ST. LOUIS — A company plans to purchase Jesuit Hall, a prominent brick high-rise in the heart of Grand Center, and rehab it into hundreds of apartments, investors told a Board of Aldermen committee Wednesday.
Fernando Cepeda of Neighborhood Properties LLC, which lists a Clayton address, said the company plans to close on the $6.5 million building at the corner of Grand and Lindell boulevards in about a month. He appeared at the aldermanic Housing and Urban Development Committee with ºüÀêÊÓƵ NAACP President Adolphus Pruitt, who said he was partnering on the project in his personal capacity and not through the NACCP.
The two said plans to purchase the apartment building from the Jesuit Community Corp., a real estate arm affiliated with the Catholic order. Jesuit Hall serves as a home for priests who work on ºüÀêÊÓƵ University’s campus and some who have retired. It formerly was the Hotel Melbourne before being converted into Jesuit Hall.
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The building is only about half occupied now, and the 80 or residents who still live there are planning to move to a new facility, Pruitt and Cepeda said. They have an agreement to allow the Jesuits to remain in the building for the next 18 months while their new building is prepared.
Cepeda told the Post-Dispatch that plans call for a gut rehab of the existing apartment building into about 130 units. A second phase will add a new 14-story, 187-unit apartment tower on the adjacent parking lot. Two parking garages with about 300 spaces would also be constructed, for a total project cost of about $80 million, Cepeda and Pruitt said.
The apartments would primarily be marketed to students, Pruitt said, with rents starting at about $1,400 a month for a one-bedroom unit.
The two are seeking a 10-year, 95% tax abatement from the city. The building currently is tax exempt and the abatement would cover any new improvements made to the property. No aldermen voted against advancing the bill.
Neighborhood Properties was incorporated in Missouri two years ago. It began buying and selling real estate here in early 2019 and has assembled a portfolio of dozens of properties since then. Cepeda said Neighborhood Properties uses Compass Property Management, which is affiliated with Five Oaks Realty LLC.