition is intact and could be rescued from its crippled parent. The pale-toned tapestry brick and the terra cotta shields are particularly bright on this building. Notice how the new front is built over the pier of the one-story corner store, which shares some of its vocabulary.

If we lose the buildings on one side of Linton, we have two other storefront additions on the other. United Railways built a street car line on West Florissant between 1910 and 1915, and as residents of older neighborhoods like Old North and Hyde Park moved in this direction, there was demand for more retail. The residential buildings around this intersection were located near earlier commercial buildings, and adaptation into commercial use was logical for owners. The tenement building above, located at 3856 West Florissant Avenue, was built in 1890 and built out to the sidewalk with a store in 1927.

On the same block at the alley line is the building at 3848 West Florissant Avenue. The house is a small brick shaped-parapet structure on a raised foundation dating to 1892. The commercial addition dates to some time after 1910. Use has come full circle, as the storefront is now used as a residence.

Categories
Mid-Century Modern Missouri

Mid-Century Modern Update from Washington, Missouri

by Michael R. Allen

The historic mid-century Patke’s Dairy building at 1805 Fifth Street in Washington, Missouri is now for sale (see listing here). The dairy had been owned and operated by the Patke family at that location for over 50 years. There is a great sign in front, too.

Also in Washington, the Bank of Washington has completely refurbished the swanky sign that advertised their drive-through lanes. Unfortunately, the bank grossly altered its 1950s-era building. The bank added two floors to the two-story streamline building and clad the expanded building in a common, confused proto-classical envelope. However, it’s good that the sign is back!

Categories
College Hill Fairground Housing North St. Louis

Architectural Creativity on Prairie Avenue

by Michael R. Allen

Two blocks of Prairie Avenue on each side of West Florissant Avenue are home to some of the most interesting small houses from St. Louis’ 19th century vernacular past. Above is the two-flat at 2111 East Prairie. This unique duplex dates to 1884 and is the lone survivor of a row of four. The trapezoidal entrance bay with its tall, narrow windows gives an otherwise conventional box a commanding street presence. The contrast between the masonry cornice work on this bay and the rest of the building reinforces the presence of the entrance. Now, this has been converted into a single-family home.

Across the street toward Florissant Avenue is the side-gabled house at 2144 East Prairie, built in 1885. Homes like this are common across St. Louis, but how many have Roman arches over all window and door openings — not just on the front, but on the sides as well?

While not eccentric like the others here, I had to mention the frame house at 2128 East Prairie, built in 1884. This side-entrance house is in fine shape, and worthy of preservation. Owned by the Land Reutilization Authority and located in the ailing College Hill neighborhood, there are already two strikes against the house.

One block west across Florissant stands one of the coolest shotgun houses ever built in our fair city. The house at 4316 Prairie (the bend in the street changes numbering from east-west to north-south) dates to 1896 and is fully within the fin de siecle eclectic vein of American architecture. The double pyramidal roof may be unique to a house of this size in St. Louis. Alas, this house is also a survivor of a row of four identical houses. The houses at 4312 and 4314 were LRA-owned and demolished in 2004, while the fourth house at 4310 was lost before 1980. In 2002, Landmarks Association of St. Louis prepared a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places of the three remaining house paid for by Community Development Block Grant funds, but for some reason the organization and Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr. (D-3rd), who represents this area, never proceeded with submission of the nomination.

These two blocks of Prairie Avenue lie in different neighborhoods — east of West Florissant is College Hill, and west is Fairground. Both neighborhoods are within the city’s Third Ward. These blocks are each largely devoid of houses at all these days, with over 50% of the parcels on each street face vacant. Thus, the odd houses stand out more. However, I think their unique qualities must have seemed even stranger when contrasted with so many more conventional vernacular buildings around them. Context is always key.

Categories
Historic Preservation North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Keep Your Buildings Standing to Keep Your Neighborhoods Strong

by Michael R. Allen

The title of this post is the title of my latest commentary for radio station KWMU, which aired today and can be found online here.

Categories
Events Historic Preservation Metro East Salvage

Behind the Scenes at St. Louis’ Future Architecture Museum This Friday

As a newly-minted member of the Board of Directors of the St. Louis Building Arts Foundation, I am pleased to invite my readers to a special event this week:


Photographs of the Foundation’s amazing facility across the river can be found online here. The former Sterling Steel Casting complex, built between 1923 and 1959, is an attraction in itself.

Categories
Green Space Planning St. Charles County

St. Charles County Preserving Open Space

by Michael R. Allen

A story from Saturday’s St. Charles County Journal, “Green acres: Couple donate land for park,” by Kalen Ponche, caught my eye. St. Charles County residents Dave and Mary Jane Wolk did not want their 67-acre property to be subdivided, so they are donating it to the St. Charles County Parks Department for eventual park space. According the article, the Wolks’ land is not the only park acquisition in the immediate future:

The county plans to spend $3.34 million for a 60-acre property owned by Robert J. and Patricia Day Barnard and a contiguous, 115-acre property owned by New Melle Lakes Development Co. and Apted-Hulling Inc.

(Anyone else surprised to see Apted-Hulling still around?) Besides these sizable acquisitions, the parks system in the county has received other donations from concerned families:

The Wolks are the fourth family to donate land to the county park system. Two of those donations are parks in reserve – 91 acres northwest of O’Fallon donated by Dolores Freymuth, and 100 acres south of Highway 364 (Page Avenue extension) and west of the Missouri River donated by Bill and Nancy Knowles. Officials hope to open the Old Boyd Plantation and Towne Park, donated by Betty Towne, next year.

The St. Charles County Parks Department now owns 2,855 acres and hopes to own 4,000 acres by 2015. These numbers are encouraging. If the past 25 years were years where St. Charles County leaders aggressively pursued development of rich farm land, maybe the next 25 will be years of sensible land conservation. As growth declines in that county, the time is right to safeguard land.

Categories
Historic Preservation North St. Louis

St. Louis American Editorializes on North Side Preservation

by Michael R. Allen

Today’s edition of the St. Louis American carried the smart editorial “Urban Preservation and Politics.” That the city’s African-American newspaper sees fit to editorialize about historic preservation in north St. Louis shows that we re amid a paradigm shift, at least insofar as elected officials across north city are concerned. By placing his ward into the city’s preservation review program, Alderman Antonio French (D-21st) may have started an economic and housing development revolution.