Building Recycling

My latest KWMU commentary celebrates the conversion of the former Days Inn at Tucker & Washington into the Washington Avenue Apartments. Transcript and audio is online here.

Corner Storefront on Cass Avenue

This corner storefront and at 2742 Cass Avenue in JeffVanderLou was one of the properties recently purchased by Larmer LC from the Cass Corporation for $739,000. Actually, these are two separate buildings. While Geo St. Louis dates the buildings to 1885, that's probably wrong. Most of the Geo St. Louis building information comes from unreliable city records, not building permits. Likely, these buildings are earlier and the storefronts added later.

Across the city in the post-Civil War era, many builders built tenement housing like this on streets in "suburban" areas away from the central city. Some streets were main thoroughfares and shifted to commercial uses. When those changes came, building owners would often reconfigure tenement buildings to commercial use by putting a cast iron storefront in place of the brick wall on the first floor. That's what seems to be the case here.

The cast iron front allowed for greater glazed area than a heavy masonry wall; stores needed exposure of goods to the passers-by. This was long before automobile-clad consumers learned about goods through television and computers before heading to the local windowless big box.

Cast iron fronts are structural as well as decorative. The columns, poured into attractive classical forms, bear the weight distributed across the front by a beam box. Adding storefronts must have been interesting surgery!

Tomorrow Night: Development Challenges & Rewards Discussion

DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES AND REWARDS

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
7:00 p.m.
The Laurel Sales Office, 625 Washington Avenue


As part of Historic Preservation Week, ReVitalize St. Louis, the Rehabbers Club and Landmarks Association of St. Louis sponsor a panel including Jay Swoboda of EcoUrban Homes and Brady Capital and Stephen Acree of the the Regional Housing and Community Development Alliance, whose work has included many historic rehabilitation projects. Panelists will discuss their careers in St. Louis, the challenges they have faced and the current state of the city's real estate market. Question and answer session to follow -- bring your questions! Free.

UPDATE: Developer Will Liebermann, a developer who has done several projects on and around Cherokee Street, has joined the panel.

Will Aldermen Consider McKee Plan This Year?

My latest "Inside the Metropolis" column for the Vital Voice is more timely than I imagined when I submitted it:

Will Aldermen Consider McKee Plan This Year?

All Power to the Imagination

The title of this blog entry was the rallying cry of student protesters in Paris 40 years ago yesterday. (Read more about the events of May 1968 here.) What a wonderful exclamation -- power not to institutions, leaders, groups of people or even the revolutionary movement. The students wanted all power for imagination -- the faculty every human being shares, that allows for the envisioning of a new world.

Without imagination, we couldn't think through changing our own circumstances. Now, granted that some people have mighty fine circumstances and probably don't want to imagine a change in the world that may benefit others. The rest of us, though, need to have the power to envision our neighborhoods and own lives improved physically, economically and spiritually. In St. Louis, imagination fuels the work of my neighbors in Old North St. Louis as much as it keeps developers like Craig Heller going. Sometimes it's not acknowledged, and rarely gets political play, but we need imagination to make this city a better place.

Without imagination, we are resigned to existing conditions. Without daring to envision a city that does not let half of its geographic area collapse -- without daring to imagine a city where the antiquated 1916 charter (now a suicide pact) is overturned -- without making plans to include every citizen, not just the best-bred and best-educated, in decision-making at all levels -- without thinking that we can create standards for the quality of development that would ensure world-class results -- we have a city that has long since accepted mediocrity through default.

Change without imagination is tantamount to continued loss of opportunities. We can't let the technocrats plan our future through financing formulas. Without a vision -- a dream -- of what shape we want St. Louis to be in, we won't be able to resist or even influence the people whose dull plans are despoiling the landscape that once was an international city.

The situation surrounding the near north side is one great example. There is plenty of imagination for what Old North, Hyde Park and other neighborhoods should look like, but how empowered is the vision? These areas are under attack through speculation, Big Dull Plans, political apathy, redlining and persistent political defeat. What people there need to do is proclaim their vision for their home -- a vision easily defined to neighbors and strangers alike. Without dreams, no neighborhood can resist the infiltration of a Great Plan. Without a truly imaginative vision offered, the Great Plan may seem like a work of imagination. Maybe it is. But what mind imagines a decades of deprivation, building collapses, arson and poverty followed by wholesale clearance? That's not the work of imagination -- that what happens without it.

Larmer and Union Martin Take Over Where Others Left Off

Although known Paul McKee companies stopped purchasing property in December, two new holding companies have been making purchases in the same part of north St. Louis where McKee is active.

Larmer LC has filed at least 22 sales deeds since January 10, and Union Martin LLC has filed five. Many of these sales represent bundles of properties for substantial amounts. In all, Larmer has reported over $2.5 million in sales this year while Union Martin has reported sales totalling around $924,000.

Larmer and Union Martin were both registered by third-party registrar CT Corporation System, but deeds reveal that Daniel D. Baier is manager of both companies. As we previously reported, Larmer's tax bills go to a 2845 Keokuk Avenue, a building owned by F & B Properties LLC. F & B Properties' organizers are Baier and former Crestwood Mayor Thomas E. Fagan. Union Martin's tax bills go to the same address, although deeds list its address as 10658 Carroll Wood Way in St. Louis County.

Both companies were incorporated soon before the spending sprees began: Larmer on December 3, 2007 and Union Martin on December 15. Each company has its own accompanying shell lender. Larmer's loans come from Hamill Company LC, incorporated on November 27, 2007, while Union Martin's loans are from Stapleton Management LLC, incorporated on November 28, 2007.

Things We Lost in the Fires

Here's a round up of photographs of some of the buildings in JeffVanderLou and St. Louis Place that were part of the eleven-building arson spree this weekend. All of these buildings were vacant at the time of the fires.

Barbara Manzara has published a map of the fires here.)


2633R Palm Avenue, owned by Cleo and Zerline Terntine


3015 Elliott Avenue, owned by Sheridan Place LC*


3114R Glasgow Avenue (actually faces Elliott), owned by MLK 3000 LLC*


2519 Sullivan Avenue (left), owned by Jesse and Davis Thomas, adjacent to brick-rsutled 2517 Sullivan Avenue, owned by Dodier Investors LC* (See earlier photo at Built St. Louis.)


2206-10 Hebert Street, owned by Blairmont Associates LC* (Minimal fire damage; see earlier photo at Built St. Louis.)


2507 Hebert Street, owned by Blairmont Associates LC* (See earlier photo at Built St. Louis.)


2523 Dodier Street, owned by Larmer LC (Minimal fire damage.)


2547 Dodier Street, owned by Larmer LC


2566 Dodier Street, owned by Blairmont Associates LC*

A KMOX news story about the fires is online here.

*Denotes holding company tied to Paul J. McKee, Jr. (More here.)

Preservation Week Begins This Friday

Landmarks Association of St. Louis kicks off this year's Preservation Week on Friday with a ribbon cutting at 3:30 p.m. LoftWorks' Ludwig Lofts at 1004-6 Olive Street downtown. This event includes an open house until 6:00 p.m. From there, the week progresses with house tours in old North St. Louis, Skinker-DeBalivere and the Central West End; a walking tour in St. Louis Place led by yours truly; the Eleven Most Enhanced Places awards ceremony; bowling at Saratoga Lanes; a trivia night hosted by Patrick Murphy; a book sale to benefit the Chatillon-DeMenil House; and more.

I will feature some of the events here, but the full calendar is available on Landmarks' website.