St. Louis Development Corporation has released a Request for Proposals for Purchase and Redevelopment of the Cupples 7 Building located at 1014 Spruce Street. The deadline for submittal of proposals is January 10,2013.
Montgomery Bank took back the building from Ballpark Lofts III, LLC after developers Kevin McGowan and Nat Walsh failed to pay back taxes of over $250,000 and the $1.4 million mortgage that was held by the bank. The bank is having SLDC / LCRA administer the process to see if there is interest in taking on the task of rehabilitation of the building. Last year the St. Louis Preservation Board denied a request by Ballpark Lofts III, LLC to demolish the building.
My opinion, having dealt with a smaller, but very similar collapsing building in Lafayette Square that was rehabilitated into the M-Lofts by Craig Heller and Conrad Properties, is that Cupples 7 can be saved. It will take an experienced developer to put together the right package of financing combined with a creative use of the large footprint of the building to make the project work, but It can be done.
A few months ago Craig Heller tipped me that Larry Deutsch had recently out-bid him to purchase the five-story building at 1107 Olive Street. Most who work or live Downtown know it as the building as the Mauritzio's building for the greasy pizza & pasta lunch / late night buffet with an in-restaurant package liquor store (who doesn't love that combination!). Craig mentioned that it was likely that Deutsch had intensions of demolishing the building for a private surface parking lot to serve the LGL Center, the former Laclede Gas Light building at the northeast corner of 11th & Olive that Deutsch has been slowly renovating over the last few years.
Having not heard anything for a while, I was wondering if this ludicrous idea had been quashed, when a friend who lives in the nearby Louderman Lofts on 11th Street called me this week to say that the proposed demolition was on this months Preservation Board agenda.
Anyone familiar with Downtown knows that Eleventh Street is a virtual wasteland of parking lots stretching uninterrupted on one side or the other (and sometimes both) from Pine Street six blocks north to Convention Plaza with the exception of the one half block south of Locust where the 12-story Louderman Lofts faces the 14-story former DeSoto Hotel across the street. To say that there are not a plethora of parking options for tenants of Deutsch's LGL Center in almost all directions would be crazy. While some of the surface lots, such as those directly across Olive are private, there are several general use lots within a block on Locust and on Pine. Then there is the garage on Locust less than 300 feet west of 11th Street (where many co-workers in the Ludwig Lofts building park) as well as the underutilized giant 9th Street Garage about 350 feet east of the LGL Center.
Deutsch will no doubt try to convince the Preservation Board that the former Maurizio's building was damaged beyond repair when an underground garage was installed just east of the building in 2003. Thats funny since Mauizio's restaurant continued to occupy the first floor until earlier this year, and there has been no condemnation of the building. In May of this year, a jury did agree that HBD Contracting is responsible for settling that caused a crack the full height of the building and awarded the former owner $1.3 million to cover the damage. At the time of the verdict, the owner told his layer he was happy with the verdict, which was over the $1 million that he had estimated it would take to repair the building. He also said he would like to do something with the upper floors if it weren't for tough residential condo market. See this RFT blog post for the full story.
Deutsch has been an owner of many buildings Downtown for decades with a mixed track record of care and respect for them Some may recall that when he owned the Merchandise Mart on Washington, he once proposed to demolish most of the building for parking. He also apparently did demolish the rear portion of the former Lindell Real Estate Company building at 1015 Washington himself! In the remaining portion and the adjoining Dorsa Building he built a haphazard array of apartments that Pyramid Companies later altered converted to condos with a full rehabilitation of the buildings.
If Craig Heller had purchased the building, there is no doubt that he would rehabilitate it with a mix of ground floor retail and office and/or apartments above, a combination with which he has had success with in several buildings in the immediate area. When he renovated the Louderman Building, Heller had the underground garage at the northeast corner of 11th and Olive structured to carry new construction when the market was right for it. Owning the Maurizio's building would allow Craig to build on the corner, connect the floors to the existing building and share the cost of an elevator and stairs between the two. Interestingly, the former Maurizio's building extended to the corner of 11th & Olive when it was built in 1881.
This Sanborn map shows the configuration of the building, which may have been built in stages.
This postcard image from the Mercantile Library collection shows the building in its original state with two additional bays at the running to the corner and three additional bays to the west of the remaining building. As I recall, the portion at the corner had been clad in shiny aluminum siding at some point and according to City property records, was demolished after an emergency condemnation in 1998. The three western bays of the building would have been demolished to make way for the International Style Post-Dispatch Printing Plant that opened at 1111 Olive in 1941.
Although the building at 1107 Olive has been attacked from both ends and its storefront closed in with non-matching brick, the building still retains a substantial amount of character. The two story expanse of what appears in the postcard to be mostly glass storefront was a significant achievement for that time period.
This building simply should not be demolished for yet another surface parking lot. The Preservation Board will meet on Monday, November 26th at 4:00 pm in the 2nd floor board room at 1520 Market Street just west of the Opera House. The plaza in front of the building is currently being re-done, but the Market Street entrance is open. If you cannot attend the meeting, please send your comments to Betsy Bradley, Director of the Cultural Resources Office: bradleyb@stlouis-mo.gov
As readers know, typically my posts focus on the destruction of historic architecture in St. Louis. This post however focuses on a building that I have had the pleasure of working on... twice, and has survived against the odds, having been rehabilitated and restored for the future. Tonight is the official grand re-opening, although the building has been occupied since early September.
The Metropolitan Building, designed by the architectural firm of Mauran, Russell & Garden and atypically clad in white glazed brick with gold accents was built in 1907 as an office building for doctors. In 1977, when Landmarks Association nominated the Midtown Historic District to the National Register, the eight story Metropolitan was vacant except for a handful of first floor retail spaces. In late 2005, when I first entered the building as the architect with the Pyramid Companies, 28 years of vacancy and a complete lack of maintenance had taken its toll on the building.
The structure of the building was an unusual mix of cast iron columns, steel beams and cinder concrete floor slabs reinforced not with typical round bars, but 1/8" thick steel straps. The problem with cinder concrete is that when it gets wet, it creates sulfuric acid, which does bad things to steel straps. The north wing of the building was in the worst condition, with one structural bay at the east end collapsed down to the 4th floor and gaping holes down two more floors. A similar condition existed near the central elevator core with a gaping hole trough the slabs down to the third floor. Many other slabs at the roof and upper floors of the north wing were crumbling and nearing collapse.
While the Metropolitan Building was never technically threatened with imminent demolition, the building's condition sent many would-be developers running scared. While giant slabs of asphalt and vacant lots continue to thrive, Grand Center had been no stranger to large scale demolitions over the years. In 1997, just one year before the enacting of the Missouri Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit, the 10-story Beaumont Medical Building on Washington Blvd., which had none of the structural problems of the Metropolitan, was imploded to make way for construction of the Pultizer Foundation for the Arts, which was originally going to be built on the site where Channel 9 eventually built. Just prior to the Beaumont's demise, the 5-story Raleigh Apartments was demolished for a parking lot for the Sheldon.
Pyramid Companies, however had confidence that the Metropolitan could be restored, but it would take significant measures not required in typical historic rehabilitations. Because of the condition of the structure on the upper floors and the uncertainty of the condition of the thin reinforcement straps in other areas of the building, the structural engineer determined that all areas of the floor would need to receive supplemental structural support.
In late 2006-early 2007, Pyramid Companies hired Environmental Operations, Inc. to complete selective interior demolition throughout the building. Most partitions outside of the corridors were removed at that time, but before finishing, a fire caused by sparks damaged a portion of the second floor.
A view of another corridor that had been "modernized" prior to the selective interior demolition.
Following Pyramid's closure in 2008, the bank that took possession of the building had temporary shoring installed in areas of the 7th & 8th floors where the structure had been weakened by years of deterioration. The roof was also patched and the building was mothballed. In 2010, Dominium Development of Minneapolis became interested in the Metropolitan and was confident they could complete a rehabilitation of the building for affordable artist loft apartments. They were awarded Low Income Housing Tax Credits by the Missouri Housing Development Commission.
In mid-2011, construction began, which included re-building collapsed and deteriorated sections of floor and roof. The same structural metal deck seen above was also hung from the beams under all other remaining sections of floor as reinforcement due to the unknown condition of the steel straps that had been exposed to 30 years of weather.
During construction several instances of cracked cast iron columns were found which required additional structural repair.
The condition of the first floor elevator lobby prior to re-construction.
Restoration of the Metropolitan was completed in late August of this year, with new residents moving in shortly thereafter. The building was mostly pre-leased, and quickly reached 100% occupancy. The restored fist floor elevator lobby is pictured above.
With the use of Missouri and Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits, surviving historic features of the building were either restored or replicated. Corridors were returned nearly to their original appearance on floors 2-4.
Typical loft apartments feature new polished concrete floors, either brick or original plaster exterior walls (depending upon what existed) restored window trim and new finishes throughout the remainder of the residence.
A spacious first floor community room is available for residents and includes a gallery area along the Grand Boulevard storefront windows for the artists to display their work. There are also common art studios on the first floor and basement, a dance studio, fitness room and four music studios for use by the resident artists. A retail space at the corner of Grand & Olive will hopefully have a new computer store specializing in Macs opening in the spring of next year.
Recently work began on construction of a new 200,000 square foot building for BJC at the corner of Boyle and Clayton Avenues, which is part of the CORTEX district Phase 2 expansion. Unlike the first phase of development at CORTEX, Phase 2 will include the rehabilitation of at least two historic structures using Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits as well as new construction.
Part of Phase 1 development at CORTEX included the loss of the O. Morse Shoe Company, which was demolished six years ago this month to provide a site for construction of a new building for Solae, which was moving from the Downtown St. Louis campus of Ralston Purina (now Nestle Purina) after being spun off from Purina several years earlier. The building was located at the southwest corner of Duncan and Boyle Avenues.
The significance of the 1924 structure was its unique Art Deco style terra cotta ornamentation. While Art Deco structures are not rare in St. Louis, although not plentiful either, the extensive use of such high-styled Art Deco ornamentation on a shoe company factory/warehouse building is very unusual. While the ornamentation is not purely Art Deco, it certainly anticipated the direction of style which would not fully emerge in America until later in the decade. This probably made the building more significant and certainly worthy of National Register nomination.
A close-up of the terra cotta ornamentation which made the O. Morse Shoe Company building stand out in an industrial district where mostly un-ornamented utilitarian buildings were the norm.
This terra cotta sign over the west building entrance on was hidden under the sheet metal siding that covered the buildings windows for many years.
Behind the main building, backing up to what is now the MetroLink tracks, there was garage building that that was un-ornamented and more utilitarian in design. One can imagine though that even this structure was more attractive when the uninterrupted strip of thin sash steel windows was not covered with red siding.
Before the buildings demolition, most of the terra cotta ornament was salvaged. While salvaging the ornament is obviously better than letting it go to waste, the reality is that the ornament will likely never grace the top of a building again. The best hope might result in its display in a museum, but a more likely outcome is that it was sold piece by piece or that it still sits palletized in storage and will for a long time.
The building after being stripped of ornamentation just prior to demolition.
The buildings structure was concrete frame with 2-way reinforced slabs and columns featuring "mushroom" capitols. The structure was the same as that of the 198,000 square foot former Western Electric-Southwestern Bell Telephone Distribution House at 4250 Duncan, which will be re-branded as the Heritage Lab Building when the historic structure undergoes rehabilitation in the coming year. Below is a rendering of the atrium of the Heritage Lab Building.
The Solae headquarters building which replaced the O. Morse Shoe Company is without a doubt a very attractive building. This is one of those rare occasions where a new building is comparable in quality and design to one that was demolished on the same site. Parking is partially hidden below the building, with the remainder in a small structure unobtrusively located at the rear of the site. The architect was Cannon Design, which is known for award winning design in new construction and renovations such as their St. Louis office, which is located in a former power plant at 11th & Clark. More photos of the building can be seen here.
The curving glass curtain wall creates an interesting facade and an attractive courtyard along Duncan, although the tall fence and block wall (likely mandated by Solae) presents a Middle East embassy feel along the street. The glass facade is even more attractive at night... if only it had been built on one of the vacant parcels in the CORTEX district.
Last week I heard on the 10:00pm news that the steel sign frame atop the Fox Theater was being removed. The spokesperson for the Fox said that the frame was being removed due to the deteriorating condition of the structure. Several photos of the removal can be seen on the Fox Theater's blog.
The sign frame towered above the theater with the top of the structure rising higher than the roof of the eight story Metropolitan Building, which recently re-opened across the street.
While the sign itself has been gone for decades, the steel structure on the roof was very much a part of the building. Its removal brings up some questions about what should be considered significant to a buildings history. Just because a building element is not made of brick or terra cotta, does that mean it is not worthy of significance?
The sign frame was an integral part of the Fox Theater's facade since its opening in January, 1929. The frame supported a massive sign composed of individual letters that were about 8-10 feet tall with a decorative filigree border, all of which was lit with neon. The Fox has been individually listed on the National Register since 1976 and is also a part of the Midtown National Register Historic District.
Another early view of the rooftop sign from the Fox Theater website. The Fox's location at the end of the Washington Avenue view corridor and the high elevation of Grand Boulevard explains the location of the rooftop sign, which was not found on most other theaters in the district. The sign would have been visible down Washington almost to Jefferson where the street curves slightly.
The four-story building that is the new home of KDHX also has a large sign frame on it's roof. The sign faces the angled section of Washington Avenue that was constructed to join with the portion of the street west of Grand. It is also visible to anyone driving south on Grand and of course the throngs of theater goers at the Fox.
In its heyday, the theater district along Grand, which was known as the "Great White Way" of the Midwest had many lighted rooftop signs. Even a simple one-story building further north on Grand was lined with rooftop billboards. Eventually, as part of an effort to "de-clutter", the City of St. Louis outlawed rooftop signs and now any new ones may only be constructed after obtaining a variance. Photos above and below from the Pyramid Companies archive.
While Grand Center lost the Fox Theater rooftop sign frame, in the same week, a new 40 foot tall sign lighted sign was hoisted onto the corner of the recently opened Metropolitan Artist Lofts. I would be curious to know the cost estimates for repairing instead of removing the sign structure at the Fox.
A few years ago I attended a talk by architect David Chipperfield in the auditorium of the St. Louis Art Museum. In discussing the design approach for the then proposed museum expansion, Chipperfield said that the design would respect the original Cass Gilbert museum building. Upon seeing the proposed design, and now having seen it constructed, I am not so sure that respect is the word I would use to describe how the addition treats the Palace of Fine Arts. Above is a last view of the east elevation of the museum in January 2010.
I am not so concerned with the design of the addition structure itself. It is certainly not a stunning design that you will see splashed across the pages of architectural periodicals, but it is not an awful design either. The renderings of the interior lead me to believe that once inside, the addition will be quite attractive.
I am thrilled that the museum will be gaining additional gallery space, which will theoretically allow for the un-crating of a percentage of the museums large collection of works that sit in storage due to lack of space. I am not so thrilled with how the new Chipperfield addition relates to the original museum. One problem is how the new building was attached to Cass Gilbert's masterpiece.
This was the east entrance of the St. Louis Art Museum just before construction of the addition started. The entrance had not been used as an entrance for many years (possibly decades), but the lack of functionality did not diminish its presence. Once construction commenced, I have been told by two different sources, that the beautiful stone engaged Ionic columns were unceremoniously chiseled off of the building! It remains to be seen what other other changes were perpetrated to Cass Gilbert's work, but my guess is that the stone doorway, pediment and arch met a similar demise.
The entablature of the east entrance survives but is nearly hidden behind the solid black box that has smashed squarely into the east face of the museum. Where the columns were removed, flat stone has been added to meet the new addition. This complete lack of sensitivity to the historic fabric of the original museum is unprecedented in even at the height of the modern era when so many classical buildings were defaced.
This is a 1959 model of a multi-phase museum expansion designed by the architectural firm of Murphy & Mackey (image from Missouri Digital Heritage). Notice how the planned east and west wings would have attached to Cass Gilbert's Palace of Fine Arts only at the flat portion of the stone facades, below the decorative frieze and leaving the east and west entrances fully intact and functional leading to secure outdoor sculpture courtyards. Only the south wing of this plan containing the auditorium and restaurant was executed, opening in 1960.
In 1978, alterations and an expansion of the south wing by Kivett and Meyers actually removed the two portions of the Murphy & Mackey addition that had attached to the original building at the main floor level, leaving only the lower level connection. While the Kevett and Meyers alterations wrapped Murphy & Mackey's auditorium with what looks more like a suburban office building, it paid the utmost respect to Cass Gilbert's original museum. Removing the mostly glass main level connection immediately adjacent to the south entrance though did make getting to the restaurant and auditorium somewhat awkward.
Beyond how and where the Chipperfield's addition attaches to the existing museum, there is the relationship between the new structure and the existing museum. Instead of configuring the addition so that there could be usable outdoor courtyards like in the Murphy & Mackey design, Chipperfield left only about a 20 foot gap. This is just enough to let light in windows, but too narrow to be a useful space. In placing the building so close to the existing museum, much of Cass Gilbert's south and east elevations are unintelligible.
This is a view out of one of the lower level windows in the original museum showing the close very proximity of the new addition.
In complete contrast to the addition to the St. Louis Art Museum, Steven Holl's solution to adding space to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City provides 165,000 square feet of galleries, offices and other facilities without overwhelming the original 1933 Beaux Arts structure. The addition was completed in 2007.
The connection to the new addition occurs at the Beaux Arts building's lower level, so that all elevations of the original structure are completely unencumbered by the new building. Much of the addition was constructed below grade and has grass covered roofs punctuated by the glass "lanterns". The addition is quite spectacular at night and overall it is a much more dynamic building than Chipperfield's conservative solution. Steven Holl's website project page has several great photos.
For the addition to the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha completed in 1994, Sir Norman Foster restrained himself from his usual high-tech designs with a simple large box clad in the same Georgia pink marble as the original 1931 Moderne museum. The addition nicely compliments the museum and attaches to a large area of the side of the structure. But original facade is fully intact and becomes the interior wall of a large glass atrium that connects the buildings and functions as a lobby, sculpture space, cafe and event space.
Joslyn image sources: exterior, atrium
Between the drop-off drive in front of the new front entrance and the ramp to the new underground parking garage, which accounts for over 60% of the square footage of the addition, is a sea of sloped asphalt with groupings of round openings, which I would presume to be tree wells. This is not exactly the most attractive material choice compared to the materials of the building itself, and yes the sidewalks are asphalt as well!
The corners of the driveways for the entry drop off and garage ramp are square, which I'm sure looked good on a plan, but won't work so well in reality since cars don't turn at right angles. All of the driveways also lack accessible curb ramps at the sidewalks.
