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Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Over on Hadley Street

The lot at 2805 Hadley Street in Old North St. Louis may be fenced but sports an incredible amount of debris. One can find broken PVC pipes, old furniture, solid fill and scraps of wood lying around its confines. That is, during the winter. In the warm months, the grass grows so tall on this lot that passers-by would not be startled if someone told them that a house was on the lot.

Next door, a lovely late 1870's townhouse is undergoing and ambitious rehab from an owner who is rehabbing other buildings in the neighborhood. Across Hadley Street is Ames School, one of the city's finest elementary schools.

The owner of the lot?

Blairmont Associates LC, one of the near north side's most active collectors of vacant lots and buildings. Where the owner of the house next door sees a need to restore his building, Blairmont sees nothing but the future value of the land and is willing to hurt its neighbors today so that its owners can profit tomorrow.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are there laws against landbanking of this magnitude? Does Blairmont purchase these properties from LRA?

Michael R. Allen said...

There are no laws against such landbanking, although there are laws that stipulate tax payment and property maintenance. Blairmont and VHS have had trouble foillowing both of those kinds of laws.

As far as I know, there is only one LRA purchase related to the Blairmont cabal, and that is an option to buy a property at 2947 Sheridan held by N & G Ventures LLC. (N & G not make sense? Try N for Noble and G for Goldman, the Eagle Realty principals.)