ST. LOUIS — Four giant buildings occupy crucial corners in downtown’s central business district. Some are the first sights visitors encounter when they arrive; others take up entire city blocks.
And the four have been vacant for years.
Now city officials and downtown boosters say redeveloping the four — the former AT&T tower, Chemical Building, Millennium Hotel and Railway Exchange Building — with new business or more residents would be the blockbuster needed to revitalize downtown, which continues to lose companies to other states and to newer buildings in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ suburbs.
“When we have a vibrant downtown ºüÀêÊÓƵ, the region benefits because downtown ºüÀêÊÓƵ is the welcome mat for visitors for us to be able to make an impression on those outside of ºüÀêÊÓƵ,†said Ben Cherry, president of Manor Real Estate, which has commercial listings in the downtown area.
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Over the past few years, entertainment and tourism has spread on the fringes of downtown with a revamped Union Station and new soccer stadium. City officials say they want to harness that to spur redevelopment in the four vacant buildings, too.
It’s a colossal endeavor: Downtown is near the bottom of office occupancy for the region and offers the lowest rent, two metrics that indicate demand. Security and crime, both real and perceived, remain big concerns.
And the age and condition of all four buildings makes redevelopment even more expensive.
Other cities are also dealing with troubled downtowns. Cincinnati, Kansas City and Denver all have more vacancies in their downtowns compared to ºüÀêÊÓƵ. And every city is dealing with high interest rates, which make projects more expensive and curb developers’ appetites to take on riskier redevelopments.
ºüÀêÊÓƵ needs to focus on improving downtown, said Neal Richardson, CEO of ºüÀêÊÓƵ Development Corp., the city’s economic development agency.
“Our neighborhoods cannot continue to carry the tax burden of rebuilding this city if our core economic engine is not contributing at its normal rate,†Richardson said. “We have to be more proactive.â€
AT&T Tower
909 Chestnut Street
The 44-story tower was built in 1986 for Southwestern Bell Co. In 2006, the company, by then AT&T, sold the tower to a real estate investment trust for $205 million and leased it back for its ºüÀêÊÓƵ workers.
But by 2017, with its headquarters in Texas and far fewer employees in downtown ºüÀêÊÓƵ, AT&T had begun to move employees to other nearby buildings, leaving 909 Chestnut essentially empty. That same year, U.S. Bank sued the owner and foreclosed on the property.
The building languished in receivership for years, until New York-based SomeraRoad Inc. bought it last year for just $4.1 million. Bondholders at the time held about $107 million in debt on the building.
SomeraRoad approached ºüÀêÊÓƵ-based Advantes Development Group about taking on a redevelopment. The company succeeded in getting the building on the National Register of Historic Places, a designation that allowed Advantes to access about $80 million in state and federal tax credits. It also won tax incentives worth $27 million from the city, a package Richardson said was greenlit because his agency knew the project would be challenged to get financed without them.
Advantes planned to acquire the property from SomeraRoad and invest $300 million to create a hotel, apartments, retail and other commercial space. But the deal fell through last month, and it’s unclear whether another developer has stepped forward.
A representative for SomeraRoad declined to comment.
Chemical Building
777 Olive Street
Built for the Chemical National Bank in 1896, the 17-story brick building stands out among its neighbors with its bright red coloring.
It has projecting bay windows and decorative terra cotta moldings, and was called one of the architectural gems of downtown by the Landmarks Association of ºüÀêÊÓƵ when it nominated the building for the National Register of Historic Places.
But the building struggled to maintain occupancy since the 1990s, and over the years has had a series of failed redevelopments with “micro†apartments, luxury condominiums and hotels. A Los Angeles-based company bought the building in 2006, renamed it “Alexa†and planned condos before the Great Recession tanked the market. The property then fell into receivership.
But a new plan seems to have legs: Campo Architecture & Interior Design and partners Beechwood Pinnacle Hotels and InterMountain Management plan to invest $82 million to transform the historic property into a 240-room, dual-branded Marriott hotel. The developers have secured historic tax credits, 10 years of tax abatement and up to $89 million in bonds to help finance the deal.
Richardson, of SLDC, said that the Chemical Building is an example of a project that needed tax incentives in order to move forward.
“That’s the work that we have to do to bring vibrancy back to an area that hasn’t seen it in over a decade,†he said.
John Campo Jr. of Campo Architecture has said that recent nearby projects, like the soccer stadium and the expansion of the convention center, made the project enticing to take on. He hopes to begin work late this year with an anticipated opening in 2025.
Millennium Hotel
200 South Fourth Street
The 28-story, 780-room Millennium Hotel was once the largest hotel in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ region before it closed in 2014.
The property, just steps from the Gateway Arch grounds and part of the city skyline, was known for its cylindrical shape and rotating rooftop restaurant. It opened in 1969 as Stouffer’s Riverfront and saw several rebrandings over the years, including Sheraton and Clarion, until the early 2000s when it became the Millennium.
But the building fell in disrepair in its last years of operations, with some of the hotel rooms not in operation. The owner, Millennium Hotels and Resorts, at the time said the site no longer fit its needs and shuttered it. The property has sat vacant ever since, though the owner has spent money on security to patrol and secure the site from trespassers.
There are no indications the owner, a subsidiary of Singapore-based City Developments Ltd., has solid plans to sell it or renovate it.
Cherry, of Manor Real Estate, said he’s spoken with the ownership group several times and was told that it wants to be part of a redevelopment effort.
“The challenge is that the developers that I’ve spoken with simply don’t have an interest in in partnering with a group that’s allowed the property to decay over so many years,†Cherry said. “It’s just simply not viable.â€
Some real estate experts think the building should be demolished.
Richardson said he recently wrote a letter to Millennium, inquiring about its plans and how the city can help.
“That’s a critical treasure of the city. It sits at the front door of the region,†he said. “We want that building to bring back prominence for downtown. I’m looking forward to hearing back from them.â€
Millennium Hotels did not respond to a request for comment.
Railway Exchange Building
615 Olive Street
If there ever was a symbol of downtown’s once vibrant commercial activity, it’s the Railway Exchange Building.
The 1.2 million-square-foot building, which occupies an entire city block, was once the flagship store for the Famous-Barr department store chain before Macy’s acquired the company in 2005. Thousands of ºüÀêÊÓƵans shopped there over the years.
But Macy’s closed the site in 2014 and it has since become a hotspot for criminal activity and for homeless people to seek shelter.
Florida-based Hudson Holdings bought the property, including an adjoining garage, and planned to redevelop it into offices and apartments.
But a water main break that occurred just before Hudson closed on its acquisition complicated those plans. The company was later sued by contractors, including top architecture firm CannonDesign, over allegations Hudson failed to pay them for work performed regarding the building.
A ºüÀêÊÓƵ Circuit Court judge last year ruled in the contractors’ favor, saying Hudson owed them over $3.2 million, as well as attorneys’ fees. Hudson’s lender also is suing to foreclose on the property. Those issues have clouded the title of the building and made it difficult for any buyer to step forward.
ºüÀêÊÓƵ officials, meanwhile, condemned the property in January. Emails obtained by the Post-Dispatch show the security firm telling city officials about how “dire†the situation had become: People were living between floors. Thieves were getting in through underground tunnels. And security officers never patrolled the building alone. A ºüÀêÊÓƵ Fire Department search and rescue dog was killed searching the property this spring.
Hudson, which did not respond to a request for comment, stopped paying for security in July, which has heightened concerns that the building will pose a bigger threat to public safety. City officials said they were talking with “key stakeholders†to find a solution, and that the Building Division was alerted to board up the building.