Back in April, I read a St. Louis Post-Dispatch update on the Preservation Square project in the near North City neighborhood of Carr Square, just north of Downtown.
This project has been in the works for years, with funding hitting several snags along the way, mostly at the state level. This one is highly subsidized with city, state and federal monies involved. NextSTL reported on the Near North grants back in 2016.
If ever there were a place to physically reimagine, it is here. The designs of the late 20th Century are not appropriate for a city like St. Louis, they tend to stand out. They tend to isolate. And when the end result is a concentrated super-block of subsidized housing built in the 1980s, you can tell, and it doesn’t seem sustainable.
The area is well maintained for sure, the landscape is kept up and the area looks clean and well cared for.
The worst part of this particular development is the fact that the area was isolated from the rest of the city, cordoning it off from the surroundings. From Schoemehl pots to closed streets, it is truly a superblock. The home’s front doors face inward from the perimeter streets. The interior home’s front doors face inward toward the interior parking lots. Welcoming it is not.
So when the Post-Dispatch reported of progress of a ~$25M project to “reimagine” Preservation Square, it was welcomed news:
“After the holdup of state tax credits delayed work for years, a multimillion-dollar reconstruction of the 675-unit Preservation Square subsidized-housing community is finally close to breaking ground.
Owner McCormack Baron Salazar hopes to begin the $17.9 million first phase of construction by the end of the year — three years since the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave St. Louis a $30 million grant to kick-start the near North Side project.”
McCormack Baron Salazar, the firm responsible for this section of “the Near North Side”, have a long history working in the area and have done some amazing work, not just here but all over St. Louis.
“The Near North Side is made up of several neighborhoods just north of Downtown St. Louis. Originally home to Irish and German immigrants, after the civil war many African-Americans began re-settling in the area from the south. In the 1950s, the area was declared a slum and became subject to large land clearance and urban-renewal efforts. The community was divided into superblocks with a series of public housing projects, including: Cochran Gardens, Carr Square, Vaughn, and the nationally-notorious Pruitt-Igoe.
McCormack Baron Salazar has been working in the Near North Side for over 50 years. In the 1980’s, McCormack Baron Salazar developed Preservation Square Apartments in partnership with the resident management corporation, followed by a HOPE I-funded rehabilitation project with the Carr Square Tenant Management Corporation. In 1985, McCormack Baron Salazar took over a stalled project to rehabilitate a historic and abandoned brewery complex a few blocks north of Carr Square into the Brewery Apartments using historic tax credits financing. And in the 1994, McCormack Baron Salazar began work with the residents of the George L. Vaughn public housing development with a bold new plan for mixed-income public housing. One of the first mixed-finance models in the country, the new community, named Murphy Park, was a pilot project for the HOPE VI program. As part of the effort, the local Jefferson Elementary School was converted into a neighborhood school, a new principal was hired with community input, and a new curriculum was implemented with innovative approaches to teaching. McCormack Baron Salazar raised the $4 million needed to upgrade the schools physical plant and pay for new programming.
In 2005, the Brewery underwent substantial renovations. In 2010, McCormack Baron Salazar affiliate Sunwheel Energy + Sustainability, working with the St. Louis Housing Authority, installed a 126.7 kW solar array that provides 140,000 kWh of energy to Murphy Park annually. And in 2014, McCormack Baron Salazar developed the Flance Early Childhood Education Center, which extends the high-quality educational options in the community into the early-childhood and pre-school years.
In 2014, a team led by Urban Strategies, Inc. in partnership with McCormack Baron Salazar, community residents, City of St. Louis, MBS, and dozens of community stakeholders, received a Choice Neighborhood Planning grant to develop a plan that addressed major community challenges including high crime, blight, low incomes and poor educational challenges with an array of strategies designed to invest in both people and place. In 2016, the team was awarded a $30 million competitive Choice Neighborhood Initiative Implementation Grant. The Near North Side Choice Neighborhood effort is a holistic plan to complete the transformation of the Near North Side. Targeting Preservation Square and leveraging recent investments in the community, the Choice Plan aims to establish the neighborhood as the new “front door” to the City of St. Louis and is a primary focus of the City’s redevelopment efforts. ”
The plan calls for a complete rehab of Preservation Square, as well as funding for health, employment and other services for neighborhood residents.
The first phase rehabs of 131 apartments should be completed by March, 2021.
“The first phase of the Preservation Square project will construct 45 new units and rehab 86 existing units. Of those, 37 units will be market rate, with the idea that residents who improve their income and lose eligibility for federal housing assistance or rent restrictions can stay in the neighborhood.
The second phase, which includes building and renovating 158 units, is expected to start toward the end of next year and take about 18 months. The third and fourth phases should start in late 2021 and 2022 respectively. A final phase will redo 140 units at the nearby Brewery apartments on North 20th Street, another McCormack Baron property.”
Renderings of the renovation include the superblock being re-incorporated into the street grid with 16th Street, Cochran Place, Preservation Place and what appears to be 18th Street. This will drastically break up the area and make the neighborhood more passable and connected.
Image Source: McCormack Baron Salazar
If the renderings are any indication, the form and style will be more diverse, adding a less cookie-cutter feel that should blend in better. The front doors will be oriented toward the streets and sidewalks vs. inward toward other buildings. This increases perceptions of safety and matches the designs used all over the city.
An added bonus would be better connections to Murphy Park, the city park immediately to the west of Preservation Square. This one needs some love, but could be partnered with to make improvements and upgrades vs. a glut of “greenspace”.
