Vanishing STL

Concordia Publishing Doesn't Need Another Employee Green Space

2012-01-20T06:43:00.002-06:00

Next Monday at 4:00 in suite 1200 of the Locust Building, Concordia Publishing House will present to the Preservation Board its plan to purchase and demolish a three story corner building at 3600 S. Jefferson and turn the vacant lot into a green space for it's employees. A quick look at an aerial photograph of Concordia's property however shows that they already have a green space for employees!

A closer shot shows the green space landscaped with a center planting bed with benches surrounding. The green space is conveniently located immediately adjacent to Concordia's building and employee parking lot.

The building in question was the victim of an ill fated remuddling several years ago which has left the third floor in need of some masonry wall repairs and the rear wall in need of extensive tuckpointing. The lower two floors however are in excellent condition, so the building is far from irreparable. The building anchors a completely intact block face.

It is located in the Benton Park National Register Historic District, which makes it eligible to receive Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits, which would make a renovation financially feasible.

If Concordia Publishing is so desperate for addition outdoor space for it's employees, they should look to expanding their existing roof deck. Additional deck space surrounded by green roof vegetation would be an oasis compared to a vacant corner lot on busy Jefferson Avenue.

As always, concerned citizens may attend the meeting and state their opinions to the Preservation Board before they vote on the matter. The final agenda for the board meeting was posted yesterday and has an excellent review of the situation. If you cannot attend, please email your opinions to Betsy Bradley, Director of the Cultural Resources Office. Additional information can be found on Landmarks Association's website.

On Mondays agenda you will see that the proposal to demolish the Souther Funeral Home on South Grand has been withdrawn following the sudden withdraw of the same from Wednesdays Board of Adjustment hearing for a zoning variance for the property. With the call to withdraw from Mondays Preservation Board meeting though came an inquiry as to the date of Februarys meting, so General Dollar's plan to flatten the historic funeral home for a new store may come up again.

Zoning Hearing for Southern Funeral Home is Tomorrow

2012-01-17T12:31:00.003-06:00

Tomorrow, Wednesday January 18th at 1:30 pm in room 208 of City Hall is the hearing at which General Dollar is requesting a zoning variance to construct a new store at 6322 S. Grand just north of Carondelet Park. The proposed General Dollar store would result in the demolition of the Southern Funeral Home building.

Please come to the hearing if you can and testify that this zoning variance should be denied. We don't need to lose this beautiful structure for another faceless retail box behind a parking lot! If you cannot make it to the hearing, please email Alderman Tom Villa to express you thoughts on this proposal.

For more information about the Southern Funeral Home, visit B.E.L.T. and Landmarks Association.

Website & FB Page Established to Save Rock Hill Church

2012-01-14T07:00:00.000-06:00

A commenter from yesterdays post has shared links to a website and Facebook page that have been established to raise money to save Rock Hill Presbyterian.

The website is: http://www.savetherockhillchurch.org/

The Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-The-Rock-Hill-Church/265989486788403

Please visit, "like", share it and of course if you are able to, chip in a few bucks to help save this irreplaceable piece of history. The unfortunate reality is that the city of Rock hill has made the decision to proceed with the U-Gas plan so moving the church may be the only way to save it.

Half Baked in U-Gas Hill

2012-01-13T06:51:00.000-06:00

Seeing the headline "Rock Hill moves to save 19th century church", I thought I was going to be able to do a post about something positive and something negative going on this month. The negative being the proposed demolition of the Southern Funeral Home on S. Grand just north of Carondelet Park. Reading the article though, I'm not so convinced. While the city of Rock Hill, whose name was derived from the presence of the historic church, has taken the first steps to acquire the property, the plan to preserve the historic building itself is contingent upon raising money to move the structure.

Unfortunately the city of Rock Hill is still convinced that a giant U-Gas - Phillips 66 gas station with a convenient store and car wash is the highest and best use for the main intersection at the center of their community. According to the article, the city taking ownership of the historic church is contingent upon raising money from scratch to move the building to one of two less prominent locations nearby in Rock Hill and maintain it in the future with an unspecified use (potentially no income). One of the locations is on an obscure side road next to the city's municipal storage yard. While moving the church is feasible, it would be very costly.

Instead of raising money to move Rock Hill's namesake historic structure from the city's main intersection, the city should raise money to purchase the property and move their city hall from a rented storefront to the former church. The attached modern era school could be used as a community center and library, which is currently located in another strip shopping center a few blocks west of city hall. To make this more financially feasible, the remaining part of the large 2 acre site along McKnight Road could be developed privately for commercial, residential or mixed use with an RFP process.

Rock Hill's former "city hall" in a run-down strip mall didn't exactly say "welcome to our lovely municipality". The current location on Thorton isn't an improvement.

The half baked U-Gas Hill plan currently supported by the city would also require relocation of the historic Fairfax House. The house was previously re-located from across Manchester to make way for commercial development.

Yet Another SLU Demolition: the David P. Wohl Sr. Mental Health Institute

2011-12-27T07:00:00.000-06:00

From early November through last Monday evening, the preservation community in St. Louis was focused on saving the landmark Pevely Dairy at Grand and Chouteau. The Preservation Board voted 3-2 for a compromise to prevent SLU from demolishing the most significant portions of the Pevely complex, the corner office building and the smoke stack, while allowing the milk plant and garage buildings to be demolished. Just down Grand from Pevely however, this week St. Louis University Hospital is process of demolishing a lesser known but equally significant structure, the David P. Wohl Sr. Mental Health Institute with little to no outcry.

During his testimony at the Pevely Preservation Board hearing Steve Smith, principal of the Lawrence Group stated that the Pevely Dairy was not designed by a prominent architect and cannot be found in any books about St. Louis architecture. This is true, but this same argument could be said about several buildings near SLU's main campus that have been renovated with historic tax credits in the last several years including the former Warehouse of Fixtures building, the Aquinas Institute of Theology, and the Spring Street Lofts.

The Wohl Institute however was designed by a very prominent architect, Gyo Obata of HOK, and is featured in the book Modern Architecture in St. Louis. In the book, Obata describes the design of the building as alternative to the asylums where psychiatric patients were locked away from the rest of the world. The facility reflected the most modern and advanced treatment theories expressing openness with several garden courtyards cut into the two story structure. Architectural Record published the design in October 1959, titling the article: "Pleasant and Open Plan for Psychiatric Patients. City of St. Louis property records indicate that the building was completed in 1962. The buildings three 2-story wings were designed around landscaped garden courtyards.

SLU applied for a demolition permit for the building on May 20th, 2011. Despite being designed by prominent architect and included in a book of significant modern architecture in St. Louis, the building was not on the National Register, in a historic district, or in a Preservation Review area, so the request to demolish the Wohl Institute was never Reviewed by the Cultural Resources Office nor presented to the Preservation Board.

Ironically in July, as SLU was ripping down the small neighborhood of sturdy brick single family homes behind the Wohl Institute, the Preservation Board had a special agenda item regarding a grant for a thematic survey of Modern Movement Architecture in the City from 1040-1975. Had this survey already been completed, the Wohl Institute just may have been given the recognition and potential protection it deserved.

I could not find any information information about where the psychiatric treatment services formerly housed at the Wohl Institute have been relocated. All information on SLU's website still lists the address of the building now undergoing demolition. A site plan presented at the Preservation Board - Pevely meeting shows surface parking lots on the site of the Wohl Institute and the now vacant lots where homes stood on Hickory & Rutger west of Wohl. The lots would presumably serve the new ambulatory care center that SLU is planning to construct on part of the Pevely site.

Before the Wohl Institute was constructed, the site on Grand was home to the St. Louis Armory - Battery A - Light Artillery, a massive castle like structure. This photo from the St. Louis University Pius XII Memorial LIbrary Special Collections was taken Christmas week 1959. The Pevely Dairy ice cream plant that was lost to fire in 2009 and the surviving office building with rooftop sign are seen beyond. This photo shows a jagged toothed edge of the brick a the corner of the building along Rutger, which seemed to indicate that part of the building had already been demolished. Most armories typically included a large clear-spanned space that would be used for practicing field drills and holding other events.

An 1889 photo from the Missouri History Museum showing the building at its completion however shows the same tooth like brick at the edge of the building. If it was planned to be larger, like the structure eventually built in 1937 on Market Street in the nearby valley, it was apparently never built. The 1909 Sanborn map above also verifies this. If anyone has further info, please share.

SLU Denied Demolition of Pevely Office Building

2011-12-19T23:27:00.004-06:00

Last night the Preservation Board voted 3-2 to uphold the Cultural Resources Office staff recommendation to allow demolition of the Pevely milk plant and garage buildings, but to deny demolition of the Pevely Dairy office building at the corner of Grand & Chouteau and the smoke stack. Interestingly enough, the plan for SLU's new ambulatory care center presented by Lawrence Group principal Steve Smith last night should not need to change too much due to the board ruling. The site plan below shows a rectangular green space at the corner with a curved drive leading to the new building (shaded purple). The green space is about the length of the of the corner office building and should only require minor adjustment of the plan, if any. The plan already had incorporated preserving the smoke stack just east of the new building.

The colored aerial photo below shows the small rectangle of the site occupied by the office building (shown in yellow). The plan above shows future wings (lightly shaded and barely visible) extending east and west from the main building. This assumes acquisition and demolition of the building just south of the smoke stack, although the new main building does not appear to conflict with this either.

A rendering of the SLU's proposed ambulatory care center with the historic Pevely smoke stack. With last nights ruling, the building will only need to work with the Pevely office building. There seems no reason why the two cannot coexist minus of course a big empty green space and a fountain!

Preservation Board to Consider Pevely Demolition December 19th

2011-12-08T06:45:00.002-06:00

The Preservation Board will consider SLU's proposed demolition of the Pevely Dairy complex at a special meeting on Monday, December 19th at 4:00pm. The meeting will take place at 1015 Locust Street, suite 1200.

As you may recall, SLU pulled Pevely from the agenda of last months Preservation Board meeting and then issued a statement to the press that their plan to construct a new medical office facility for SLUCare on the site has not changed. A SLU spokesman said that the delay gives them more time to prepare their case for presentation to the board. SLU representatives will no doubt show up with renderings of the new SLUCare facility and present arguments that the Pevely corner is the only location amongst the dozens of acres of vacant land that they own in the immediate vicinity where they can build the new building.

After SLU's presentation, the Preservation Board will allow testimony from concerned citizens, so if you are opposed to demolition of this National Register landmark please attend the meeting. If you cannot attend, please email your statement to Betsy Bradley, Director of the Cultural Resources Office at bradleyb@stlouiscity.com Emailed statements will be entered into the record and used in the final analysis by CRO staff that is presented to the Preservation Board.

AAA: Zoning, Landmarks & Sustainability

2011-12-07T06:33:00.005-06:00

UPDATE: THE AAA HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM TODAY'S AGENDA!

Today at 1:30 in Rm 208 of City Hall there will be a public hearing by the Board of Adjustment on Rezoning the AAA property on Lindell Boulevard so that CVS can build a new store on the site, the plan for which currently includes demolishing the iconic AAA "space ship". The public is invited to speak their opinions at these hearings, so please attend if can.

This brings up a host of questions about how and who should be making these kinds of decisions. The problem here is and is not zoning. Changing the property to Zone H is not the issue in what it allows. In my opinion the entire length of Lindell should be zoned to a allow 20 story towers if someone wants to build one. The problem is what Zone H does not prohibit. It would not prohibit a cookie cutter fake stucco CVS box set 75 feet back from the street. This is why we need comprehensive zoning change including form based zoning city-wide.

Then there is the issue of landmarking. How is it that our City has a Cultural Resources Office and this building is not protected in any way shape or form?

The City is starting the process of taking a leadership role with an Office of Sustainability, which happens to be hosting a public Summit on Sustainability tonight at the History Museum. Part of this new leadership in sustainability needs to involve the built environment including preservation, walkability, TOD, construction standards, etc.

Finally, no Alderman should be making these types of decisions. Yet Alderman Kennedy has discouraged Landmarks Association from attending 18th Ward Block Unit public meetings where the future of the AAA building and site are being discussed!

Lost on Laclede

2011-12-05T06:11:00.001-06:00

Friday morning I saw a photo posted on Facebook of this building on Laclede between Vandeventer and Sarah being demolished. The building had a very attractive terra cotta facade that had been painted.

Detail of the terra cotta facade. The building is similar to one almost directly across the alley facing West Pine. Several photos of that building can be seen on an August post from Seeking St. Louis. Both buildings have terra cotta fronted rectangular elements with bow truss garages behind. My guess is that these were auto dealerships.

The building had apparently sustained some wind damage in 2010. This aerial shows some roofing had been blown off and one column of terra cotta on the facade has been replaced with concrete block in what looks like a recent repair. From the exterior appearance, there is nothing though that would seem to warrant demolition.

A Google streetview shows the building in context. In the distance is the 6 North apartments which nicely bookends the block. Across the street is a large vacant lot where the Center for Emerging Technologies hopes to build a new building. Combined with the post office parking lot, now there will be a pretty large hole on the north side of the street.

Preservation Board Upholds Denial of Demolition for Cupples 7

2011-11-29T06:45:00.000-06:00

Last evening the Preservation Board unanimously upheld the Cultural Resources Office denial of the permit for demolition of Cupples Station warehouse #7. The preservation board raised many concerns over application including the lack of details establishing financial hardship and the fact that the owner, a partnership of Kevin McGowan and Nat Walsh, has owned the structure since 2006 and did nothing to stop the acceleration of deterioration.

Aerial of Cupples Station #7 from 2011 showing extensive collapse.

Aerial from 2006 when McGowan Walsh bought the building shows a much smaller holes on the east side and possibly one small hole on the west side. At this point creating inexpensive temporary structures to span over the holes and keep water out of the building would have still been feasible.

The estimated cost of demolition was stated as being $675,000. Preservation Board member Alderman Antiono French brought up that the owner has not paid taxes on the building for the last three years, and there was also mention that the owners had lost Cupples buildings 8 & 9 to foreclosure. This makes one wonder how they planned to pay for the demolition cost.

One of the more intriguing testimony statements came from a lawyer for the St. Louis Treasurers office. He said that the Treasurer has been in discussions with the current owners of Cupples #7 about purchasing the property to protect their investment in the parking garage that the Treasurer built south of buildings 7 & 8. In this scenario the building would be gone, but he said they would also be happy if the exterior walls were stabilized so that the barriers could be removed from the streets. He did not indicate whether the Treasurer would buy the building at that point.

At the end of the testimony, the Board ultimately agreed with Betsy Bradley's assessment that the exterior walls should be stabilized to preserve the outer significant masonry structure. The question now becomes how that happens and who pays for it? Would the Treasurer be willing to chip in, or maybe the City which had offered up a $3,000,000 TIF for the redevelopment? Ultimately McGowan & Walsh should be forced to pay at least the amount they were going to spend for demolition.

Loss of Cupples 7 Would Further Deplete a Sparse Section of Downtown St. Louis

2011-11-24T06:00:00.004-06:00

Yesterday St. Louis University pulled its proposed demolition of the Pevely Dairy from this months Preservation Board meeting, but the proposed demolition of Cupples Warehouse #7 is still on the final agenda for next Monday the 28th.

The graphic above shows starkly how Downtown south of Market still bears the scars of devastation from Urban Renewal planning of the middle part of the last century. Compounded with the fortress like structures dating from the 1960's through 1990's including the Ballpark Hilton, Bank Of America, the US Federal Courthouse and others, result in an urban landscape that is bleak at best (magenta is parking lots and garages and yellow is vacant land, parks & plazas).

The fact that this portion of Downtown is so fragile is reason enough that we cannot lose another major historic structure to demolition. For the area to continue toward a critical mass of life and activity from what has been gained over the last decade through renovation of the Cupples warehouses along Spruce, Building 7 must be retained, stabilized, and eventually re-built from the inside.

Beyond the potential to reinvigorate the area, demolition of Cupples Building #7 would push the total loss of the Cupples Warehouses to over half the original content (magenta = 1960's demolition, yellow = 2001 demolition, cyan = warehouse #7). This would not trigger a de-listing from the National Register of the remaining buildings, but from an architectural standpoint reduces the overall significance and cohesion of the district (all designed by Eames & Young) that made this collection of buildings unmatchable in St. Louis and arguably the entire midwest.

Elevations of the original district along the south side of Spruce. The first pair of buildings tied together by a multistory connector over an alley and the next long building tied by two bridges over what are now the Metrolink tracks comprised a massive complex within the overall district. The single elevation below (longer than any two of the other buildings combined) was along 8th south of Spruce. This complex was lost to demolition for the construction of Busch Stadium which was completed in 1966.

The fourth building in the row is Warehouse #9 which is scheduled for renovation by the Koman Group for offices and retail to be completed in 2012. The fifth building was demolished for highway ramps to and from Highway 40/64. The sixth is Warehouse #8 for which renovation into the Ballpark Lofts by Kevin McGowan's Blue Urban partnership was completed in 2008. The last in the row is Warehouse #7. If it is demolished, there would only be two building's left of the original seven along the south side of Spruce.

Looking west along the south side of Spruce from 8th Street (photo from the 1928 publication Missouri's Contribution to American Architecture). The building in the foreground, had it survived, would be across from the Westin Hotel.

A view looking south along 10th Street from just south of Clark Street (photo from Geo St. Louis). The center building in this photo was allowed to be demolished due to what were claimed to be structural problems as part of an ill-fated plan to turn the entire block into a four building office complex linked by a giant curved glass atrium. This would have involved new buildings at 10th & Spruce and 11th & Clark.

A rendering of the four building scheme inset into the reality of what we ended up with. Several years after that deal fell through, Conrad Properties renovated the historic building at 1000 Clark Street into office space a ground floor restaurant, but the site of the demolished building remains a surface parking lot. HRI renovated the warehouse at 11th & Spruce across from #7 into apartments completed in 2006.

The northwest corner of 10th & Spruce today. We cannot allow this to happen to Warehouse #7! Please attend the Preservation Board meeting next Monday, November 28th a 4:00 pm at 1015 Locust Street, suite 1200 and tell the Preservation Board to say NO to demolition. If you cannot attend, please email your comments to the board's administrative assistant at BufordA@stlouiscity.com

CORTEX clearing land north of Pevely Dairy

2011-11-21T06:30:00.000-06:00

As concerned citizens gathered Saturday afternoon to rally for preservation of the Pevely Dairy, we noticed that demolition of some small industrial buildings was occurring directly across Chouteau from the Pevely Dairy. Several of us had heard that SLU had acquired the property and we assumed they were behind the demolition.

After rechecking City real estate records, it appears that an entity associated with CORTEX owns the large site along Chouteau that is currently being cleared. The entity is SLLC Real Estate EI LLC, and a related company SLLC Real Estate LLC, whose address is the CORTEX building at 4320 Forest Park, owns five smaller parcels at the corner of Chouteau and Grand. Directly north, SLU does own two large parcels the abut the south end of the Grand Boulevard bridge.

Exactly what CORTEX has in mind for the site, which is somewhat distant from it's current focus of development, is unknown. Overall plans for the ultimate build-out of the CORTEX technopolis do include linking BJC/Wash U medical center with SLU's medial campus and possibly further down the Chouteau corridor.

Demolition of one of the buildings underway Saturday.

The buildings were utilitarian truck freight transfer stations set far away from Chouteau, so their demolition is inconsequential.

An aerial view shows the site and structures being cleared including the three long buildings and the double barrel vaulted building. The site right across from the Pevely Dairy and specifically the portion fronting Grand Boulevard would be an ideal location for a new SLUCare facility. Siting the building right on Grand would give greater access to patients arriving by Metrolink and walking over the new Pedestrian friendly bridge, as well as the 70 Grand bus while allowing easy vehicular access for drop-off and parking off Chouteau.

City records show that these three structures fronting Grand Boulevard just south of the foot of the bridge were demolished earlier this year. While these structures are not very historically significant, the relationship they have with the street is exactly what is needed for people going back and forth from SLU's main and medical campuses or from Metrolink to make it feel like they are not walking in an urban desert.

Keeping a significant structure like the Pevely Dairy on the street and especially at the corner of Grand & Chouteau is one of the many reasons that 30-40 people including myself showed up Saturday afternoon to show our support for preservation and re-use of Pevely.

Cupples Building 7 CAN and SHOULD be Saved!

2011-11-17T06:40:00.000-06:00

Last week Kevin McGowan applied for a permit demolish Cupples Building #7 saying "he had not choice". Whether he gets a demolition permit will be decided by the Preservation Board on Monday, November 28th, the same night that the fate of the Pevely Dairy will be decided.

There are however other choices besides demolition for Cupples 7. McGowan says that it would be $2 million cheaper to demolish the building than to stabilize it. As someone who works on historic renovation projects for a living, I understand that fully stabilizing the collapsing interior structure would be an expensive endeavor. There is however an alternative that would be significantly less costly than fully re-building the interior timber structure, which is something that should eventually be done as part of the building's redevelopment.

Erecting structural steel bracing on the exterior is something that is often done to stabilize unreinforced masonry facades. On Boston's Russia Wharf the facades of two warehouses were braced while the interior of the buildings were dismantled to make way for a new hi-rise development that incorporates the facades. In the case of Cupples 7, the four exterior masonry walls would be braced and the collapsing interior left as-is, to be stabilized in the future.

Another view of Russia Wharf showing that the scale of the facades is similar to that of Cupples 7. While the cost of this type of bracing would not be chump change, neither would demolition of a massive masonry building. In 2001, according to City records, the unfortunate demolition of another Cupples warehouse (#4) across the street at 10th & Spruce cost $147,760.00. Cupples 7 is at least 1 1/2 times the size of the demolished warehouse and with 10 years of inflation, the cost of demolition for Cupples 7 could be at least twice as much. It should be noted that demolition of the Cupples #4 building was done under the auspices that the building was "structurally unsound" AND would be replaced with a similar scaled office building instead of the parking lot that eventually replaced it.

The exterior walls of the United Methodist Church in Burlington, Iowa were braced after a devastating fire gutted the building. The congregation plans to re-build and expand into an adjacent vacant downtown department store.

Some might argue that bracing the facades of Cupples 7 would render portions of Spruce and 11th Streets as well as sidewalks unusable for years.

This does not necessarily need to be the case as with this example in Memphis (photo by Cathy Jones). The sidewalk is fully usable and there are even temporary displays in the storefronts! In Washington DC, where this technique has been used many times for various projects, the exterior of the former Gales School was structurally braced while awaiting renovation.

While this method may not be a familiar sight in St. Louis, it is a proven way to preserve at least the exterior of historic structures that otherwise would be lost forever. In the case of Cupples 7, while much of the interior is crumbling, you might be surprised how it is possible to save portions of the timber that remain and rebuild what is collapsed.

My first loft project was a building that had suffered what would appear to be catastrophic damage but was resurrected into the M-Lofts, which consists of 40 apartments and commercial space in Lafayette Square. In 1999, the former factory building of the International Shoe Company had seen better days. Almost 30% of the floors of the building were collapsed in the basement, and about 80% of the roof structure had fallen to the floor below.

Looking into the one of the debris pits at the west end of the building

Floors bending down into the hole

Much of the roof and clerestories had collapsed onto the floor below

Portions of the interior structure that had collapsed were carefully cut away and removed, then re-building began from the first floor up. All of the interior rebuilding was eligible for Missouri and Federal Historic Tax Credits because it was a restoration of existing building elements. This made what otherwise would not have been affordable workable for the projects proforma. In the case of Cupples 7, which has a larger floor plate, planning an atrium in one of the collapsed areas could further reduce the cost of re-building the interior structure.

Massive new timbers replicating the originals were imported from Canada

The completed building shows how something that looks insurmountable can be accomplished successfully. If Kevin McGowan is not up to the task of rebuilding Cupples Building 7, then he should sell the building to someone who is willing to do so. In the mean time, structurally bracing the walls from the exterior is the best solution for stabilization so that this National Register landmark can be preserved for the future.

McGowan said himself that "millions of people walk by that building every year going those Cardinals games, going to the hockey games, going to the various courthouses, even living across the street and next to the building in apartment buildings", which is all the more reason that Cupples 7 should not become yet another giant vacant lot like the Ballpark Village site.

Pevely Preservation Rally this Saturday at 2:30 pm

2011-11-16T06:00:00.001-06:00

This Saturday afternoon please join the Pevely Preservation Coalition to show your support for preservation of the Pevely Dairy building and smoke stack at Grand & Chouteau.

Bring your friends, family signs and enthusiasm to celebrate your affection for the Gateway to the South Side. Lets come together to support PRESERVATION over demolition!

Here is the Facebook event page so you can RSVP. Hope to see you Saturday!

Charrette and Rally for Preservation of Pevely Dairy next Saturday, November 19th

2011-11-14T06:00:00.003-06:00

Calling all architects, artists, designers, preservationists, urbanists, and concerned citizens: Next Saturday, November 19th, a design charrette will be held at Landmarks Association's offices to envision solutions for the preservation and re-use of the Pevely Dairy building at Grand & Chouteau, SLU wants to demolish this National Register landmark saying they need the space to construct a new medical office building for SLUCare.

Please join us next Saturday morning to show SLU that demolition is NOT necessary for construction of a new SLUCare facility. Following the charrette, the Pevely Preservation Coalition will be a holding a rally for preservation in front of the Pevely Dairy building at Grand & Chouteau. Further details about the rally will be forthcoming.

With literally acres of open available land on both sides of Grand Boulevard, the possibilities for a new SLUCare facility either free-standing or incorporating the dairy building are literally endless. Come share your ideas next Saturday!

Brownhurst was Demolished Early This Month

2011-11-11T06:24:00.003-06:00

The senseless demolition of Brownhurst began on the first of this month. I did not venture out to see the carnage, but this video and photos below were captured by Wampa-One. you can see his set of demolition and before shots on Flickr.

Before demolition I visited Brownhurst twice to photograph. Both times I found the door into the basement from outside wide open, so I was lucky enough to see the beautiful interior before its destruction.

A member of the Kirkwood Landmarks Commission who was working actively to save the mansion requested that I hide my interior photos from public view to keep vandals from pillaging the amazing architectural details. I did so and also said the house had been secured, which was a lie. Its owner the Society of Mary at Vianny High School didn't give a shit who went in or what happened to the interior, which highlights the hypocrisy of the situation since the claimed the mansion was a threat to their students! All my photos, including interior can now be seen again on Flickr now that there is nothing left to protect. I understand that some interior elements were salvaged legally.

Hey SLU: Historic Buildings CAN be Renovated for Medical Offices

2011-11-08T06:25:00.002-06:00

Last Thursday SLU announced intentions to demolish the Pevely Dairy complex to construct a new medical office building on the site. A university spokesman claims that the dairy buildings are not suited for "state of the art" medical office use. Looking around the country however, one can find many examples of historic buildings that have or are currently being renovated for medical office use.

In Cincinnati the historic Vernon Manor Hotel near Children's Hospital Medical Center is currently being renovated for medical office space. The 171,000 square foot building is considered a regional landmark due to its location at the top of one of Cincinnati's Seven Hills. Photo above from the website of LISC, who provided a bridge loan for state historic tax credits for the project. New Market Tax Credits were also used on this project.

In Holyoke MA two historic downtown commercial buildings have been renovated and joined together to create medical office space for the Holyoke Health Center. Photos from the website of Kirchhoff Consigli, who provided construction management for the project.

The two historic buildings were joined by building a contemporary structure between containing lobby space and an open stair.

A typical corridor in the Holyoke Health Center. Note how the historic features of the building were left exposed above the new walls.

Here is another example of medical offices located in a circa 1888 structure in Faribault, Minnesota. Photo by Jonathunder from Wikimedia Commons.

In downtown Long Beach, California, this striking Art Deco gem has been a medical office building since its construction in 1929. The building has been beautifully maintained and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

SLU Aims to Continue its Landhogging Ways

2011-11-04T06:45:00.003-05:00

Yesterday's announcement that SLU intends to demolish the entire Pevely Dairy complex defies all logic. This should come as no Surprise though as SLU's modus operandi under Biondi's leadership has been: Acquire, Demolish, Fence then figure out what we're doing years (or decades) later. If there is a master plan to this madness, it is certainly not apparent. It is simply dominate at will.

The stltoday article about the Pevely proposal mentions the intent to replace an existing medical office building on Vista (photo above) with a new larger building. The 3-story building on Vista though is roughly 46,500 square feet (about 15,500 s.f./floor). The Pevely site, according to City of St. Louis property records, totals 9.85 acres, which comes out to almost 429,000 square feet of land. Added to this acreage is the area of single family homes that were recently demolished on Hickory and Rutger Streets between SLU Hospital and the Pevely Dairy.

Even if SLU were to double the size of SLUCare to a 3-story 93,000 square foot building and includes surface parking built to suburban standards (which they shouldn't), the land area used would be only about 180,000 square feet, which is less than half the site. This wasteful landhogging and unsustainable development pattern exhibited across Grand with the Doisy Research Building MUST BE STOPPED!

SLU is arguing that the old dairy buildings are not suited for use as a modern medical office building. When it comes to the landmark building at the corner of Grand and Chouteau, I don't argue with this because of the building's narrow footprint which is only 60 feet wide.

So what should SLU do? Expand the existing building of course!

The south facade of the corner building was not meant to be the final elevation of the building. The concrete brackets protruding out at every bay on every floor indicate that the building was designed to be expanded to the south.

A local example of what could be done can be seen directly across from Busch Stadium Downtown. The building that houses St. Louis Community College's Downtown administration offices and education center was doubled in size. The original building 3-bays wide on Broadway was built around 1900. The 3-bay addition was built in the 1980's. The same thing could easily be done with the Pevely Dairy, whether the addition is contemporary or a replica of the original as seen above.

Demolished Yesterday on Olive Street

2011-10-26T06:52:00.001-05:00

Yesterday as I was riding back to our Downtown office from a site visit at the Metropolitan Building, I noticed that this small building on Olive Street was being demolished. At first glance, the building looks pretty tired, but with an intact cast iron storefront, and brick above that could easily be stripped, it is easy to see a lot of potential in this little building.

The building was part of a lonely row of three buildings (now two) between sitting between a gravel parking lot and a vacant lot on the the block bounded by Garrison and Cardinal a few blocks east of Compton.

This section of Olive looking east is almost devoid of life with more vacant lots east of Garrison and nothing but vacant land and a parking lot on the south side of Olive, which is still grasping for identity fifty years after the urban renewal clearance of Mill Creek Valley.

To the west the area is also isolated, but just east of a block of Olive between Compton and Cardinal that has seen an amazing comeback in the last 10 years as part of the Midtown Alley district. The building is being demolished by its owner the St. Louis Treasurer's office, which is apparently combining the parcel with the gravel lot next door to build a 72 car parking lot. With a parking lot directly across the street owned by SLU and abundance of street parking all around, I'm finding it very difficult to see why they needed tear down a decent building with great redevelopment potential another 25 feet of asphalt?

Selling Out The Neighborhood

2011-10-10T20:30:00.004-05:00

The 28 Mayor System strikes again! As NextSTL reported last week, 17th Ward Alderman Joe Roddy and the Grove Community Improvement District sold out the eastern entrance to the neighborhood in return for $40,000 per year.

How is this allowed to happen? Because the System is set up to allow Aldermen to obtain zoning variances at their whim with no regard for what is good for a neighborhood or good for the City. While development may be years away due to the economy, the Commerce Bank site directly across Vandeventer would be a much less desirable location if a proposed QuickTrip is built.

The Grove has come a long way from the former Manchester strip of abandoned storefronts. With a critical mass of restaurants, bars, services, an emerging retail scene and, as NextSTL mentioned, even a tattoo shop, which is proof that people are now starting to hang out in the Grove instead of just heading to a few bars or a restaurant. What the Grove does not necessarily need is a giant gas station/convenient store replacing an existing restaurant in a unique eclectic building as an anchor at the east end of the district, no less at the hands of the CID which should be protecting the district from this very type of activity.

What would it look like if the South Grand CID sold out to QuickTrip?

Imagine the beautiful 2-story building facing Tower Grove Park at the north end of South Grand as a QuckTrip! Pretty awful, right?

What if the Loop Special Business District sold Out to QuickTrip?

Imagine the recently renovated 3-story mixed use building at Skinker & Delmar as a QuckTrip, because, hey you can never have too many gas stations, right?

Both of these are are somewhat extreme scenarios and both would have very little chance of occurring because both South Grand and the Loop have historic districts and maybe more importantly, strong neighborhood associations in the area. This however did not stop a new surface parking lot from replacing a non-historic building in the Loop this year.

So what can we do about this? Well, not much until we change the System. We can start by talking to our respective Aldermen and demanding a comprehensive overhaul of the City zoning code. Demand that these kinds of decisions be made by planners, not Aldermen, most of whom have no qualifications whatsoever to be making these types of planning and development decisions.

One thing that could be done now is to make QuickTrip re-use the existing building that currently houses Spaghetteria Mamma Mia and Bellon Wrecking. The building is in a Preservation Review District, which means that unless Roddy has conspired some kind of loop hole, the building should go before the Preservation Board in order to be demolished. The photo below shows that the open lot at the corner and the depth of the parcel would allow QuickTrip to install their pumps and canopy while keeping and possible using the existing building.

Metrolink Prom this Friday Celebrates 5 Years of the Blue Line

2011-10-04T06:13:00.004-05:00

Yesterdays post focusing on the old concrete wall that bordered the Forest Park Parkway. Today I want to promote the 4th Annual Metrolink Prom that will be happening this Friday evening. The event will be a celebration of the Metrolink Blue Line, which opened five years ago (the anniversary was in August).

Just like it sounds – a full-blown, high school-style PROM aboard your favorite transit system. Dress in your finest attire—try to wear something blue—and meet us at the MetroLink Forest Park/DeBaliviere Station on Friday, October 7, 2011 at 7 p.m. We’ll direct you from there. When we arrive at Shrewsbury Station, we’ll award the night’s finest dressed (blue-themed formalwear or costumes) with the title of Prom King and Prom Queen before riding back to the Skinker Station.

The newly anointed Prom Court will then lead us in our promenade from the Skinker Station to the Moonrise Hotel’s rooftop bar for our Blue Moon Ball – a night of drinking and dancing with an unparalleled bird’s eye view of the city and its duo of MetroLink lines.

No, you don't need to get a date! Go stag or with a group of friends... it does not matter how you arrive, but you are guaranteed to have a blast! Please RSVP on the events Facebook page and more info is available on the Tumblr site.

Photo from last years Metrolink Prom as everyone gathered at the Convention Station

The newly crowned Metrolink Prom Queen of 2010

The Forest Park Parkway Wall

2011-10-03T06:20:00.000-05:00

Central Corridians or anyone else who drove the Forest Park Parkway before 2001 might remember the concrete wall that bordered the south side of the Parkway from Skinker to just west of DeBaliviere and the north side of the Parkway from DeBaliviere to Union. To many the wall was known as the "World's Fair Wall" due to its location along what was once the northern boundary of the 1904 Worlds Fair. Evidence suggests however that this name is incorrect as photographs of the area researched by Landmarks Association have dated its construction to about 1910.

The wall was likely built by the developers of the Catlin Tract, which comprises the large homes located along Lindell Boulevard facing Forest Park. The wall separated the deep lots of the homes from a railroad that once ran in the Parkway right-of-way.

By the later part of the 20th century, the portion of the wall between Skinker and DeBaliviere was crumbling.

The many weed trees that grew along the the wall were one of the culprits of the decay as trunks and roots pushed against the wall and branches grew through the openings.

Bob Cassily however saw potential for beauty in the decaying wall and 1998 he created this amazing sculpture by hand forming new concrete around the existing wall. Bob had asked permission of a Lindell home owner who agreed to let him do the work. Some of the trustees of the street were apparently not happy with this, however they did not seem to be coming forward with any other plan to deal with the walls condition. Photo by Carrie Zukoski.

Close-ups of the figures that Cassilly formed around remaining wall elements. Photos by Carrie Zukoski.

The fat of the portion of the old concrete wall between Skinker and DeBaliviere was sealed with the routing of the Metrolink Blue Line along the south side of Parkway, and the wall was removed for construction of the extension.

As part of the Metrolink construction, a new pre-cast concrete wall was built along the south side of the right-of-way.

Part of the new wall was incorporated into a pedestrian crossing over the tracks at Des Peres Avenue.

The new wall bears some resemblance to the old wall, however there are not openings in the wall, only indentations.

The recessed design only shows up on the south side of the wall facing the Lindell homes. As part of the Arts in Transit program, neighborhood artist Andy Cross was commissioned to design decorative metal screens on the north side of the wall that faces Metrolink and the Parkway.

Unfortunately there is not much contrast between the metal screens and the wall, so they do not show up well.

The portion of the wall between DeBaliviere and Union was in much better shape than western half of the wall. Unfortunately this wall was removed as part of a separate City project to re-build the Forest Park Parkway from DeBaliviere to Kingshighway. The removal of the wall allowed for a larger shoulder along the new roadway. A new wall similar the the one installed along Metrolink was put up along the south side, but in this case, the indented based on the old wall faces the Parkway. Photo above courtesy of STL Style.

When the old wall was taken down, artist Bill Christman salvaged a few pieces that he has incorporate into the garden adjacent to Joe's Cafe.

Beside the sculpture that he did along on the old wall itself, Bob Cassilly was obviously inspired by the wall and its construction. Bob designed and fabricated several styles of pre-cast concrete walls that have been installed in various locations around the City. Above is an installation that surrounds the yard of an architectural salvage business located on Lafayette just west of Jefferson. The wall at the rear is a replica of the Parkway wall and in front is a variation with a diamond pattern. A Post Dispatch photo from 1984 shows Bob standing with one of his walls.

Another of Bob's walls can be seen along Sarah Street behind the Dorris Loft building. The wall surrounds the building's common courtyard space. Bob had an amazing way of enlivening our built environment with everything he created. He will be sorely missed.

All Sales Are Final

2011-09-26T06:00:00.002-05:00

Recently the Borders Bookstore in Brentwood closed its doors for good along with the rest of the St. Louis locations and stores nation wide. Normally I would not be glad to see a retail establishment go out of business. It sucks for all who are losing their jobs and yet another retail space will sit empty in a not so great market for filling vacant sales space. In the case of Borders however, I can only say good riddance.

Library Ltd.'s first location in an unassuming storefront on Forsyth Blvd.

Why the animosity? This story begins in 1970 when Allen and Terry Mittelman moved here from New York City to invest their savings and open a small bookstore in a 1,700 square foot space at 7538 Forsyth Blvd. across from Famous Barr in Clayton. The bookstore was The Library Ltd. The Mittelman's then grew the store on Brentwood Blvd just south of Maryland Avenue to about 7,000 square expanding into adjacent storefronts. By the early 90's, the Mittelman's could see that the future of bookselling was going big, and in July 1992 jumped at the opportunity to become the anchor tenant in the former Srugg's Vandervoort Barney Department Store building at Hanley and Forsyth.

The location on Brentwood where I shopped for comics as a kid.

The Mittelman's transformed Harris Armstrong's modern 53,000 square foot department store into a veritable palace of books and more, complete with a 14 foot tall turreted castle for the children's book section. Other areas of the store were imaginatively themed fitting the books for each department. They branched out to carry music, cards, stationary and other associated ephemera. A cafe/coffee shop as located on the large mezzanine level with its floor to ceiling windows at the south end of the building. The Mittelman's arranged book signings each week, attracted celebrity authors on a regular basis, hosted wine and beer tastings, fundraising events, meetings for professional organizations and other groups, etc. In it's heyday, The Library Ltd., which had become one of the largest independent bookstores in the U.S., felt like part retail store, part social gathering place, part community center.

Library Ltd.'s final location in the former Vandervoort's at Forsyth & Hanley

In 1997, the Mittelman's were approached with a buy out offer by growing giant Borders who was looking to expand its market in the St. Louis area. After 27 years in the business, the Mittelman's had grown tired of the grind of long days and the excitement brought by constantly expanding and bettering the store had waned. They agreed to sell on the promise from Borders that The Library Ltd. would keep its identity, unique flavor and not just be absorbed into the chain.

As would be expected with the take over by the corporate machine, these promises quickly evaporated. First bordered re-organized the store, crudely re-naming various sections with photo copied pieces of paper scotch taped to the shelves. By 2000, Borders had renamed the store and in September 2001 closed and vacated the Clayton store for good so they could move to the re-vamped Brentwood Square next to Highway 40. I vowed never to step foot in the Brentwood location, and never did. Ten years later the over bloated giant that didn't adapt to the ever changing market would meet its end.

In October 2008 the former Library Ltd. building was demolished to make way for Centene's new headquarters building. You can read a detailed two part article about Allen and Terry Mittelman from the Post-Dispatch here and here.

The Saucer Will Fly Again!

2011-09-14T22:30:00.001-05:00

This evening developer Rick Yackey unveiled two renderings of the Saucer building as it is planned for renovation. The renovation would restore the original storefront glass at the center of the structure and would add some additional space under the existing saucer roof, which would bring the enclosed area to about 4,000 square feet. Yackey indicated that Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits will be used for the renovation.

There would be two tenants, and Yackey said he has had increased interest in the building since the national publicity about its previously planned demise. While not revealing the planned tenants, Yackey said they would likely be restaurant and a coffee shop.

Richard Henmi, the saucer's original architect happened to show up for the unveiling, and was very pleased with what he saw in the renderings.

Marianists Reject Brownhust Purchase Offer, Plan to Demolish the Mansion

2011-09-10T23:59:00.002-05:00

Friday was the deadline proposals to move the Shingle Style mansion known as Brownhurst from the edge of the campus of Vianney High School in Kirkwood. The Post Dispatch reported Saturday morning that the Society of Mary intends to move forward with demolition of the mansion pending final approval from the City of Kirkwood.

Demolition had been delayed twice by the Kirkwood Landmarks Commission, and most recently the Marianists had offered $30,000 toward moving the mansion. Moving the mansion however has been estimated to cost over $400,000, including the cost of a new foundation on which to place the structure. Purchasing a sufficient site in the area would be an additional expense that could have cost upwards of a few hundred thousand dollars depending on the location.

The Marianists refused an offer from an unidentified Kirkwood philanthropist who wanted to buy the mansion, invest between $500,000 to $2,000,000 to rehabilitate the building at its existing location, and use it as an incubator for non-profit organizations.

For over 20 years, the Society of Mary has treated the mansion like a slumlord property, leaving it in an abandoned state with little to no maintenance, and then claiming it is a "danger" to students of nearby Vianney. Although abandoned for so long, the mansion is still in amazingly good condition with the only exception being the roof of the wrap-around porch. It's hard to see how a renovated non-profit incubator would be incompatible or a "danger" to Vianney's students.

Just a few hundred feet southwest of Brownhurst and also adjacent to Vianney is the Marianist Galleries, which the home, studio and gallery of resident artist Brother Mel Meyer. The studio/gallery building is surrounded by large metal sculptures by the artist. The studio/gallery has been on the campus since the early 1970's and has never been deemed a "danger" to the nearby students.

The fact that Brownhurst will likely be allowed to be demolished is a disgrace to Kirkwood, a city that for the most part does value its history. Unlike Clayton, Ladue and many other St. Louis suburbs that have no ordinances to protect historic properties whatsoever, Kirkwood does have a Landmarks Commission. Unlike St. Louis' Preservation Board, the Kirkwood Landmarks Commission apparently does not have the power to say NO to demolition, or at least in this case was not willing to do so. If someone has more information about the Commission's authority, please comment.

As you can see from the interior photos that I took several weeks ago, Brownhurst is in no danger of collapse, nor does it really have any serious damage. There is some water damage mostly from the windows that the Marianists have left open for years, but no structural issues.

After I did a previous post on Brownhurst, at the request of a member of the Kirkwood Landmarks Commission I set all of the interior photos so that they could not be seen by the public. This was done in an effort to protect the interior elements, but now that the mansion appears headed for demolition, I have re-set all photos to public viewing. According to the member of the Commission, over the last several weeks, an authorized team has salvaged important interior architectural elements, including hopefully most of the items in these photos. It was hoped that these could be re-installed in the mansion one it was moved, but now it appears that they will be orphans as the structure seems doomed for senseless destruction.

All of my photographs of Brownhurst may be seen here on Flickr.

Clayton's Natalie Gayle Plaza Gets Homogenized

2011-09-03T20:15:00.001-05:00

Last night we went into Clayton to satisfy our cravings for Fatted Calf burgers. As we walked down Bemiston toward the restaurant, I noticed the plywood wall built out into the sidewalk near the corner of Bemiston & Carondelet. I realized that it was Natalie Gayle Plaza, the small modern two story building with the sunken plaza at the corner, that was surrounded.

It turns out that the building is not being demolished, but it is being completely re-skined for a new bank. The worst part of the "updating" is that in the sunken plaza the beautiful cascading multi-level fountain will be replaced with "ye olde clock tower"!

A Streetview of the building before the construction. I've never thought the building itself was that great, but always liked the element that extends out and frames the edge of the plaza. This apparently will be retained, but its elegant angles will be replaced with a boxy look. St. Louis County property records indicate that the building and plaza were built in 1950. If anyone has information about the original architect, please share.

Fortunately I snapped a few shots of the plaza a few years ago. Besides the fountain there were a several pieces of modern sculpture scattered around the plaza.

While sunken plazas from the modern era can sometimes be inhospitable places, I always found the multi level fountain and arrangement of seating here to be one of the more attractive places in downtown Clayton (and those are few and far between).

The landscaping and floating element extending from the building gave a sense of enclosure without feeling cut-off from the surrounding area.

Standing on a trash can in front of the modern hi-rise next door, I was able to get a few shots over the 8 foot plywood wall. As I suspected, all traces of the elegant plaza have been wiped clean and will undoubtably be replaced with something much less interesting.

From the rendering above, it appears that the shading overhangs that extended from the south elevation of the building will be chopped off (or infilled) so that the new facade is perfectly flat.

Brownhurst NOT a Danger to Public Safety!

2011-08-18T12:50:00.005-05:00

Sunday I drove out to Kirkwood to photograph Brownhurst, the landmark shingle style mansion on the edge of Vianny High School's campus. I was expecting to find a deteriorating structure showing the tell tale signs of 20+ years of abandonment. What I found however was a beautiful home that while neglected and in need of renovation, is very much intact and clearly not a threat to anyone's safety, much less the public. In fact the most deterioration that I found in the entire structure is the roof of the wrap around porch.

The first thing I noticed as I walked around the house is that the main roof, which is slate seems to be in surprisingly good shape. There are almost no missing pieces of slate on the main roof and only a few missing here and there on the vertical cladding of the third floor gable and dormer walls. A stone bay on the north end of the home has a strange makeshift roof over its second floor balcony, but this seems only to have helped protect the home as you will see below.

As you may have read already, the owners of this mansion, the Society of Mary want to demolish the structure, claiming that it is unsafe, and a hazard to students at nearby Vianny High School. They convinced the City of Kirkwood to condemn the home and grant permission to demolish the home in May, but the Kirkwood Landmarks Commission has issued two stays of demolition, with the current stay expiring on September 9th.

On Monday the Kirkwood Landmarks Commission released a press release stating that the Society of Mary will sell the mansion and provide $30,000.00 toward moving costs for $1.00. A serious offer must be made before September 9th or the historic mansion will be demolished.

Another view of the mansion shows the main roof to be in very good condition. On Sunday the basement door at the rear of the house was wide open (this has now been closed and secured), so I decided to take a look at the condition of the interior of the mansion. I was shocked at what I found.

The entrance hall of the mansion is a large wood paneled room with a stained wood ceiling with decorative beams. A beautiful brick fireplace is near the grand stair.

This room like much of the mansion's interior is in pristine condition with no signs of water damage or any type of structural deficiency whatsoever.

Another view of the entrance hall.

The dining room also shows no signs of water damage or other issues except peeling paint, even at the round bay that has the makeshift roof covering the balcony above.

The library, which has three sets of built-in glass front bookcases and an ornate fireplace also show little signs of damage.

Ornate newel posts at the stair to the second floor.

The paneling in the entry hall is continued up the stairs and punctuated by three beautiful stained glass windows.

On the second floor, this large bedroom which features an unusual corner fireplace was apparently used as a classroom at one time. The second floor rooms typically have some small areas of plaster that have fallen from the ceiling, but again the level of damage is minimal.

A fireplace in another front bedroom. Hardwood floors throughout the mansion are in excellent shape.

This bedroom features a Jefferson window that opens out to the balcony over the stone bay.

The stair hall at the second floor. A broken out window over the stair to the third floor has let in water which has caused some damage to this stair. More photos of the interior and exterior of the beautiful mansion can be seen in my photo set on Flickr.

A large open room occupies the space of the third floor over the main portion of the mansion. Again, you can see that there is a little more fallen plaster, but not nearly what I expected. Over the rear wing of the house there are several small rooms that were likely servants quarters as well as a narrow service stair connecting al three floors. It is evident that there may be a few small scattered roof leaks and several open windows on the third floor are causing moisture damage in the immediate area of the window. Overall though, the condition of the structure of the mansion is solid. It is in no way a danger to anyone, and the call for demolition by its owner is completely unjustified.

Sun Theater to be Renovated for Grand Center Arts Academy

2011-08-08T20:24:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago I took a tour of the soon to open Grand Center Arts Academy which is occupying the newly renovated Beaux Arts Building across from Powell Hall in Grand Center. While on the tour, the staff person who was leading us confirmed that as the school grows its enrollment, it will expand into the adjacent Sun Theater, which will be renovated into a 1500 seat venue for their use. The renovation had been rumored for some time and was reported as being in the "very very early stages" in an article on Stl Today last December. A more recent article in the St. Louis Business Journal projects the cost of the Sun Theater's restoration at $12 million.

In May of this year however, Michael Allen reported that delamination of brick on the theater's west wall had prompted LRA, its current owner, to issue an RFP for demolition. This is odd since the Building Division last inspected the theater in 1998, and it has never been condemned for demolition. After the tour of the school I walked over to discover that the damaged wall has recently been completely re-built.

Prior to this latest incident, for several years the "plan" for the Sun under Grand Center's ownership was to slice off or dis-assemble the theater's facade and move it to Grand Boulevard south of Powell Hall as part of a new building to be constructed there. The remainder of the theater would have been demolished, but fortunately this half-baked scheme never came to fruition.

Back at the new Arts Academy the former halls of the Knights of Pythias have been transformed into dance studios and a gymnasium.

The new dance studio at the upper level of the halls. The new Arts Academy is an ideal use for this unusual building, as it is able to use the these large spaces without chopping them up into smaller rooms.

The former parking garage portion of the building has been transformed into classrooms. This one at the top of the former split level garage will be a general art room. All the other former garage levels have a typical ceiling height of about 10 feet.

The original lobby of the building is in pristine condition. The storefront spaces facing Grand on both sides of the lobby will become the school's cafeteria.

Super graphics are back!... in the stairwell that connects the former split levels of the garage.

Unfortunately across Delmar from the rear of the Sun Theater the Palladium Ballroom building sits in limbo as stucco applied to the brick and covering the windows crumbles to the sidewalk below.

SLU Med Plows Down Blocks of Nearby Homes

2011-07-27T06:45:00.001-05:00

Several weeks ago a friend tipped me off that St. Louis University Medical Center was in the process of demolishing houses on the 36xx blocks of Hickory and Rutger. He had correctly predicted several years ago that the isolated little neighborhood of houses, immediately north of SLU's main hospital towers, would eventually meet their demise.

The small homes on both blocks appeared to have been well kept. They were mostly one story all brick single family homes. When I arrived to photograph, several were already gone and several more were in the process of demolition.

These three buildings on Hickory were two-families with side by side shotgun style units.

One of the smallest homes on Hickory with SLU looming large in the background.

These homes on the north side of Hickory are among 10 that are still in private ownership. The tap destroys are for the houses on the south side of the street. I spoke briefly with a woman who live in one of the houses and owns another one as a rental. She said she had not yet been approached about being bought out. She said she likes living there, and prefers not to move because the location is very good. SLU has purchased and is demolishing four houses on this side of the street though, so it is likely only a matter of time until they take the whole block.

Two houses in the middle of the north side of Hickory that are being demolished and a Google Streetview of what they looked like as of a few months ago.

At the end of the north side of Hickory near Grand is a lodging facility for families of people in the hospital. Ironically the architect chose to take cues from the context that is now being destroyed around it.

Over on Rutger there were two houses that had been remodeled in the bungalow style, with one expanded with a second floor, probably sometime in the 1920's.

Only the front wall and porch were left of the one story bungalow.

Just west of the bungalows only a stone porch of the home in the Streetview shot above remains. The brick work on many of these small houses was beautiful.

At the east end of Rutger there was a row of several two story Dutch Colonials. They were the largest homes in the area and like the smaller ones, all in great shape.

Looking like the scene from some natural disaster, most of the homes had large X's spray painted on them. I am guessing the colors represent that each utility has been cut off from the house.

The small neighborhood has always been isolated. Many of the houses had been there since before almost anything that exists in the area today, including St. Louis University Hospital, which did not open until 1933. In 1909, according to the Sanborn map above, the present hospital site between Rutger and Vista contained some small houses along Rutger, the Bethesda Incurables Hospital and some larger residences on Grand Boulevard. South of Vista, the only building that existed was the United Railways Employees Hall, which appeared to have been added to the rear of a large home on Grand. The massive United Railways streetcar complex was located just west of Spring Avenue. Even the Pevely Dairy site is labeled as a quarry on this map. Amid the mix of commercial, institutional and industrial uses, a large concentration of residential only began south of Park Avenue. Thus these few blocks of homes on Hickory and Rutger were likely doomed from the very beginning.

The Saucer is Saved!... Hopefully

2011-07-25T06:30:00.002-05:00

The Post Dispatch is reporting this morning that developer Rick Yackey is backing off his initial plans to demolish the Flying Saucer at Grand and Forest Park Boulevards! In a statement sent to the Post, Yackey said he would hire an architect to explore alternatives for expanding the leasable square footage of space while keeping the concrete saucer structure. He said he is talking with the the neighboring property about space for additional parking. Yackey also said that he is talking with potential tenants about re-using the building. The investigation process to see if re-use is viable will take about 2-3 months.

Hopefully by then his architect will have shown him that there are many ways to adapt this iconic structure for use by a new tenant. Sometimes it just takes a creative mind though to think outside the box.

Nothing Left at Forest Park and Vandeventer

2011-07-21T06:50:00.001-05:00

Demolition of the Welle-Boettler - American Bakery Company building at Forest Park and Vandeventer which started over a month ago was complete as of last week. At first the demolition went along at a normal pace, but with the large one story section coming down within a few weeks. The three story section on the corner then sat for several weeks with the top floor lopped off before the rest disappeared. Now that the building is gone, the vastness of the 1.6 acre site with 400 feet of frontage along Forest Park is more apparent.

Strange new views have now opened up across the emptiness of the site.

As I looked at the rubble I was shocked to see the decorative egg and dart brick that once created a band around the street facades of both the one and three story sections were laying around in the piles as if they were trash. The common brick were all neatly pallated up and taken away.

Most shocking though during the demolition was seeing the decorative terra cotta entrance on Vandeventer get battered to pieces. It was obvious no attempt at salvage of the building's only terra cotta was made.

The bones of our City neatly piled up to be hauled far away.

Someday maybe Cortex might add the word "buildings" to this sign.

A Better AAA-CVS Plan

2011-07-18T08:40:00.001-05:00

Last week I posted about how it is very possible to build a new CVS store on Lindell Boulevard and still preserve the unique AAA building. While it works, I was not very happy with what I had come up with from an urban design standpoint, with the new store set back from the street and parking in front. I also felt that the new building crowded the AAA.

I had initially thought that setting back was the only option to achieve a decent parking configuration due to the odd shape of the site which has the garage from the mixed use retail/apartment building to the west jutting into it leaving a shallow area at the west side. After thinking about a friends idea about the site layout, I took another look to see if I could improve things. What I found was that turning the new store sideways allows it to fit into the shallow part of the site with little setback at the sidewalk and still have a drive-thru. This places the building in line with the mixed use building to the west, places most of the parking in back (total 62 spaces) and gives the AAA building more breathing room.

Ideally, the new building might start with no setback at the west end, aligning with the adjacent retail/apartment building then curve or angle back towards the AAA building which is set back from the sidewalk. CVS however likes their box floor plans and the constraints of the site would not allow the building to be rotated without losing parking. A box though can be well designed.

CVS and the AAA Building CAN Coexist

2011-07-13T06:40:00.000-05:00

Last week it was announced that the unique oval shaped AAA building on Lindell Boulevard just west of Vandeventer would be demolished and replaced with a new CVS pharmacy. AAA would move to a new smaller building to be built adjacent to the new CVS. When asked about the possibility of CVS using the existing AAA building, an obvious candidate for a Lindell Boulevard MCM historic district, the developer responded that CVS has "a prototype building that they like to build" (quote from the Post-Dispatch story). No surprise there.

Looking at the existing AAA site though some may be surprised to learn that the land west of the oval shaped AAA building (all owned by AAA) is large enough to accommodate a full size 13,800 s.f. CVS prototype store including the drive-thru AND the SAME number of parking spaces as their prototype.

In the photoshopped site plan above, I used the relatively new 13,800 s.f. CVS store located at Gravois and Hampton/Germania near the River Des Peres as the model (the Post reported that a 13,000 s.f. store would be built). Using standard parking stalls and drive dimensions, I was able to fit 65 spaces, which is equal to the the Gravois model store. While I normally would never put the parking in front of the building, in this particular case, the odd shape of the parcel combined with the desire to keep the parking contiguous dictated the layout. Also, lets face it, while the AAA building is great, its location on the site, with an approximately 55 foot setback, is very suburban in nature. Pulling the new CVS building back would better preserve sight lines to the AAA building from Lindell.

In addition to the standard 65 parking spaces (4.71 spaces per thousand square feet of retail, which is generous by City standards) street parking is available on Lindell, McPherson and some spaces can be added behind the AAA building off an existing drive. Combined, a total of 30 additional spaces are available to serve the existing AAA building, which would more than accommodate AAA's needs. The City's Geo St. Louis site lists the AAA building as being only 6,544 s.f. With AAA's setback, it would be possible to get another 12-15 spaces in front of their building, but with ample parking already, I thought it was best to not destroy the view to the building and preserve some green space.

Street parking on McPherson west of the AAA property

You may think the spaces on McPherson are a bit odd, but this exact configuration is found on McPherson behind the 4 story mixed use apartment and retail building just to the west. This block of Mcpherson gets little traffic, with Metro High School, a Mormon meeting house, which happens to have two large highly underutilized parking lots, and the apartment building as the only properties fronting the street, so in this instance, the odd configuration works fine.

View east on McPherson along the AAA property

This site plan is far from perfect, in fact as I was completing it I was thinking it would be better to mirror the CVS so that the drive-thru is on the west and parking to the east, which would open up better sight lines to the AAA from Lindell. It shows though that CVS can have their prototype store, their parking and their drive-thru without destroying the unique AAA building. Sometimes its possible to have your cake and eat it too!

Rally this Wednesday Evening to SAVE OUR SAUCER!

2011-07-03T07:30:00.004-05:00

Join us this Wednesday, July 6th at 6:00 pm at the southeast corner of Grand and Forest Park Boulevards to show your love for the Flying Saucer (formerly Del Taco). We will be gathering to celebrate this unique piece of googie architecture that is currently threatened with demolition.

Please bring your friends, kids, parents and anyone who thinks that this unique vestige of space-age architecture should not be demolished to make way for a boring new chain restaurant box. We need to show the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, Mayor Slay and the developer, Rick Yackey, that St. Louis LOVES this building! The building is part of the Council Plaza National Register Historic District, and holds many possibilities for remodeling or adaptation for a new tenant (or tenants), while still retaining it's unmistakable style.

Please visit our Facebook event page and let us know if you can attend and please share the event invitation with all your friends. The rally will go from 6:00 to 8:00, so if you can't make it there at 6:00, please come later. At 7:00 there will be some brief statements about the building and our cause to save it. A limited number of STL Style t-shirts featuring the awesome artwork above by Kara Clark Holland will be available at the rally.

Aldermen: Thank You for Chipping Away at Aldermanic Courtesy!

2011-06-30T06:31:00.001-05:00

Although Board Bill 118, which authorizes redevelopment of the Flying Saucer (Del Taco) with demolition "necessary and desirable for the redevelopment of the Area under this Plan", was passed without any changes by the Housing, Urban Development & Zoning Committee by a vote of 5-2, the archaic concept of Aldermanic Courtesy was not the rule of the day. While other items on the meeting agenda were cleared by about 10:40, sometimes heated debate over BB 118 pushed the vote well into the early afternoon.

Committee member Jennifer Florida asked several pointed questions about the bill and was of the two nay votes along with Committee Chair Fred Wessels. Lyda Krewson also had several strong questions about the bill, but unfortunately had to leave before the vote.

While not on the HUDZ Committee, Scott Ogilvie grilled developer Rick Yackey about his receiving Missouri and Federal Historic Tax Credits for his part in $60 million of rehabilitation and adaptive re-use for housing of the adjacent Council Plaza buildings, then seeking public funding for demolition of the Flying Saucer which is also part of the Council Plaza National Register Historic District. While the National Park Service, which oversees National Register districts unfortunately would allow this, Ogilvie made it quite clear that he believes it would be inherently wrong. Shane Cohn also raised some good points and went so far as saying that if demolition cannot be stopped, that he would like to see the building moved, and would be willing to help.

Those of us that live in the City of St. Louis are not each residents of a village of 11,400 people, we are residents of an entire City and of a larger metropolitan region. Great leadership does not look inward and to be a great Alderman means always looking at the big picture of the entire City, understanding that things that happen from Carondelet to the tip of Baden affect us all. To the five of you who stood up, spoke out, made great arguments and asked the tough questions: THANK YOU!!

"Pedestrian Friendly" and Flying Saucer are NOT Mutually Exclusive

2011-06-28T06:30:00.005-05:00

When most of us think of "pedestrian friendly" retail, we think of great streetscapes with wide sidewalks, street trees and good urban buildings built up to or close to the property line along the back edge of the sidewalk. Thats great if you have a street lined with urban structures, but lets face it, Grand Boulevard in the vicinity of Forest Park Boulevard is never going to look like South Grand or the Loop. SLU missed their chance when they turned the expansion of Busch Hall inward to a food court. I don't see them building urban student villages along Grand in front of Reinert Hall, Marchetti Towers, Griesiedieck Hall or the giant Laclede Garage any time soon.

With this in mind, tearing down the iconic Flying Saucer to build a single new 7,000 s.f. building built up to the sidewalk at Grand simply makes no sense. The Council Plaza complex was designed and built when the automobile was king. People who lived there, went to the union hall, medical offices and on-site restaurant generally arrived by car, and before there were tacos, they bought their gas or had the car repaired at the Flying Saucer. As with designs typical of the period (and now the norm in suburbia) the sprawling low slung former Teamsters Plaza building, which now houses the Flats at 374 is set back about 60 feet off Grand. While it would be possible to fill the gap by building on that 60 foot setback, unfortunately this would probably compromise the historic integrity of the building, and therefore the tax credits for the recent rehab. This might be possible after the five year recapture period though.

The problem with the Flying Saucer is not that it is set back off the street. The problem is that it is surrounded by asphalt, has a redundant driveway off Grand front and center, and is surrounded by a public realm that is anything but pedestrian friendly. So what can be done?

First, one would hope that the restaurants that are looking at the location do not have drive-thrus, which would allow the building to be freed from its asphalt collar, with placement of most of the parking at the rear of the site, shared with the adjacent residential buildings. Second, get rid of the front and center driveway off Grand. Next, add street parking on Grand. The right lane of Grand just north of Highway 40 strangely bumps out all the way to Forest Park with a width of about 19 feet, which could be split into an 8' parking lane and 11' traffic lane. About 11 spaces could be added along the Council complex in two areas. Curb bulbs into the parking lane at the Council Plaza entrance and at the Forest Park corner would improve street crossings.

While we are at it, the City could easily put Grand through this area on a road diet. The new Grand Boulevard bridge over the railyard will only have 4 traffic lanes, and Grand reduces again to 4 lanes plus a center turn lane north of Lindell. It stands to reason then that the present 6 lanes plus a center turn lane could be reduced to 4 from the new bridge south of 40 all the way to Lindell. I would split the extra lanes to provide a dedicated bike lane on each side and add a tree lawn between the traffic lanes and the sidewalk, which are side by side along this entire stretch. Sidewalks next to the traffic lanes are desired in commercial districts, but in areas where street parking is not present, a tree lawn provides a buffer between traffic and people.

Creating a better pedestrian and biking realm in this area would connect Grand Center to Metrolink, it would connect SLU's main and medical campuses and all of this would bring more potential customers to the Flying Saucer while reducing the amount of parking needed.

Back to the building itself, the site & building plan above shows how the Flying Saucer could be just right for a 3,000+ s.f. tenant. As one friend on facebook suggested, maybe this could be a Starbucks, although I would prefer a Kaldi's. Removing the asphalt could open an expansive 7,000 s.f. outdoor covered terrace that could become the place to be seen in Midtown. The developer, Rick Yackey has talked about the possibility of two tenants. With a sensitive radial addition on the current drive-thru lane the building could be expanded to about 7,000 s.f. The height of this would want to be kept low, allowing the clearestory windows of the original building, which are now painted over, to be retained and re-opened. All of the service functions such as food prep, storage, restrooms etc. could go in the low addition, leaving the spacious sloped ceiling volume of the original building to be opened for seating. While some preservationists might cringe at the thought of alteration, I think it would be far better tan a wrecking ball.

The bottom line is that Rick Yackey, Marlene Davis, and the rest of the Board of Alderman need to understand that there are many possibilities to preserve and re-use one of the most unique pieces of architecture that we have in St. Louis. The Flying Saucer, which was finished just a year after the Gateway Arch is a legacy from a time when people thought nothing was impossible. Remember that little thing about going to the moon?

This is a time to throw out preconceptions, and it is also a time when YOU can act to show how this is possible. Tomorrow, Wednesday June 29th, the Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee of the Board of Alderman will hold a public hearing regarding the proposed demolition, which is part of Board Bill 118. The HUDZ Committee has the power to change or kill the bill. Please take time from your day to show up to City Hall, Room 208 at 10:00 am to voice your opposition. This may be the public's only chance to stop the demolition.

Del Taco "Blighting Study" is BS

2011-06-25T07:22:00.001-05:00

Yesterday Alderwoman Marlene Davis introduced Board Bill 118, a proposed ordinance to approve a redevelopment plan for the Flying Saucer at 212 S. Grand Boulevard, which is part of the Council Plaza National Register Historic District. The redevelopment plan calls for demolition of the iconic Flying Saucer that was constructed in 1967 as a Phillips 66, and has since been home to Naugles and then Del Taco over the past 25+ years. The Flying Saucer, according to developer and owner Rick Yackey would supposedly be replaced with a new "pedestrian friendly" chain restaurant building, which would likely be more pedestrian in its design.

As with most redevelopment plans, this one is predicated on the finding of "blight", and thus the desire and mandate to rid the area of "blight". Attached to Board Bill 118 is the Blighting Study and Plan prepared by the LCRA (embedded below). The actual Blighting Report is a barely 1 1/3 page checklist at the end of the document. Each statement checked yes or indicating the presence of a condition contributing to "blight".

212 S Grand-Blighting Study

Four of the seven individual items checked give the explanation that the "area" has or is conducive to crime. The very ironic thing about this is that Rick Yackey was a partner in the redevelopment of the long vacant union hall portion of Council Plaza, immediately south of the Flying Saucer, into The Flats at 374, which is stylish high-end student housing for SLU that opened in 2009. He is also partnering in the current rehabilitation of senior housing in the two high-rises underway immediately east. One would think that completion of these two developments, which were blighted themselves for their redevelopment would rid the "area" of "blight" and crime. Maybe criminals are simply attracted to tacos?

In any case, the logic of declaring "blight" is fuzzy a best. Even if "blight" does exist, demolition is not the cure. The existing building, which has been continuously occupied and is in no way structurally unsound. Any building that has had basically the same tenant for 25+ years is going to need some polishing. Of course bogus blighting studies are nothing new. Remember when West County Shopping Center was "blighted"?

Bogus or not, Board Bill 118 passed its first read, and is on to the Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee, which will meet this Wednesday, June 29th at 10:00 am in room 208 of City Hall. This hearing will be the public ONLY opportunity to comment on the proposed redevelopment plan, so please put this in your calendar, plan to attend, and get up to speak out. In the mean time, email or call Marlene Davis. More importantly, email or call your alderman and tell her/him to throw courtesy out the window.

Muny Terrazzo Re-created!

2011-06-20T06:30:00.003-05:00

Tonight as the Muny opens its season of performances, theater goers will once again be graced by a beautiful work of art as they enter the the covered promenade. In early 2010 a water main break directly underneath the original 1971 terrazzo installation severely damaged the work and the concrete slab in which it was inlaid, with the lower half extensively cracked and slightly heaved. Sadly, it was determined that the terrazzo could not be saved and by Valentines Day the damaged artwork was unceremoniously pulled up new new concrete was poured. In May however it was announced that that the terrazzo artwork would be restored with a generous gift from the Marilyn Schnuck Charitable Trust.

Some close-ups of the new terrazzo installation.

The new terrazzo was laid last October, and the Muny's Facebook page has an album of photos showing the installation from start to finish. Unlike terrazzo installations of yesteryear, the new artwork was prefabricated in a shop, brought out to the site and assembled and glued down like a jigsaw puzzle. In the traditional terrazzo installation process, which is still widely used for large installations, each section of the work is laid out with metal divider strips, and each terrazzo color is individually troweled into place.

As with many "re-creations" or "replications" that are performed today, the new terrazzo installation at the Muny is a somewhat watered down version of the original. Looking at photos of the original, you can see that many of the details were simplified. Comparing the maroon / pink striped dress and white fringe with the original below you can see that the distinctive scalloping of the fringe and stylized detail of the dress stripes was lost. Many of the color variations of the original also are missing from the new installation.

The ironic thing about the loss of detail is that the technology available today allows details to be more complex. With water jet cutters guided by computer generation, accurate re-creation of detail should not be an issue. While it is not an exact replica of the original artwork, I am still very glad that the Schnucks stepped forward and offered to fund this installation so that future generations will be able to enjoy it.

A program cover shows the original design of the artwork by Nancy Day.

Demolition Underway at Forest Park & Vandeventer

2011-06-10T06:31:00.002-05:00

CORTEX's demolition at Forest Park Boulevard & Vandeventer is well underway this week with the front half of the one story section down as well as much of the two story building at the northwest corner of the complex.

With most of the portion fronting Forest Park gone, you can start to get a sense of the scale of the building and the vast amount of emptiness to come, well over an acre.

Only the parapet wall and the decorative iron scrollwork that graced the corner are missing from the more prominent three story building. When this comes down, the vista viewed from the west will open up to the gas station/carwash across Vandeventer and SLU's surface parking lot to the north.

CORTEX to Demolish Building at Vandeventer & Forest Park Blvd.

2011-06-06T07:00:00.002-05:00

Several weeks ago a chain link fence went up around the prominent three story building at Vandeventer and Forest Park Blvd. and bulldozers showed up on the small parking lot at the west end of the building complex. A friend quickly confirmed that a demolition permit had been applied for on St. Patrick's day by Z & L Wrecking.

The expansive brown brick building complex was constructed in 1901 as the Welle-Boettler branch of the American Bakery Company. In 1904 according to an article from the St. Louis Republic, oil was discovered on the bakery property. In more recent times, the building was home to Missouri Metal Trims inc. and a storage company. In 2004 the building was purchased by St. Louis University, who then sold it to CORTEX in 2007 for $2,374,146.00.

CORTEX is apparently demolishing the building because they do not want to make needed repairs to the masonry shell of the building. The building has masonry problems as a result of non-existent maintenance by CORTEX, SLU, and likely former owners, including such a basic concept of keeping a functioning gutter on the rear wall of the building. Because of the gutter issues, the outer layer of brick is falling off the building or bucking outward in several locations along the alley. Beyond the alley wall there are a few locations of visible bowing of the masonry walls, including a small area at the parapet of the one-story section facing Vandeventer that needs attention, one minor location at the three story section that is not an imminent threat, and at the one story section facing Forest Park Blvd next to an area that has seen previous repair.

The cost of this demolition is not cheap, and neither are masonry repairs, but unless the masonry issues are causing serious structural failures, which these do not appear to be doing, they are not something that should warrant demolition. The estimated cost listed on the demolition permit application is $179,000! This amount of money could likely buy repairs and re-building sections of the back walls, a new gutter, as well as stabilizing and repairing some of the bowed areas on the street facades.

Crumbling parapets top walls missing mortar and covered with ivy on the alley side.

Back in 1998, a former owner of the building prior to SLU's purchase cared enough to completely re-build a good portion of the front wall of the one story portion of the building facing Forest Park Blvd. This portion of the front wall had collapsed after it had bowed out over a period of years. I recall being impressed that they re-built the wall with all details and windows in the original locations.

The re-built section of wall above is between the painted "M" and "L".

As I mentioned in a recent post, CORTEX has had a hit and miss record developing what was supposed to be a burgeoning bio-tech district linking SLU and and the Washington University Medical Center. With no publicly announced plan for redevelopment of the site, after the existing building is demolished, the property could remain a gaping vacant lot for years to come, unless CORTEX sells to someone else.

A decorative terra cotta pediment over the Vandeventer entrance.

While CORTEX may not be in a position currently to build another large new building to house growing biotech companies or have a large company re-locating here to sell to, however on the other end of the same block is the Center for Emerging Technologies (CET), a business incubator for start-up biotech companies. The CET started in a small existing building near Forest Park Blvd. and Sarah, then expanded in 2002 with a historic renovation the former Dorris Motor Car Company building next door. The CET incubator has graduated several successful start-ups, some of whom are tenants in the CORTEX building at Forest Park and Boyle.

The former Dorris Motor Car Company building renovated for CET in 2002.

One thing that the CET lacks however is wet lab space. For the last several years the CET has been trying to raise money to build a new 60,000 s.f. lab building on a vacant lot on Laclede between Sarah and Vandeventer. A 2009 article from Park Central Development's online newsletter mentions that the CET had received a $1 million dollar donation from Monsanto toward construction of the $28 million building, but that they needed $2-6 million more to begin construction. Two years later, the proposed construction site on Laclede sits vacant while the need for wet lab space lingers.

Bulldozers sit on the parking lot west of the building.

Some have the opinion that the nature of the wet lab space desired by CET requires new construction. A quick Google search however reveals that wet labs have been successfully in existing and historic buildings across the country. The SCRA MUSC Innovation Center in Charleston was built in an existing single story 28,400 s.t. warehouse building and contains 11 wet labs, offices and shared amenity spaces. The Triangle Biotechnology Center in Durham, NC is located in a former auto service garage that is on the National Register of Historic Places. In Charlotteville, VA, a Coca-Cola bottling plant built in 1939 is being redeveloped as the CityCampus Biotechnology Center, which will include wet lab space for start-up and early stage life sciences companies.

The ground floor of the building at Forest Park and Vandeventer has about an acre of floor space (43,560 s.f.) with high ceilings that would be ideal for conversion to lab space. The upper floors of the three story section contain another 15,000 s.f. of space which could house offices or other support spaces. While not currently on the National Register, the building is very likely eligible considering that several buildings of lesser architectural significance in the nearby area have been successfully been renovated with the use of Missouri and Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits. Brownfield Tax Credits might also be available to offset costs associated with environmental cleanup. With these incentives, much needed lab space could be much more feasibly obtained through renovation than through the high cost of new construction. By demolishing this building, CORTEX is blowing a great opportunity to add to it's fledgling biotech district rather than subtract from it.

Building Huggers: Show Some Love for Your Favorite in STL

2011-05-21T18:16:00.010-05:00

Calling all STL Building Huggers: Show some LOVE for your favorite building in St. Louis whether it is endangered or not, have someone snap a pic of you giving your favorite a hug, yes, literally give it a hug!, and submit the photo to GROUPHUG St. Louis! Come to the GROUPHUG party on Thursday, June 2nd at STyLehouse, and check out everyone else's expressions of love. There will be prizes for the best photos, as well as a raffle and other prizes. The GROUPHUG website has all the information about the event and submitting your photos. This STL love-fest is being presented by City Affair.

I don't normally use this space to promote events, but besides my involvement with City Affair, this unique event is intended to raise your awareness of the things that you love in St. Louis and make it a great place to live, whether it is your favorite endangered landmark or neighborhood row house, Ted Drewes concrete stand, the Gateway Arch or your favorite piece of public art. Twain is calling your name... Go HUG IT!

In the mean time, some of you may be wondering what happened to Vanishing STL? I'm still here, but have been busy for the last several weeks putting together the final drawings for the renovation of the Metropolitan Building on Grand Boulevard across from the Fox Theater. Built as an office building in 1906 but abandoned for about 25 years, the Metropolitan will be converted to affordable artist loft apartments. Construction should start in July.

The Metropolitan Building at Grand and Olive.

The Metropolitan Building has some major structural issues, which has sent many developers running away scared over the years. Its general condition is worse than that of the Arcade Building. However a three year hiatus on the building's redevelopment after Pyramid collapsed has been filled by Dominium Development of Minneapolis. The photo above shows the shoring that is currently keeping the buildings roof structure from collapsing. On top of the structural issues, extensive masonry work makes this project extremely challenging from a financial standpoint, but it will be another major anchor to Grand Center when completed.

Only 1 CORTEX Building on Preservation Board Final Agenda

2011-04-25T06:30:00.001-05:00

When the final agenda for today's Preservation Board meeting was posted on Friday, I was surprised to see that only one of the three CORTEX buildings that I posted about last week will be considered this afternoon for a recommendation to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Cultural Resources Office is recommending that a report should be sent to the Missouri State Historic Preservation Office stating that the the Western Electric Southwestern Bell Telephone Distribution House at 4250 Duncan is eligible for listing on the Register under criteria A and C. It is unclear why the other two buildings are not on the agenda.

Three CORTEX Buildings up for National Register Nomination!

2011-04-18T06:30:00.003-05:00

Several weeks ago I heard that someone is in the early stages of putting together a three building historic tax credit project in the CORTEX district. This would be a complete reversal of what has been the mode of operation for the district since it began development in 2005. The master plan for the district which was approved by the Board of Aldermen as part of the areas redevelopment plan had shown demolition of almost all historic buildings for construction of new lab buildings, boitech incubators and office buildings.

This month however, what I had heard is proving to have strong potential to come to fruition. On this months Preservation Board Agenda three CORTEX district buildings are up for consideration as new nominations to the National Register of Historic Places. They include the Post Dispatch Rotogravure Printing Plant at 4340 Duncan (photo above), the West Electric-Southwestern Bell Telephone Distribution House at 4250 Duncan (top photo) and the J.I. Case Threshing Machine Company Branch House at 4260 Forest Park (Google streetview below).

For the past 6 years, since construction of the tilt-up concrete and glass CORTEX building at the southwest corner of Forest Park and Boyle, the Cortex has had mixed success in luring biotech companies to the district. In early 2007, Solae began construction of a their new headquarters building at Duncan and Boyle which required demolition of the O. Morse Shoe Company which had significant Art Deco detailing.

The O. Morse Shoe Company building which had most recently housed SKH Paper Company was demolished for the new Solae headquarters.

Since then however there has been little development activity in the district except for acquisition of land and buildings for future redevelopment. Off and on has been talk of luring other potential companies to the area, but nothing else has moved forward. Although the economy is in a slow recovery from the Great Recession, lending for expensive private commercial development is still difficult to obtain. It seems the leaders of CORTEX have realized that the economics of historic rehabilitation make a lot of sense, especially in the current state of the economy.

The entrance to 4250 Duncan, which is a concrete framed building that has large open floor plates and is well suited for adaptive re-use for offices or biotech lab space. The reuse of historic structures for biotech incubator space has precedent right around the corner at Sarah and Forest Park, where the Center for Emerging Technologies is housed in two rehabilitated structures. Some of the tenants in the CORTEX building started their companies in CET's incubator buildings. Hopefully the nomination of these three significant historic structures to the National Register and the accompanying historic tax credit incentives that come with this designation we will see the renovation of the buildings for new uses fitting with the districts goals.

A simple yet beautiful detail of 4250 Duncan.

Resurrection on Dick Gregory Place

2011-04-14T06:30:00.004-05:00

Three years ago many of the large stately homes of Dick Gregory Place, in the Greater Ville neighborhood were on their last legs. Several had literally begun collapse as years of abandonment and exposure to the elements had taken their toll. The home above at 1702 Dick Gregory had been abandoned for over 20 years (date stamped photos from Geo St. Louis). Unfortunately this scene is all to common in several North St. Louis neighborhoods, with the typical ending of demolitions and more vacant lots.

The ending of the story of Dick Gregory Place however has defied all odds. Instead of demolition, the historic houses are all nearing completion of extensive renovations and re-building as part of a $13,000,000 project that will result in 32 units of affordable housing in renovated buildings plus four additional units in two new buildings and commercial space on Martin Luther King.

This incredible project is being developed by Northside Community Housing Inc. with assistance from RHCDA. The complex funding package is consists of both Missouri and Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits, Missouri Low Income Housing Tax Credits, HOME funds, American Recovery & Reinvestment Act funds as well as other funding sources. More information about the development can be found in this Northsider article. Also check out the nomination for the Wagoner Place Historic District, which encompasses Dick Gregory Place and four single block streets to the west of Dick Gregory.

In a reversal of the common trend of converting two-family buildings into single family homes, several of these large homes have had additions at the rear to accommodate conversion to two apartments.

This Google aerial view shows the extent of the substantial rehabilitation of the historic houses and the rear additions added to convert some of the houses to badly needed affordable family apartments. Unlike much affordable housing in multi building complexes that all look the same and stand out from their surroundings, residents of these beautiful historic buildings will be able to take pride in a true neighborhood environment.

The scale of the two new buildings at the corner of Marcus & Aldine, each with two apartments, fits well with the existing historic buildings in the district without being replications.

This beautiful corner building at Martin Luther King & Marcus will have commercial space on the first floor along MLK and apartments above.

Before and after at a large two family dwelling at the corner of Martin Luther King & Dick Gregory Place. I'm not sure if the Schoemehl pots will be removed to re-open the street. More of my photos of Dick Gregory Place and adjacent areas can be seen be seen here on Flickr.

Just across the alley from Dick Gregory Place to the east is Cora Avenue. Compared to the former conditions of Dick Gregory, this street of large homes has managed to remain remarkably intact.

While there are a few boarded homes on Cora, most are occupied and very well maintained.

The blocks of Cote Brilliante and Aldine east of Cora however are riddled with vacant lots and vacant homes. Sprinkled in between are a few remaining owner occupants. The boarded homes for the most part though are still in salvageable condition, and would not even require the extensive re-building that occurred on Dick Gregory Place. The area is part of the local Ville Historic District which was expanded in 2006.

RHCDA has looked at the possibility of doing a second phase of the Dick Gregory Place project including some remaining properties on Dick Gregory as well as properties in the blocks to the east. If Jay Nixon and the Missouri Legislature have their way thought, this second phase will not be financially possible. As part of Nixon's crusade to slash tax credits, a new rule which had been recommended by Nixon's tax credit commission and now making its way through the state Senate would not allow developers to use both Missouri Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits and Missouri Low Income Housing Tax Credits on the same project. This short sighted regulation would be a cold slap in the face to North St. Louis as it not only would make phase two of Dick Gregory infeasible, but would make rehabilitating much of the North Side extremely difficult due to deflated real estate values at the same time that several new historic districts are in the works.

City to Replace Municipal Courts with New 14th Street Garage

2011-04-01T08:30:00.001-05:00

The City of St. Louis today is poised to announce the newest enhancement to the ongoing redevelopment of Downtown St. Louis. The new 14th street garage will replace the former Municipal Courts building on Market Street west of City Hall. The Municipal Courts building, which will be demolished, has been vacant since the courts moved to the Mel Carnahan building (the former federal courthouse) at the southeast corner of Tucker & Market.

The new garage will be a good complement to the recently completed municipal garage at the northwest corner of Tucker and Clark. The new 14th Street garage however will have the added benefit of being attached directly to City Hall via a sky bridge.

The former Municipal Courts building on Market Street

By now you may have figured out that this is a joke, but in all seriousness, crimes against our City's built environment of this nature have happened several times before. Only continued vigilance and taking real action agains threats to historic building when they occur will prevent these scenes from continually repeating.

A New Hole Opens in the Loop

2011-03-23T07:00:00.003-05:00

Last June, the St. Louis Preservation Board approved demolition of a one story building at 6118-20 Delmar in the Loop for replacement with a surface parking lot with entrance off Delmar. Recently the building came down and renovation began on the adjacent building, which formerly housed Original Cast Lighting. Demolition of the building is not an issue of losing an important historic building, it is an issue of opening a large hole in the streetscape of a vibrant pedestrian oriented retail/restaurant district.

The owner of the building being renovated claimed that a restaurant tenant for the building would not sign a lease without dedicated parking next to the building. In what is normally typical in suburbia, the owner/developer has given the complex of building with attached dedicated parking lot a special name: "Loop Center South". Maybe it would be better as "Loop Centre South"? The developments website does show the space adjacent to the parking lot as leased, although no announcement has been made of the tenant even thought he building is under construction.

The fact that the commercial leasing sign has been tagged with graffiti for some time does not give me much confidence in the leasing broker for the other spaces, nor I suspect would this give confidence to prospective tenants.

Just a hudred feet west of the Loop Center South building Chinese Noodle Cafe has been going strong for over seven years now and just west of that, Pi enjoys seemingly unending popularity, with hour plus waits on Friday and Saturday nights. Like most restaurants and retail spaces in the Loop, neither has any dedicated parking of its own. Patrons of Loop businesses who arrive by car park in one of many public parking lots (including the nearby Metro park & ride), private lots (including the large lot owned by Joe Edwards behind the Pageant & Moonrise Hotel), or U-City public garage. Of course many patrons of the loop arrive on foot from nearby neighborhoods, Washington University, and of course the Delmar Metrolink station a block away.

Here is a simple concept of economics, but amazingly some just don't get it:

If you open a retail business with a strong idea behind it or a great restaurant in the Loop, people will seek you out and you will thrive. If you open a retail business based on something that people do not want or need or your restaurant is only marginal, you will not last. Dedicated parking will not make the difference between survival or demise. If your business is of the type that will only survive with people driving up to your front door, your business does not belong in the Loop!

The Grand Avenue Viaduct

2011-03-17T22:31:00.005-05:00

There won't be much to miss about the old Grand Avenue Viaduct that closed Monday morning for demolition. Rusted superstructure, spalling concrete exposing the re-bar on the supports and crumbling narrow sidewalks with holes covered by steel plates don't add up to cause for reminiscing about the old bridge.

The old narrow sidewalks and Jersey barriers will not be missed.

A close look from the Metrolink platform (now termporarily closed as well) though reveals a few details left over from an age when bridge building was an art form, not just an engineering exercise. Construction on the current viaduct began in 1960, but while that year was well into the Modern era, some of the design elements of the structure recall an age 20+ years prior to its construction.

The formed finials and double reveals evoke a more streamlined approach which was featured in bridges of the original Highway 40 (now demolished), constructed in the late 1930's through the first half of the 1940's.

Drawings of the new Grand Avenue Viaduct show that much of the new structure will not be a bridge at all, but will be built on earth fill between retaining walls. This is apparently less expensive method of construction. Ironically, details of the new structure attempt to look back to the original suspension structure that was completed in 1889. While I'm looking forward to the wide sidewalks above, it will be interesting to see how the new structure below turns out as well.

Kansas City Public Schools Earns an A+ for School Repurposing Plan - St. Louis Public Schools: F

2011-03-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

The Kansas City, Missouri School District has recently announce a "year-long community engagement and planning process to develop community-driven reuse plans for the district's closed school buildings". Yes, you read that correctly! Kansas City's public school district will develop community-driven reuse plans for the district's closed school buildings! Here in St. Louis of course this would be a foreign concept. In stark contrast, the St. Louis Public School district treats many of its closed historic schools like garbage to be put in the alley to rot or worse to be destroyed outright.

Last year the Kansas City Missouri School District closed 28 of its 61 schools due to dwindling enrollment and a $50 million deficit. Below is a map of Kansas City's closed public schools, including Westport High School (photo above from KCMSD) that would be repurposed with this new initiative. Some of the schools will apparently be kept and mothballed by the district.

The closed Seven Oaks School near Armour Boulevard - photo from The Pitch.

Over the last 20 years or so, St. Louis Public Schools has consistently threatened several closed historic schools with demolition, sold to them new owners who intended demolition, or demolished the historic structures themselves. Demolished historic SLPS buildings include: Marquette Elementary (1995), Benton Elementary (1996), William Stix Elementary & adjacent Elias Michael Schools (1997) and Bates (1997).

The William Stix School was demolished for a new BJC parking garage.

The entrance to now demolished Edward Bates School, now in City Museum (from minnemom's Flickr photos)

Other St. Louis public schools that have been threatened with demolition include the Ittner designed Theresa School, which the St. Louis School Board entered into a contract to sell to Walgreens which would have demolished the school for a new store. Fortunately due to outcry from the public, the school board canceled the sale and the building was sold to Amy and Amrit Gill who transformed it into the Theresa Park Lofts.

Two years ago another Ittner school, Mann Elementary was marked for closure and possible demolition for a replacement school under an ill-conceived consolidation plan. Pressure from neighbors and preservationists combined with support from Alderwoman Florida for keeping the existing school open and ultimately a lack of funding for the new school led the SLPS administration to finally back off from this plan. Shenandoah School had also been reported as an alternate site for the new consolidated school which would have resulted in its demolition.

Mann Elementary School in Tower Grove South

This year however in what can only be termed a bait a switch, Proposition S funds, which were sold to voters last fall "for the pupose of acquiring, constructing, renovaring, repairing, improving, furnishing and equipping school sites, buildings and related facilities in the District" will be used to demolish the old Hodgen School at Henrietta an California in the Gate District. SLPS claims it is demolishing to provide an improved playground for the new Hodgen School, but this is a sorry ass excuse considering that the new Hodgen School is actually contiguous with a City park.

The old Hodgen School. To my knowledge there is no organized opposition currently fighting the impending demolition of this historic school.

For closed St. Louis Public Schools that are not demolished, the fate sometimes resembles demolition by neglect. The Carr School at Carr & 15th Streets closed in June 1978. While the Carr Square Tenant Corporation has owned the former school for the last decade, City records show that the Board of Education of SLPS owned the building through 1999. From its condition today, it is obvious that little to no maintenance has occurred over the course of the first 21 years of abandonment.

An aerial view of Carr School shows extensive roof collapse and deterioration. An aerial photo on the City's property database shows that the collapse was already underway by 2002.

Kansas City, Missouri School District has not gone without criticism in the past for its handling of closed school buildings, and in October 1990 KCMSD imploded one of its most notable landmarks, Paseo High School. If KCMSD's new initiative to repurpose its closed schools through a public planning process proves successful however it could very well become a model for St. Louis Public Schools as well as other cities.

An aerial photo of Paseo High School from the 1967 Paseon.

Photos of the implosion of Paseo High School by Joe Robertson, Class of 1960.

A Final Look at the Admiral

2011-03-06T22:58:00.004-06:00

By now it is like;y that the Admiral is meeting its fate with cutting torches. These photos are from the fixture auction that was held late last November as Pinnacle milked the last few dollars out of the Admiral. You can view the whole set here on Flickr.

All that glitters is not gold. The former casino floor complete with a replica of the Arch in what was once the Admirals main ballroom.

The unmistakable shapes of the Admiral seen from a bland interior.

The lower deck below the main floor, one of the few areas where the structure was exposed.

Porthole doors

Looking back at Downtown over the roof of the accessory structure.

One of the more interesting spaces on the much altered vessel.

This bas-relief was one of the few items of interest on the interior. I'm not sure from what time period it dates. Although it was built-in to the wall, it was tagged for individual auction.

The last of the Big Three Gets Smaller

2011-03-02T07:00:00.002-06:00

On Friday it was announced that the downsizing of Macy's Downtown St. Louis store that has been planned for over a year will finally start this week. Its hard to imagine today that Downtown St. Louis once supported three mammoth department stores: Famous Barr, Stix Baer & Fuller and Scruggs Vandervoort Barney, each boasting over half a million square feet of sales floor. Now the sole survivor will shrink from seven floors to three, shrinking from about 675,000 square feet to about 200,000.

The vacation of the sixth floor will mean the end the last traditional department store tea room in St. Louis, which occupied a large portion of the floor. The St. Louis Room was the place where your grandmother and her friends went to eat while out for a day of shopping and this was evident from the decor. The room today is almost devoid of decoration or character except for a few hints of Art Deco. Some travertine left exposed a few spots as well as the sweeping arc shape of the space make me wonder if it had some more of this flavor at one time?

Beyond the staid main dining room was a smaller room that was clearly meant as the domain for the men who worked in the surrounding business district. The space is heavy on Olde English Tudor decoration complete with half timbered rough plaster walls, a bar and a large fireplace in one corner.

While the St. Louis Room had long ago lost its luster along with most of the store above the first floor, until a few years ago it was full for lunch almost every day of the week. After Macy's closed the Midwest division and slashed almost a thousand workers from the former May Company headquarters offices on the floors above the store however it became a ghost town. The last time I ate there late last fall after false rumors of imminent closure, my friend and I were among maybe a dozen other people in the entire restaurant.

The St. Louis Room nearly empty on a weekday around 12:30.

Papa Fabarre's, the more popular and much smaller restaurant on the 2nd floor is also closing, apparently because it does not have a separate kitchen. Fabarre's had an interior that felt like you were transformed to a time of nearly a century ago, when the Railway Exchange Building was built. I don't believe the interior was was that old, but someone did a fairly decent job of pulling off the look. Check out some photos of Fabarre's at St. Louis City Talk. I always liked the antique belt driven ceiling fans, and of course the Famous French onion soup.

Another feature of the store that will face an uncertain future are the beautiful old escalators.

From the third through fifth floor, the escalators were a streamlined combination polished stainless steel and aluminum.

From five up, the escalators switched to stained wood.

Going down

The sweeping curved lines of movement between floors were featured on the panels separating the up and down escalators.

Details are everything. A bronze insert holds the corner where the escalator meets the adjacent ceiling.

St. Louis Gave Up on the Admiral Years Ago

2011-02-21T07:00:00.002-06:00

The Admiral riverboat (photo from KWMU)

I read with a bit of sadness this weekend the stl today story telling that the Admiral will soon be on its way to the scrap yard where it will be unceremoniously sliced to pieces with cutting torches. But then I thought about it and realized that St. Louisans haven't cared about the Admiral, or the riverfront in general for that matter, for decades. After the almost 40 year stretch of river cruises ended in 1979, the boat was in limbo until 1987 when Six Flags tried to reopen it as an entertainment center which failed miserably. In 1994 the boat was converted to gambling casino. By then, there was almost nothing left on the interior of the boat to tell you that it was once a great art deco cruising vessel. For the next 16 years people came to the not to see the river or admire the Admiral's streamlined stainless steel architecture (which was largely hidden by the goofy light blue mooring structure, but to play the slots or try their luck at the black jack table.

An early cruise aboard the Admiral. Photo from a Post-Dispatch gallery

After Pinnacle closed the boat last year, there was plenty of opportunity for someone to buy the Admiral and come up with a creative re-use for it. It was even on ebay for a while! But no one came through for the shiny symbol of years past. To my grandparents and somewhat my parents generation, the Admiral was one of THE places to go for fun, as was Gaslight Square. Like Gaslight Square though the luster of the Admiral faded and like Gaslight Square, most of the later generations including ours were oblivious to the to the former shining stainless steel star of the riverfront and ambivalent about the vessel's ultimate fate.

The story of its demise is listed in stl today's "most read stories" column, but I'd be interested to see the average age of the readers. I went to the fixture sale a few months ago and it seemed there were only a few like me who simply came to see the Admiral, most were milling around trying to get a bargain on crappy furnishings and equipment. St. Louis had its chance to see the Admiral carry on to some new life for future generations to enjoy, but instead it let that chance simply float away down the river.

Preservation Board Approves Demolition of Entire Kosciusko Complex

2011-01-25T08:52:00.005-06:00

The Preservation Board last night approved demolition of the entire complex of buildings bound by Victor, Dekalb, Sidney & 2nd Streets. According to a Preservation Board member, it was "keep all the buildings or demolish them all". This does not make sense considering the Cultural Resources Office specific recommendation to preserve the one building, 150 Victor pictured above.

A plain metal warehouse will replace the existing complex once the buildings are demolished. The drawings above appeared in the Preservation Board agenda. Note the location of windows and doors on the north elevation facing Victor and the west elevation facing the storage yard. These would indicate that offices of the new complex will be in this location, which happens to be almost the exact same location as the group of three brick townhouses that the Cultural Resources Office recommended preserving. The townhouses appear to be used as offices currently since the windows are not covered.

Cultural Resources Recommends Partial Preservation in Kosciusko

2011-01-23T00:09:00.008-06:00

On Monday the Preservation Board will consider the proposed demolition of a grouping of buildings occupying two thirds of a full block of Kosciusko bound by Victor, Dekalb, Sidney & 2nd Streets. Much of the complex, which is located in a Preservation Review Area, consists of non-historic one story metal and concrete block buildings, but at least three buildings date from the late 1800's. The Cultural Resources Office has rightly recommended preservation of 150 Victor Street (photo from the Preservation Board agenda above), which of the older buildings is the least altered and in very good condition.

A view of the complex at Victor & Dekalb, with 150 Victor is at the right. Next left is another pair of mansard roofed townhouses covered with stucco. looking south on Dekalb you can see the roof line of the third older building.

150 Victor began as three townhouses, but later were converted for commercial use. At the time the hand painted sign was installed it housed a the offices of a meat packer and later an automotive company was added to the mix. Today the entire complex is owned by R & R Contracting Services, a company that supplies porta-potties.

The site of the proposed demolitions, outlined in yellow above, is just a block west of the site of a demolition that occurred last year. 107 Victor, a three story corner building at the intersection of Victor & Kosciusko had been placed on the preliminary Preservation Board agenda for September 2009, but was mysteriously pulled before the meeting. Demolition of the building without further oversight followed in April 2010.

Like many neighborhoods near the Mississippi River, Kosciusko had long been composed of a mixture of manufacturing and residential buildings. Directly across from 150 Victor, is the Hager Companies, which was founded in the same location in 1849. Hager, which started as a maker of hinges, is now a large manufacturer/supplier of quality commercial architectural hardware for construction projects around the world.

This was Kosciusko in 1958, as it had been since its beginning, a dense mixed use community. This would not last much longer though, as planning for its destruction had begun the previous year. The area had been considered blighted and the solution was to rid the area of residential uses. According to a history of urban renewal in St. Louis (p. 26), acquisition and mass demolition began in 1960.

By 1971, Kosciusko was almost unrecognizable and had mostly been replaced with large single story trucking warehouses and surface parking lots. The Hager Companies, 107 Victor, the buildings currently under consideration, and a few other scattered buildings were the only evidence that remained of the neighborhoods previous life.

The townhouses just east of 150 Victor. Although covered, the alterations here are only skin deep. When an entire facade is covered in this manner, the stucco is typically applied over another substrate, such as metal mesh which would have been attached to the facade. Removal would likely be an easy task. The original cornices are remarkably in good condition except for needing some paint.

Alterations to the building on Dekalb are more intensive with partially blocked windows, stucco likely direct-applied to the masonry, but while altered, it still retains quite a bit of character. The small pediment over the boarded double door, while not original, is at least somewhat interesting.

The Hager Companies complex is perhaps one of the finest examples I have seen where a large scale manufacturer has preserved and incorporated its history into its current operations. The original unassuming townhouses on Victor Street house the private offices of the fifth and sixth generation family owners of the company.

While working on the now defunct Arcade Building renovation, myself and several Pyramid Architects co-workers who were working on the project with me were treated to a full tour of Hager's St. Louis headquarters. Included was a wonderful home-cooked lunch in their beautiful conference room in one of the old townhouses which is furnished with fine family heirloom antiques complete with a stuffed pheasant on the wall.

Behind the townhouses, one of the former early 20th century factory buildings has been converted to house the main offices of Hager Companies. Most manufacturing is now done at their Montgomery Alabama facility as opposed to over-seas.

From the Archives: The Western Union Building

2011-01-18T07:00:00.000-06:00

St. Louis' Western Union Building was located at the southwest corner of 9th and Chestnut Streets. It was designed by architect Welles Bosworth and constructed in 1926.

According to the website westernunionalumni.com (source of the photo above) the St. Louis office was one of 15 regional switching stations spread throughout the country forming a "hub and spoke" network through which millions of telegrams were sent, received and transfered each year.

The Western Union was crowned with a monumental copper cornice, which unlike so many stone and terra cotta cornices that were long ago removed, survived in nearly perfect condition until the building's demolition. Like many buildings constructed by growing companies in the roaring 20's, especially those in telecommunications, the Western Union building was designed for expansion. Its five stories could have received an addition carrying the building up to a total of twelve floors, but never occurred.

The Western Union Building's location along the central spine of St. Louis, what would ultimately become the Gateway Mall, could be said to have doomed it before it was ever built. The Mall began as part of the Comprehensive Plan of 1907 and was first enacted with the clearance of blocks between Tucker and 15th Street approve by voters in 1923 as part of the $87 million bond issue. Construction included Memorial Plaza, the T-shaped seven block park, surrounded by several public buildings including the Civil Courts and the Kiel Opera House & Auditorium.

It was not until after Word War II though that expansion of the Mall eastward toward the then only planned Jefferson National Expansion Memorial begin to occur starting with Kiener Plaza in 1965. The Western Union Building even survived the ill-conceived and ill-fated Pride Plan which was also known as the "half mall" of the 1980's which brought the destruction of Real Estate Row and the construction of the Gateway One building.

Mayor Schoemehl vowed to complete the Mall before he left office and in 1993, the Western Union became the last building to fall. The idea of the Gateway Mall is not awful. One of the major problems with the Mall however is the faceless buildings fronting it from the Civil Courts to 4th Street, which with the exceptions of the Wainwright Building (which is blocked by Gateway One) and 1010 Pine (which never received it's intended expansion to fill the south third of the block) were all built between 1960 and 1986. Compare the scale of any portion of those buildings with the photo above.

Just west of the Western Union at 10th and Chestnut, this little art deco building anchored the corner of a surface parking lot. The building and lot were demolished at the same time as the Western Union. The blocks between 8th and 10th Street remained bare open space until construction began on City Garden in 2009.

Philadelphia's Western Union Building was also built for an expansion, and recently got it. But instead of obsolete telegram switchgear, this expansion and the original building now house modern condominiums. I love City Garden and think it is a great addition to St. Louis, but if the half-mall plan had been carried forward, it would have been great to have something like this.

Washington Avenue Part 3: Possibilities - How to Connect a Park to a City

2011-01-06T07:09:00.001-06:00

The design competition for improving the Arch grounds drew vastly different philosophies for connecting the park with the city along its north edge where the large parking structure has long been a barrier. The winning entry from MVVA proposes not just replacing the area of the garage, but complete removal of all existing infrastructure including Washington Avenue in order to push the park to the south face of the Eads Bridge.

As mentioned in my first post on this topic I feel that removal of the historic Washington Avenue connection from Memorial Drive to the riverfront will be extremely detrimental to Laclede's Landing. The Vision section of the Competition Manual stated: "This competition is about connections and weaving an urban park into the city fabric of St. Louis". Instead of truly integrating the park with the surrounding city grid, the MVVA plan eliminates part of the grid so that the Eads Bridge itself becomes a literal fortress like barrier between the park and the city. Instead of Washington Avenue continuing to connect the park to the grid of the city in three directions, it's elimination would leave two dead end streets truncated north of the bridge as the only connection between park and city. A third auto only right of way would serve as the entrance to a replacement underground garage on the Arch ground.

An alternative design philosophy was proposed by the Weiss Manfredi team. Instead of simply trying to push the boundaries of the park outward, Weiss Manfredi would have improved connections between the Arch grounds and the surrounding city by extending the city's grid into the park. Weiss Manfredi's proposal would have activated the Washington Avenue edge of the park by placing retail and a park ranger station into the existing parking structure as well as providing connection through by carving grand stairs through on axis with First & Second Streets as well as two north-sough pedestrian alleys in Laclede's Landing.

A section through the Weiss Manfredi proposal shows how the grand stairs would have cut through the existing parking structure. The parking garage was completed in 1986, so with proper maintenance it should have several decades of useful life left.

Rendering of the non-winning Wiess Manfredi proposal along Washington.

The Behnisch Team also proposed retaining Washington Avenue. Their proposal replaced the garage with a music themed museum. Between portions of the museum would be wide meandering spaces connecting Washington Avenue with the interior of the park.

This rendering of the Behnisch Team competition entry shows the Washington Avenue corridor activated by people instead of cars. It is unclear from their narrative whether the lack of auto traffic would have been full-time or only at off-peak times.

A reader comment from my second post on this topic questioned the need to drive to the riverfront. This is a valid question and I agree that driving to the riverfront is not always necessary or desirable however the ability to provide vehicular connection to Laclede's Landing at peak times such as weekend nights should not be forgotten.

The closure of 9th Street at City Garden between Market and Chestnut during non-rush hour periods seems to be a good compromise between the need to keep the street grid open for traffic and the desire to expand pedestrian realms. This type of treatment could easily by used for improved and narrowed Washington Avenue along the north edge of the park.

Of course our street grid is also essential for bikers to get around. If Washington Avenue is removed entirely East of Memorial Drive as currently planned by MVVA, bikers will be hard pressed to find a good route to the riverfront. While driving along the riverfront is not terribly exciting, biking there is a pleasant experience. Washington Avenue is the only decent route to the riverfront between the PSB and the MLK Bridges. The cobblestoned streets of Laclede's Landing are certainly not a good alternative.

Ghosts of Downtown's Christmas Past

2010-12-24T21:07:00.004-06:00

In the late 1950's and early 1960's as new suburban shopping centers lured shoppers away from Downtown St. Louis retail several intersections received these lavish decorations in an effort to turn the district into a winter wonderland during the holiday shopping season.

Another view of decorations at 6th & Washington looking south. The Railway Exchange Building, home of Famous Barr (now Macy's) can be seen at the center of the photo. Stix Baer & Fuller was located at the northwest corner of the intersection.

This portable Christmas Candy House, was located at the corner of 8th and Locust. Looking south beyond the Chemical Building, the white four story terra cotta building is now the location of the Laclede Gas tower built in 1968. The building seen beyond at the southeast corner of 8th & Pine was demolished in 1977 for an addition to the Wainwright Building. Photos above from the Western Historical Manuscript Collection.

In 1959 Stix Bear & Fuller constructed this fanciful Christmas castle at the corner of their store at 7th & Washington. Next year the former SBF building will re-open following a top to bottom renovation housing an Embassy Suites Hotel, apartments, ground floor retail and hopefully a Blues Hall of Fame. Photo from the Post-Dispatch.

Great News for a Change: May's Clayton Home is Saved

2010-12-14T06:48:00.000-06:00

About two years ago I posted the story of the demolition of Morton D. May's Ladue estate, the 1941 International Style masterpiece by Samuel Marx. This holiday season though I have the pleasure of bringing fantastic news!

Yesterday I received the following anonymous comment regarding Morton D. May's second modernist home in Clayton: "Hi Paul! My husband & I recently purchased 12 Brentmoor Park. You will be happy to know that we plan on lovingly restoring it, NOT tearing it down. Thanks for highlighting some local gems!"

Earlier this year, May's Brentmoor home had been listed for sale as a potential tear-down. While the house was in very good shape on the exterior, its semi-gutted interior did not point to a very positive future. Fortunately a couple with the vision to preserve this modern beauty has bucked the trend of destruction for fake castles. To this I can only say THANK YOU!

Washington Avenue Part 2: Will We Squander One of Our Oldest Connections to The River

2010-12-13T21:00:00.000-06:00

Beyond being disastrous for Laclede's Landing, the elimination of Washington Avenue from Memorial Drive to the levee would be squandering one of St. Louis' oldest connections to the Mississippi River. The map above shows the extents of the village of St. Louis in 1780. The area shaded in green from Poplar to Washington was taken for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (the Gateway Arch and surrounding park).

South of the Arch, Poplar street extends to the river but is blocked by the highway. Plum street has all but disappeared, Cedar and Lombard streets are blocked at First Street by truck lots and the flood wall, leaving Gratiot as the only street still passable from the river to 7th Street, where it becomes a private road through the Nestle Purina corporate campus.

North of the Arch, Lucas is blocked by a parking lot at 2nd Street and Morgan is blocked west of Memorial Drive. Laclede's Landing Boulevard, an access road just south of the MLK Bridge goes through to the river and connects to Convention Plaza, albeit in an extremely awkward and confusing way, but did not exist prior to the late 1970's. All of these blocked and removed streets leaves Washington Avenue as one of St. Louis' only remaining connections to the riverfront from the time of the City's beginnings.

Another map from 1780 shows that Washington Avenue was one of the few streets that extended outside the fortifications of the village of St. Louis to destinations beyond. The maps from the 1970 printing of "This is Our St. Louis".

The opening of the Eads Bridge in 1874 solidified Washington Avenue's prominence as one of the most important streets in St. Louis. The photo of the bridge above from Wikimedia was taken at the foot of Washington Avenue at the levee just a year after completion.

This photo looking down from the roof of the Missouri Athletic Club (former known as the Missouri Athletic Association) shows the Eads Bridge and the leg of Washington extending to the river.

The building between Washington and the bridge was a the terminus of streetcar lines from East St. Louis that came across the bridge deck. The tracks in the tunnel hidden below and extending across the lower deck of the Eads where MetroLink runs today were used solely for freight trains.

Another view of Washington and Third Street (now Washington Avenue) from the Missouri History Museum shows a bustling intersection including a streetcar turnaround. It was a hub of activity connecting the Washington Avenue commercial corridor to Eads Bridge and the river, a glimpse of which can be seen near the right edge of the photo.

Today, this intersection is all but obliterated by an elevated highway creating a psychological barrier cutting off St. Louis from the riverfront. Instead of restoring this intersection and its connections by implementing City to River's vision for a new boulevard to replace the highway, the current focus with a deadline of October 2015 includes removing the Washington Avenue connection to the river.

The current 90 day process to refine MVVA's design concept is unfortunately closed to the public, so good luck telling anyone if you agree that Washington Avenue should be kept. A limited number of Downtown stakeholders and organizations do have a chance to have their voices heard as part of this process. Lets just hope that someone listens.

Neptune Fountain is Gone from SLAM's Sculpture Hall

2010-12-06T07:00:00.002-06:00

Friday evening I finally went to the St. Louis Art Museum to check out the Joe Jones exhibit, which is excellent and I highly recommend everyone see it. As I walked through the glass front doors facing Art Hill into Sculpture Hall though I was somewhat unprepared for what I would encounter. Immediately I saw the plywood wall in front of me and at the same instant sensed the absence of the sound which I have enjoyed in that space all my life. The fountain was gone!

I was aware of the plan to remove the fountain, but was still somewhat caught off guard as I had not been inside the museum for several months. I had gone to a few of the public presentations about the museum expansion and knew that others shared my displeasure with the idea of moving the Neptune fountain out of Sculpture Hall. I had hoped that maybe there would be enough public outcry that the museum might change their plans, however that obviously didn't happen.

Beyond the plywood wall around the scar in the marble floor where the fountain was located the entire south end of the hall has been walled off and a temporary ceiling is being constructed above. This is presumably so that construction can occur on the new grand staircase to a new lower level hallway leading to galleries and the south building where the restaurant gift shop and auditorium are located.

The location of the grand staircase centered in Sculpture Hall (outlined by the tape lines) was likely the reasoning for removing the fountain, because of course you couldn't have a fountain as the focal point at the top of the new grand stair, right?

The Neptune fountain as it stood welcoming generations of St. Louisans until recently at the center of the hall. According to a fact sheet about expansion on the museum's website, the fountain will be relocated to a new group entrance at the South Building. Since public parking will be concentrated in the new garage under the addition and on the existing surface parking areas flanking Art Hill, most visitors with the exception of school children and bus tours may never enjoy the fountain.

The Neptune fountain was not the first in this location. This fountain designed by architect Louis LeBeaume, who with Eugene Klein designed the Kiel Auditorium & Opera House, was installed at the center of Sculpture Hall in 1928. The halls marble floor, also designed by LeBeaume, was installed in the same year. Prior to that time the floor had been bare concrete.

In the photo above, you can see the finish of the walls and ceiling of the hall as they were when the museum was constructed prior to the 1904 Worlds Fair. The walls were buff brick and the panels of the barrel vaulted ceilings were a herringbone patterned brick or tile that resembles a Gaustavino ceiling.

By 1950 the original walls and ceilings had been covered over with a cement or plaster parging, still present today.

The Neptune fountain by Renaissance sculptor and architect Bartolomeo Ammanati replaced LeBeaume's in 1958 although the the marble base for the former was retained.

Sculpture Hall in 1969

From the time of the fair in 1904 through about 1920 photos show Sculpture Hall packed with a seemingly ridiculous number of works. This type of crowded presentation for both sculptures and paintings was common practice for museums at the time. All historic photos from the St. Louis Art Museum's history page.

Washington Avenue: Removal East of Memorial Would Devastate Laclede's Landing

2010-12-02T13:05:00.001-06:00

Washington Avenue from Memorial Dr. to the riverfront. Photo by Melinda Stuart.

As you are probably aware, MVVA's plan for the arch grounds, illustrated below, calls for removal of Washington Avenue east of Memorial Drive to the riverfront and extension of the park to the south face of the Eads Bridge. Although one of the top goals of the City+Arch+River Design Competition was to improve connections, MVVA's plan will effectively create a blockade at the south end of Lacede's Landing. While I am always an advocate for better pedestrian realms, and of course there is the MetroLink at the Eads Bridge, the fact remains that many come and go to Laclede's Landing by car.

MVVA'a plan for the "North Gateway" for the most part simply provides redundancy for functions that already exist in the park, including two new gathering spaces. The large central lawn under the Arch as well as the Arch grand staircase are regularly used as gathering spaces for concerts, rallies and other public events. Are two new gathering lawns really needed?

Not only does MVVA's plan block access along the Washington Avenue corridor to the riverfront for autos, but the proposed new "Urban Ecology Center" that would be built largely within the Washington Avenue street right-of-way would block direct access to the river for pedestrians and cyclists as well as create a visual barrier for all. The design narrative states that people would be able to access the riverfront via an elevator within the Urban Ecology Center. This is good to provide a vertical means of accessibility, but bad for all when the building happens to be closed. I wonder how the NPS will feel about people dragging their bikes through the building?

The placement of the ecology center and providing access and usable spaces at the lowest level, essentially at the top of the levee will have some technical issues as well. According to the photos below that I took in June 2008, they could be inundated by flood waters.

High water during the the flood of 2008.

The traffic pattern proposed by MVVA for visitors coming to the north end of the Arch is far from intuitive, and for those coming from the south or west, downright confusing. This same singular path would remain as one of the few remaining ways to access Laclede's Landing by car.

The proposed Arch access and default Laclede's Landing access would be the north edge of the Landing along the MLK Bridge. Access to a re-built new north Arch parking garage is proposed to be Commercial Street, which is basically a glorified alley. The few original buildings face their backs to the "street".

First and 2nd Streets on Laclede's Landing would be blocked at the Eads Bridge creating dead end streets south of Lucas. The demolition of the Switzer Building on First Street, to the left of the yellow barricade in the photo above, has left that block lifeless with no building frontage. Second street retains half of its original buildings but unfortunately faces a parking lot to the west. These vacant lots failed to draw development of new in-fill buildings during one of the best real-estate markets in history that ended a few years ago. Dead ending these blocks would surely doom them to permanent desolation.

Some say that these two blocks could just be turned into pedestrian streets. Really!!, pedestrian streets? We tried that along with many other communities across the nation and the majority failed miserably. Lets face it, Laclede's Landing has been struggling for over 25 years largely due to its isolation. The galleries and cute retail stores all closed or moved elsewhere not too many years after opening in the early 1980's. What's left is largely the nightlife scene: bars, a few restaurants, the casino, offices, oh and the creepy wax museum. Removing Washington Avenue and access to Laclede's Landing from the south would be the equivalent of kicking it in the teeth when its already down.

The 14th Street Mall was created with the intent to revitalize the street but ended up as a virtual ghost town as did pedestrian streets almost everywhere. Fortunately 14th street has recently been re-opened to traffic and its buildings newly renovated. Laclede's Landing already has the feeling of a district on life support, hopefully during the 90 day design refinement process of MVVA's concepts now over half complete intelligent decisions will be made not to pull the plug on Washington Avenue and the Landing.

The Seven year Saga: Sears South Grand

2010-11-16T07:15:00.001-06:00

The Art Deco Sears store at 3708 South Grand Boulevard opened in 1929 as the company was expanding its retail store presence across the country. The company that had begun in 1888 as a mail order catalog opened its first retail branch in 1925 in Chicago. By March of 1932, despite the onset of the great depression, Sears had an empire of 381 stores across the U.S. Sears followed a prototype of urban neighborhood stores that were 2 to 3 stories in height and easily identifiable by their trademark tower element. Also opened in 1929, just two blocks north was another Art Deco landmark towering over Grand and Gravois, the 10 story South Side National Bank building.

Art Deco stone details over the entrance to the South Grand Sears store.

The South Grand Sears had beautiful Art Deco stone detailing. Its sister store built on North Kingshighway between Page and Franklin (now MLK) in 1938, while keeping the same form and proportions as South Grand, exhibits a much more modern look. Gone are the Art Deco details at each column, with the only ornament consisting of fluted limestone flanking the entrances. Horizontal banding of the brick above the entrances and storefront gives sense of streamlined form.

One of two entrances to the former Sears on North Kingshighway.

Sixty years later though, Sears was going through some major adjustments and struggling against competitors. On January 25th 1993 Sears announced the closure of 87 retail stores in 33 states plus the District of Columbia. Included in that closure list was the South Grand Sears store. In the same year Sears also dropped production of its general merchandise catalog due to flagging sales.

By 1998, the City of St. Louis had put out an RFP for redevelopment of the site of the abandoned store and parking lot occupying a full block between Arkansas and Tennessee Avenues. Development rights went to Pyramid Construction, an up and coming City homebuilder who proposed 26 new homes and a new commercial building along Grand. This of course included demolition of the Sears store building, which was paid for through City funding.

The mis-matched brick over the upper windows indicates that the parapet

was re-built. Given the amount of Art Deco stone detailing below, it is

possible that additional detailing was lost with the repair work.

Even though this was the same year that the Missouri Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit was established, my understanding is that no thought was given to re-using the Sears building as part of the redevelopment by the City or Pyramid. The re-use potential for the building was very high, as it had only been empty for 5 years, had little to no deterioration over that period and was structurally sound. I started work with Pyramid Architects in July 1999, just one month before the demolition permit was applied for by the residential development arm of Pyramid. When I asked why the building was going to to be demolished, the response was that it was part of the deal with the City.

Art Deco design extended to the auto service area at the rear of the store.

Unfortunately since the program was brand new, Pyramid had little experience with the Missouri Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits. What experience it did have was with small scale residential rehabs in the Shaw neighborhood and a few in Forest Park Southeast. Pyramid was just starting a commercial division that year, and its eyes were focused on empty buildings Downtown. The commercial and residential divisions of Pyramid rarely cross pollenated.

The North Kingshighway Sears saw a much better fate, and was renamed the Victor Roberts Building, the headquarters for the Roberts Companies. While the Roberts Brothers have a mixed history when it comes to historic preservation, their re-use of the Sears building is commendable. The South Grand Sears would have been eligible for listing on the National Register and there is no reason that it should have been demolished. Even without a full blown tax credit gut-rehab, the Roberts Brothers have shown that re-use of the old Sears stores is very possible. At the Roberts building the stainless steel escalators are still used to ferry people from floor to floor.

Now part of the campus of Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this

is one of many examples of adaptive re-use of former Sears stores across the U.S.

I am not aware that there was much outcry over the demolition of the South Grand Sears store, however it would be an understatement to say that I was out of touch with things happening in this part of the City at that time. If anyone remembers more about this, please comment. By the early months of 2000 demolition of the old Sears store was complete. This however was just the beginning of the story of this property.

The empty Sears site on Grand with new homes rising beyond.

Later the same year South Side National Bank announced that they intended to sell their building to Walgreens, who intended to demolish the landmark tower for a suburban prototype store. Fortunately in this case, neighborhood activism stopped this demolition, led in large by Jennifer Florida, who would be elected alderman of the 15th Ward in 2001.

A failed plan for retail development on the former Sears site.

Back at Grand and Winnebago Pyramid was having problems developing the commercial portion of the Sears site. After several years of marketing the site, the former Sears location still sat a vacant. In February 2005 however, a plan emerged that involved Pyramid swapping the Sears site for the existing McDonald's across the street. McDonald's would build a new suburban prototype store on the Sears site, and Pyramid would build a new apartment building for seniors on the McDonald's site.

From the beginning, this plan seemed rife with logic errors. While we had nothing to do with the new McDonald's, Pyramid Architects did work on the senior apartment building. While we made it work, the sloping site where the old McDonald's was located was far from ideal, and the project also hinged on acquiring a non-historic storage building on an adjacent lot. The owner of this building was apparently not very cooperative. Fortunately, the St. Louis urbanist community was not cooperative about the new suburban style McDonald's either.

Alderman Florida who had won wide support of her stance against demolition of the South Side National Bank found that support turn to vehement opposition when she supported Pyramid's McDonald's plan. Opponents held protests, attended meeting, hearings and even attempted to unseat Alderman Florida through a recall election. The topic was covered extensively on Urban Review STL.

Some who were infuriated by Alderman Jennifer Florida's

support of the McDonald's plan had these shirts printed.

Ultimately in late 2006, those who protested the McDonald's plan won out when Pyramid announced that the land swap was dead and it intended to build the senior apartment building on the former Sears site, thus ending a seven year saga of the fate of a site that should not have been cleared in the first place. The new building got underway in late 2007 and was completed after Pyramid's demise in 2008.

The Grand South Senior Apartments were completed in late 2008. while it is not a bad building, its relatively bland appearance is a far cry from the beauty of the former Sears store. One thing that was done right with this building was the introduction of retails spaces on the ground floor facing Grand.

Hiding in Plain Sight Part 3: Living in Second Life

2010-10-22T07:00:00.001-05:00

Another example of an early 20th century building Downtown that received a new modern slip cover is the Farm & Home Savings Association at 10th and Locust. The current modern skin was applied to the building in 1954. Farm & Home had purchased the building for its new St. Louis headquarters.

The six story building was originally constructed in the Romanesque style in 1905 as the central exchange for the Kinloch Telephone Company. In 1900 Kinloch had surpassed the rival Bell Telephone Company in number of subscribers, making it St. Louis' largest telephone company at the time. Kinloch sold out to Bell in 1924.

Back to the question of whether a "modernized" building can be restored to its former appearance. The answer as seen in my previous post is: sometimes yes, but in this case, the answer is sometimes no. Both the former Post-Dispatch Building and the 1015 Locust Building are both examples of modernizations that were accomplished by hanging an aluminum and glass curtain wall on the building. As the name implies, the new window and metal panel systems were hung on brackets attached to the masonry structure and like a curtain, there was a small amount of space between the new wall system and the building. In the case of the Post-Dispatch, this allowed the curtain wall to slip over many decorative elements that protruded from the face of the building. This allowed for removal and restoration of the areas that were damaged.

In the case of the Farm & Home Building, a new stone veneer and metal panel system was applied directly to the face of the the original building. This meant that all decorative elements including arches, sills, band courses, cornice, etc. that protruded beyond the face of the field masonry were literally shaved clean off of the building. When Craig Heller bought the building several years ago, he had several of the stone panels removed to investigate the possibility of restoration. As you can see from the photo above, the damage to the brick and terra cotta decoration was extensive. Restoration would have meant a very expensive complete re-construction of all the decorative elements from scratch. Even if the money were available to do this, when damage is this extensive you have to ask yourself "is it worth it?"

Before the complete modernization of the building, apparently Farm & Home considered a more modest remodeling of the facade. As seen in the rendering above, this would have left

much of the original detail of the building intact. Because the Farm & Home modernization had been completed in the mid-1950's, the new skin was able to be considered to have achieved enough significance in the building's history that it was listed on the National Register with the modern facade. The original Kinloch Building photo, rendering above and three side by sides below are all from the building's nomination.

After World War 2, there was a wave of building modernizations in Downtown St. Louis as owners wanted to both "update" the look of their properties and compete with new construction. The building above was at 6th & Olive.

Another modernization above at 526 Pine Street and below at 1100 Olive.

All three of these "before and after" examples have since been demolished.

Further east at Broadway and Locust is another example of a prominent building that was modernized in the mid-1950's was the Mercantile Library Building. St. Louis' oldest cultural institution, the Mercantile Library was founded in 1846 and is the oldest continually operating library west of the Mississippi. In 1854 the Mercantile Library built its first building at Broadway and Locust then in 1887 began construction of a larger six story building on the same site which was dedicated in 1889.

In 1955 the building received a modernization very similar to that of the Farm & Home Building. A granite base was applied to the first floor, limestone veneer wrapped its midsection, and finally red brick was applied to the 6th floor and a severely truncated parapet compared to that originally built. The modernization also included a large new addition to the west of the original building as well as the incorporation of a neighboring building to the south an another facing 6th Street to the west.

An old advertisement fro marble ant tile shows the opulent interior of the First National Bank of St. Louis which was a main first floor tenant. An image from the Missouri History Museum shows the buildings exterior covered in patriotic bunting on the bank's opening day, July 7, 1919. Prior to construction of the Century Building, Scruggs Vandervoort Barney had also been an early tenant.

This is all that is left of that interior today, although much of the original interior was probably gutted and covered over during the buildings expansion and modernization in 1955.

A photo shows how the large arched windows on the second and fifth floors were partially filled-in during the modernization. Unfortunately the method of attachment of the stone panels here at the Mercantile Library was the same as that of the Farm & Home. All of the decorative features were shaved off to give a clean flat surface for hanging the new stone. Pyramid determined that even if we had wanted to restore the exterior that because the building had lost so much of its original fabric both on the exterior and interior, including almost complete removal of the south and west walls during expansion, that the original 1889 building would not be eligible for listing on the National Register.

A century after it erected its fortress of knowledge, the Mercantile Library found itself an aging institution with dwindling resources. The library was private and relied on memberships and contributions to sustain itself. With a glut of new office space in Downtown St. Louis after the 1980's building boom, the library also found itself almost the only occupant of its now 250,000 square foot building. Instead of closing its doors, in 1998 the Library made the decision to move to the University of Missouri St. Louis campus. Gone is the once opulent sixth floor reading room and the mezzanine library stacks. Like the Farm & Home, the Mercantile Library is eligible for listing on the National Register as a modern building. With this and a now a blank canvas inside, the building is ready to live its next life when the economy is ready.

Hiding in Plain Sight Part 2: Unmasked

2010-10-12T07:25:00.003-05:00

Comments on my previous post about the building at the northeast corner of Tucker and Chouteau inspired me to find some photos I took of the former Post-Dispatch Building several blocks north at Tucker and Olive. Many of you probably remember this dramatic transformation in 1999, when the metal curtain wall slip cover was removed revealing the stone facade beneath.

The hidden Beaux Arts Classical designed building by George D. Barnett (who also designed the Arcade Building) had been completed in 1917 as the new home of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the leader amongst several competing St. Louis newspapers. In 1960, the Post-Dispatch vacvated the building, moving to a larger building several blocks north at 900 N. Tucker Boulevar. New owners of the building must have been looking for a way to compete against newer modern office buildings rising Downtown and in the emerging business district of Clayton. Their answer was to fill in all the large windows with cinder block, cover the upper floors with a metal curtain wall and encase the lower two floor with black pre-cast concrete panels. The tiny remaining window openings were less than a quarter of the original size and hidden by metal mesh strips in the curtain wall.

Thirty four years later, in 1999, the re-muddling was stripped away and the building was placed on the National Register. Historic Tax Credits were used to fully restore the building including re-building missing stone details and parts of columns at the first floor, new historic replica windows and storefronts. While the original balustrade parapet was not re-built, a new cornice made of modern materials to resemble stone was included.

The former Post-Dispatch Building today. Other than some slight color variations in the decorative band course between the sixth and seventh floors, one would never guess that this beautiful building was hidden for over three decades.

Tucker Boulevard circa 1917 - Photo from the building's National Register nomination. The nine story building to the north as well as the tiny two story between have been replaced by a parking garage. Farther north, the former A.D. Brown Building, now the Meridian is the only building that has not been demolished or truncated.

One block to the north and east at the northeast corner of 11th and Locust is another building early 20th century building which was "modernized". The Locust Building, which is home to the City's Community Development Agency and the St. Louis Development Corporation, at least retains the same number of windows as it did originally, although the height of the windows was reduced to a dimension slightly taller than the brick bands between the originals. There are no plans to unsheath this building, in fact the current owners have made some improvements in the last few years in keeping with the current modern design of the building.

A photo of the building prior to its covering with aluminum curtain wall. The photo is from the former owner's now defunct website which gave a brief history of the building. The concrete frame structure was built as an annex for the giant Rice-Stix dry goods company which had previously built the Merchandise Mart building on Washington Avenue. A five story bridge still connects the upper floors of the two buildings. Rice-Stix also built an annex that now houses the 10th Street Lofts.

Hiding in Plain Sight

2010-10-01T07:00:00.003-05:00

I was recently looking at a collection of historic Route 66 photographs including St. Louis when I stumbled upon this view above of 12th and Chouteau from 1925. I immediately thought of the nearly blank orange brick box that sits at the northeast corner of the intersection. The way it hugs Chouteau and the entrance of the Tucker Boulevard viaduct heading into Downtown had always made me suspect that it is older than it looks, but never did I imagine that the building began its life as the beautiful neoclassical bank pictured above. According to City property records, the bank was constructed in 1924.

At some point, in the late 1960's or 1970's the building became part of Checkerboard Square, the headquarters of Nestle Purina, and was sheathed in orange brick to match several other buildings on the corporate campus.

A steel security door centered on the blank brick front of 1111 Chouteau gives little clue of the former columned grand bank entrance. Only the projection of the center of the facade follows the form of the hidden architectural details.

The seven double height arched windows which faced Tucker and no doubt opened into a grand 2-story banking hall have been reduced to a series of brick bars giving the building the appearance of a jail.

The east facade is not much better, with the brick bars continuing at the ground floor and a thin slot of strip windows at the second floor, which was likely inserted into the bank hall.

I wondered what could be housed in this horribly re-muddled brick box? Maybe computer servers?, maybe the campus maintenance department? There is no signage on the public facades of the building even indicating it is part of Purina or what it contains. I was quite surprised to learn after a quick Google search that 1111 Chouteau is home to Checkmark Communications, Nestle Purina's in-house creative communications and design agency. What!? The staff of "creative communications and design agency" of a major corporation are housed in this thing? Maybe there would be more creativity going on if the orange brick skin was ripped off and those wonderful large windows opened again.