ST. LOUIS 鈥 A prominent local developer has taken his first steps toward buying the Railway Exchange building, one of downtown鈥檚 biggest vacant properties.
Steve Stogel, who helped pioneer the use of tax credits in redeveloping downtown a quarter-century ago, said Friday he has signed paperwork giving him exclusive rights for the next four months to negotiate a deal to take control of the property.
The news is a welcome sign of life for the 1.2 million-square-foot landmark and the central business district where it sits. City officials and downtown boosters have said for years that the building鈥檚 redevelopment would give the area a burst of energy and much-needed activity.
But Stogel cautioned that he is still doing his due diligence on the property, and has many obstacles to clear: He needs lenders to buy in. He needs to make deals with contractors suing the current owner for not paying them. And he needs to go over every inch of the building to make sure it鈥檚 salvageable.
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鈥淚鈥檝e done hard before,鈥 said Stogel, who is perhaps best known for reviving the massive Old Post Office a couple of blocks away. 鈥淏ut the Railway Exchange is really hard. It might be at the top of the list.鈥
The 21-story building at 615 Olive Street was once the pride of the May Company department store empire.
When it opened in 1913, it boasted two restaurants, three-level escalators, four elevators for public use, and seven stories of retail commercial space. It was the home of the flagship Famous-Barr, where thousands of people would shop and eat French onion soup over the following years. There were also offices on the upper levels for other businesses, including two dozen railroad companies.
But since Macy鈥檚, which bought the May Company in 2005, closed the building in 2014, it has become a nuisance to the area, attracting vandals as well as homeless people seeking shelter. Redevelopment efforts, led most recently by a Florida company, have flopped.
The city condemned the building last year, calling it a threat to public safety.
And last week, it formed the centerpiece of a Wall Street Journal story headlined Readers all over the country learned about the fire that broke out at the building last year, which officials think was started by the scrappers who have been hunting for metal inside.
Stogel said he鈥檚 well aware of the challenges 鈥 current owner Hudson Holdings enlisted him to help with its effort seven years ago 鈥 and slightly terrified of what architects will find when they begin their examination of the building next week.
But if everything lines up right, from the building to the broader economy, he thinks he has a plan that can work, though he declined to say much more than that it would involve 鈥渕ostly apartments.鈥
There is precedent for that: Hudson鈥檚 plans called for turning floors seven through 21 into 615 residential units, with 249 of them offered below market rate and the remainder offered at market rate. The rest was to be offered to businesses and artists.
Stogel said his plan also calls for the purchase of the building鈥檚 parking garage, which takes up another block to the south. He said that would be demolished in short order, though, and give way to the staging area for contractors working on the Railway Exchange. Construction would start in 2025, he said.
Stogel would not say what would replace the garage block once it is no longer needed for construction, though.
鈥淟et me get a little farther along,鈥 he said.