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ST. LOUIS — Cory Schmidt signed a $2,000-a-month lease in July for what was billed as a luxury apartment under construction in DeBaliviere Place, just blocks from Forest Park. Managers of the new building, The Hudson, promised the unit would be ready by October.

But when the 33-year-old information technology professional showed up on move-in day with a truck full of his stuff, the place was covered in debris. The garbage disposal didn’t work. Cabinets were misaligned. Ethernet ports weren’t connected.

“I thought, this is nowhere near done,� Schmidt said. And a half-dozen other Hudson tenants said roughly the same.

The developer — a ºüÀêÊÓƵ company named Lux Living, run by brothers Victor Alston and Sid Chakraverty — blamed delays on supply chain issues and the labor market and said tenants were offered rent concessions to compensate them for the disruptions.

But the criticisms are just the latest stacking up against a company that has become one of the most prolific developers in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. Over the past few years, Lux has invested more than $150 million in nearly 1,000 units in DeBaliviere Place, Lafayette Square and Soulard — welcome additions for a city looking to revitalize its urban core.

And the brothers are eyeing an even bigger empire: They have made proposals on a major intersection near the Barnes-Jewish Hospital campus, on the sites of historic Central West End properties, and even in suburban ºüÀêÊÓƵ. They’re planning expansions into Kansas City and Denver.

But some of their tactics — like suing a rival developer as well as the city of ºüÀêÊÓƵ — have given them critics beyond dissatisfied renters. They’ve run on one of their recent projects. And they spurred the city to institute a new policy clawing back tax breaks after they sold two of their tax-abated complexes for windfalls.

“We are going to be vetting developers and looking at their track record in terms of actually delivering projects with real community benefits,� Nahuel Fefer, Mayor Tishaura O. Jones’ director of policy and development, said in a November interview. “And I don’t think Sid and Vic would fare very well under such a vetting process.�

Alston defended his company’s practices and argued Lux is investing in a city that can use all the development it can get.

“We are one of the few developers that are willing to develop, but incentives here are currently more like disincentives,� Alston said. “It seems that the city is no longer interested in anything but politics.�

None of that is solace for Schmidt, or the other disgruntled tenants at the Hudson.

Schmidt says the building is still an active construction site. Heavy machinery is his alarm clock. His days are punctuated by the occasional structure-rattling boom.

From his window, Schmidt has a view of another apartment building, the Expo at Forest Park, being built by a rival developer, a project that Lux Living worked to stall while it rushed to sign up its own tenants.

“I would love to just move across the street,� Schmidt said. “If these guys were left with an empty building at the end of the year, I’d be happy about that.�

Tech to developer

Before Lux there was Ixia.

Alston spent several years with the Calabasas, California-based computer network provider, and became its CEO in 2012. But he resigned a year later after an that he misstated his age, early employment history and academic credentials, falsely claiming bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from Stanford University.

Later, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation by directing company employees to recognize sales revenues earlier than allowed under accounting standards. Alston concealed the activity from the company’s auditors, the SEC found.

In 2017, Alston, without admitting or denying SEC’s findings, agreed to a $100,000 penalty and a five-year ban from serving as an officer or director of public companies, the SEC said in a release.

Alston said he settled because the company was being sold. “The settlement was to move on with our sales process,� he said.

The California electronics company Keysight .

Alston, who said he lives in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area, is still in tech — his venture capital firm, Dragon Capital, invests $20 million to $40 million every year in technology businesses, he said, including ºüÀêÊÓƵ-based Clever Real Estate, which connects home sellers with agents; Chime, a mobile banking app; and Calm, a popular sleep and meditation app that taps celebrities like singer Harry Styles, actor Matthew McConaughey and athlete LeBron James as narrators.

He used some of the money he made in tech for his real estate ventures, first buying and fixing up old four-family flats in south ºüÀêÊÓƵ around 2001. It also gave Alston, who grew up in the Creve Coeur area, an excuse to return to ºüÀêÊÓƵ to visit family.

That included his brother, Chakraverty, who oversaw Alston’s properties and whom Alston credited with growing the company.

“I would have never invested that much if Sid hadn’t taken the bull by the horns and just said, ‘Hey, I’ll go do it,’� said Alston, who changed his name from Chakraverty years ago. “I have a lot of admiration for him that he was able to get that going. And, you know, we work very well together.�

Chakraverty now runs Lux Living’s construction arm, Big Sur Construction.

Tax breaks, lawsuits

Before Lux Living, Alston and Chakraverty ran Asprient Properties.

Among Asprient’s first high-profile projects was the Polar Wave building rehab in Soulard. The company moved on to larger, new construction in DeBaliviere Place.

But, in 2016, after tenants complained about the company’s practices in , Alston and Chakraverty stopped using that name.

“Asprient managed a small set of older non-renovated apartments, many, many years ago, long before any of this growth,� Alston said. “It still manages one or two properties downtown but has nothing to do with Lux Living.�

Lux Living quickly grew from buying existing properties to building its own. Over the past six years, Alston and Chakraverty have developed three apartment projects along Pershing with nearly 500 total units. Their companies also own other complexes in the area.

Lux’s projects market flashy finishes and amenities — like smart home technology, arcade rooms and Turkish spas — as part of the company’s efforts to create a “boutique hotel stay,� Alston said.

Lux cashed out big with one of its early DeBaliviere Place projects, Tribeca. The city had granted the project 20 years of tax abatement, which is only supposed to go to projects that wouldn’t happen without it. Soon after completing it, Lux sold it to a San Francisco property group for nearly 50% more than the $30 million it told the city the development would cost. Some officials worried the tax break was used in this case to secure a larger sales price from the buyer.

Citing Lux’s practices, city officials instituted a new policy that would limit developer tax abatements on projects that are quickly sold for a profit.

Now, Lux’s Hudson project is at the center of a dispute with the city.

After it acquired the Hudson site and began moving on plans for the Hudson, Alston and Chakraverty used a long-dormant property owners association to stall the developer of the , a 285-unit apartment complex next to a MetroLink stop across the street.

Lux officials, whose 150-unit Chelsea apartment building is just a few blocks away, publicly said their main concern was not enough parking. So Lux’s lawyer, Clayton Alderman Ira Berkowitz, resurrected the old neighborhood association to claim a right to review the Expo — and then withheld approval. And when Expo’s developer, Jeff Tegethoff, who had spent years winning approvals from neighbors and city officials, went ahead with construction in 2020, Lux officials sued.

The lawsuit spooked Expo’s lenders, halting most construction for months in mid-2021. Meanwhile, Lux began aggressively marketing the Hudson and moving renters in as early as August — despite months more of construction ahead on the building.

The Expo has countersued Lux and is still fighting it in court. It has since resumed construction, with plans to open this year.

Alston denied that competition was behind Lux Living’s motivations and said his company filed suit because of concerns it had with how little parking the Expo was building. His company, he said, welcomes more development.

“Any issue we had with that development is because we are a member of the neighborhood,� Alston said. “We have certain opinions on what needs to happen in the neighborhood.�

But, after city officials got wind of what Lux was doing to another city-supported development, they withheld final approval for the Hudson’s tax abatement.

That prompted another Lux lawsuit, this time against the city, which sought to compel it to grant the tax break.

Lux later dropped that suit, and it has continued building the Hudson, a project it initially said couldn’t happen without the tax abatement.

‘City to restore’

Lux Living has no plans to slow down.

Alston said Lux will try again to develop on the site of the historic Engineering Club and Optimist Buildings in the Central West End, despite denials last year from the ºüÀêÊÓƵ preservation board.

It also recently bought several long vacant houses near the high-profile intersection of Kingshighway and Highway 40 (Interstate 64), planning an apartment building there.

And it’s shifting to suburban ºüÀêÊÓƵ, with plans for unnamed projects in Kirkwood and Maryland Heights plus an apartment-and-hotel development called The McKenzie at Interstate 170 and Delmar Boulevard in University City.

Soon, Alston said, the Lux portfolio will shift from 90% urban markets to about half of its projects in the suburbs.

The company also is moving into Kansas City and Denver. Recently, the Port of Kansas City gave preliminary approval for $56 million in bonds to facilitate a 25-year tax abatement for Lux Living’s third apartment project there.

“I don’t really look at it as what other cities we can go into. We just feel like we could do a good job and continue to grow the business and build great buildings,� Alston said. “If people want to be a part of them, then we’re pretty satisfied.�

As it grows, it will have to contend with a reputation still tied to controversy. But it’s managed bad publicity in the past.

At the Hudson, tenants say the company has focused on countering bad reviews with good ones on social media, rather than fixing problems. Lux also has prolific

Stritzel said Lux “should not be skewered and roasted because of the mistakes of the past.�

“In my view, they should be celebrated because it shows that these markets are still viable for significant investment,� Stritzel said in an email. “We have a city to restore and it’s going to take everyone, including those with wild backgrounds, to get us where we want to be.�