Busy Saturday: Open Streets and the 21st Ward Home Repair Blitz

It's an exciting busy day in the city, and an appropriate start to this year's Historic Preservation Month. Open Streets has just wrapped up, and while giving a walking tour on Lindell with Toby Weiss I saw dozens of pedestrians and cyclists taking advantage of the street closure. Can't wait for it to happen again!

Up in the 21st Ward, today is a big blitz of home repair by Rebuilding Together. Alderman Antonio French already has posted a video.



While big rehab projects garner most headlines, most homeowners in the city don't need or can't afford expensive projects. Neighborhood stabilization requires many showcase projects but many more efforts to retain existing residents. Kudos to the volunteers working today in the 21st ward!

Stone Church

The frame one-story commercial building at 4709 Natural Bridge Road went up in 1914, early in the heydey of the thoroughfare. Later, by 1965, a church congregation took over the building and added the projecting, crenellated stone entrance bay. In so doing, the congregation largely masked the modest building behind and created one of Natural Bridge's smallest architectural landmarks. Today, the building houses the Christian Servant Missionary Baptist Church.

Good Times in O'Fallon Park

Last night, vocalist Denise Thimes closed out the last night of the O'Fallon Park Jazz Concert Series. Hundreds of people, including St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, attended the concert, which was packed with a spirited long set from Thimes.

More than once, Thimes proclaimed her genuine giddiness that once again people were spending a beautiful late summer night at a concert in O'Fallon Park. Thimes and the crowd both shared the great feeling that things are on a different track for the historic park and its surrounding neighborhood.

The concert series is one of the many initiatives of the area's recently-elected Alderman Antonio French (D-21st), and it is definitely a fun, visible way to proclaim that change is here. With the forthcoming groundbreaking on the new recreation center in the park, O'Fallon Park is finally getting its due, and along with it north St. Louis.

Video can be found on the 21st Ward website, and photographs are on Flickr.

No slight is intended toward two of my other favorite north side park-based concert series: the Whitaker Urban Evening Series at St. Louis Place Park and the Concerts at Ivory Perry Park. Alas, these have also concluded -- make sure you check one out next year!

Private LRA in the Works Across North St. Louis?

The house shown here, located at 4448 Athlone Avenue in the O'Fallon neighborhood, is just one of the 225 vacant properties purchased by a holding company named Urban Assets LLC in the last six months. The spending spree has attracted the notice of neighborhood leaders and elected officials across north St. Louis. Urban Assets has purchased across a wide swath of north St. Louis, mostly between Delmar Boulevard on the south and Natural Bridge Avenue on the north -- all of the way from Grand Avenue on the east to the city limits on the west.

Here is a crude map of the holdings made by this writer using Geo St. Louis:



The holdings are spread across nine wards and include 120 vacant lots and 85 buildings, mostly historic. The wards and number of properties are as follows: Ward 1 (7), Ward 3 (4), Ward 4 (64), Ward 5 (5), Ward 18 (39), Ward 19 (11), Ward 21 (4), Ward 22 (64) and Ward 26 (27).

There are distinct concentrations in the Ville and Greater Ville neighborhoods as well as the Wells-Goodfellow and Hamilton Heights neighborhoods. There are a handful, like 4448 Athlone, standing alone far from other holdings. Urban Assets began aggressively purchasing properties at Sheriff's tax sales in September 2008. Most of the holdings come from tax sale purchasing, with prices often less than $2,000 at auctions with no other bidders.

This purchase pattern is reminiscent of the start of purchasing by McEagle holding companies like the infamous Blairmont Associates LC -- and the same real estate broker is making the purchases for the parties behind the holding company.

On June 6, 2008, real estate broker Harvey Noble of Eagle Realty incorporated Urban Assets LLC online. The incorporation filing and the registered agent listing on the Secretary of State's website misspell Noble's name as "Nobel" and incorrectly state that the zip code for Noble's office is 63102.

On the record with KWMU and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Paul J. McKee, Jr. denies any involvement with Urban Assets. Examining the acquisition patterns of Urban Assets, one sees that there is no overlap with the McEagle project and a few intense concentrations that suggest efforts to buy out other areas. Whoever is behind Urban Assets could very well soon be in competition with McEagle for the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit Act.

While Urban Assets seems to be buying whatever it can acquire in certain small areas, generally the company seems interested in vacant property in as much of north St. Louis as possible. The acquisitions almost seem like a private land bank like the city's Land Reutilization Authority.

The only apparent incentive to this type of far-flung land banking, however, is the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit. In order to receive that credit, a developer must be appointed redeveloper by the Board of Aldermen. Redevelopment rights don't necessarily mean that a developer will clear-cut a redevelopment area. Those rights fundamentally mean that a developer acts as gatekeeper for all investment within a redevelopment area -- allowing some in and keeping others out.

Is Urban Assets seeking to become a gatekeeper for north St. Louis, or is their acquisition simply a land-banking scheme?

"Junction" Not Among Projects Recommended by MHDC Staff

The Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC) has published staff recommendations for tax credit allocations to be made at the December 12 MHDC meeting. Noteworthy is that the Junction development in Old North ("'The Junction' and Old North's Housing Balance," November 29) is not among the projects recommended for approval of 9% federal low income housing tax credits. St. Louis projects recommended for approval are the Dick Gregory Place project in the Ville and new phases in the North Newstead Association's ongoing project in O'Fallon and Better Living Communities' project in Hyde Park.

Lost: Tudor Revival Apartment Building on Warne Avenue

The other day, I passed the southwest corner of Warne and Greelea avenues in the O'Fallon neighborhood and noticed that the apartment building once on the site was gone. The photograph above shows that building, whose address was 4225 Warne, in August 2005. The Land Reutilization Authority wrecked the building in August 2007. Vacant since 1991, the building deteriorated badly under the ownership of Jourdan and Jo Ann Jordan who finally defaulted on taxes, although the couple took out small building permits for work in 2004. Once LRA obtained the property, the roof was missing over half of the building, with massive water damage inside.

So went one of the city's most picturesque multi-family buildings. The Tudor Revival building had a sense of whimsy, as evidenced by the irresistible small turret and the crenellation. The differentiation of setbacks also showed a smart sensibility on the part of the architect. From among a cluster of modest frame buildings arose this masonry jewel on Warne Avenue. Just west, on the opposite side of the street, is Harrison School. Just north is the commercial strip on Florissant Avenue with its southern dip down Warne. This building clearly intended to line up alongside the fancy commercial buildings and hold its own architecturally. For many years, it did.