ST. LOUIS — A downtown developer is hoping to stop the operator of a controversial former homeless shelter from launching a new project in the same space on Locust Street.
Attorney Elkin Kistner, on behalf of 1401 Locust LLC, filed an appeal with a city board this week, seeking to overturn a building permit granted last month to the Rev. Larry Rice’s New Life Evangelistic Center.
Rice has been trying to reopen the building at 1411 Locust Street since it was closed by the city in 2017. Officials at the time said the shelter was chronically overcrowded and violated building codes. Rice got as far as receiving a building permit once before, but it was overturned.
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“We’re not going to let this distract us,†Rice said. “We’re not going to go away.â€
The new building permit, issued in early February, would allow alterations to the former shelter. The appeal calls for the building permit to be voided and claims that the architectural plans don’t comply with building and zoning codes.
Brad Waldrop, a downtown real estate developer who previously tangled with Rice about the shelter, said he is one of the owners of the LLC that filed the appeal.
He contends that New Life’s most recent plans haven’t addressed problems that the city identified before.
“We’re kind of repeating the past,†Waldrop said.
Reached for comment Tuesday, Rice said he believes his organization is “on strong legal ground†and that the plans do address the changes that the city sought, including adding fire-resistant doors and filling in some of the building’s windows.
The appeal contends that homeless shelters can’t open in the zone where the building sits.
Rice countered that New Life wants to open the building not as a shelter, but as a church. It will be a “place of refuge,†he said, and will offer services like a free store, job counseling and transportation assistance to homeless people, but will only be open during the day.
“There was nothing in the project that says we were opening a shelter,†Rice said.
‘A lot of work’
Rice opened the original shelter in 1976. It operated under a 32-bed hotel permit, which at that time in the city was equivalent to an occupancy permit for a homeless shelter.
In 2013, a group of surrounding property owners petitioned the city to revoke the site’s license, alleging that it brought loitering, public urination and drug dealing, among other things, to the area. That kicked off a four-year scuffle among New Life, its neighbors and City Hall. In 2017, the city issued a cease-and-desist notice, and the shelter was emptied.
Rice has been trying to reopen the space ever since. On Feb. 2 he secured the new building permit.
He has said his grandson, Pastor Chris Aaron Rice, will head up the project, and is determined to build better relationships with the neighborhood.
One morning last week, in a cluttered hallway in the basement of 1411 Locust Street, Chris Aaron Rice leaned over a white folding table, studying a set of plans. Thomas Moore, New Life’s head of maintenance, illuminated the papers with a flashlight as Rice and Neal Lindsey, another member of the maintenance team, looked on. The trio spent part of the day winding through the expansive basement, checking to make sure the door replacements described on the architect’s plans matched the building.
“If you don’t know the building, you could actually get lost in here,†Moore said, as he searched for a door noted on the plans.
The hallways and rooms were filled with clothes, chairs and other miscellaneous items. Upstairs in the lobby, jackets and other clothing items were stacked on tables and in plastic crates. Chris Aaron Rice said New Life has been bringing more clothes in recently, some to distribute through street outreach, but also in preparation for the free store New Life hopes to open in the basement of the Locust Street building.
“We recognize there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to this building,†Chris Aaron Rice said. “But we also recognize that the need ... for the services that we want to provide here in this building outweigh the costs.â€