Daily Dose of Blairmont 72

Left and right:
• 2530 Hebert Street (privately owned)
  
• 2532 Hebert Street (N & G Ventures LC, December 2005)

February 2008

Watch that right-hand house change through the years! Here it is in 2002:

June 2002 - photograph by Kevin Keiffer

And again in March 2007:


And... oops! Looks like the brick rustlers hit another Blairmont house. Su-prise, su-prise.

May 2008

This property's sales history also brings to light another questionable tactic. Since Paul McKee essentially hand-wrote a tax credit bill for himself, a higher property value means more money flowing back to him if/when his development scheme goes into effect. Well, what happens if some company, say, Blairmont Associates LLC, buys a property for $10,000, then sells it to some other company, like, oh, maybe, N & G Ventures LC, for $50,000?

That's $40,000 of "value" magicked up out of nowhere. Awfully handy if you happen to own both of the companies involved, since "nowhere" is in reality "taxpayers' pockets".

Funny thing is, that seems to be almost exactly what happened. 2532 Hebert was sold for a nice, round $10,000 in March 2005 to an entity that, sadly, isn't listed in the city's online records. Then in December of that same year, it sold in a "closed sale" for an astonishingly inflated $50,000 to N & G Ventures.

Previous selling prices had not gone over $20,000. Is northern St. Louis Place suddenly that desirable? Why would such a valuable property be allowed to get hit by brick rustlers?

Links:

• 2532 Hebert at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont:
  Built St. Louis || Ecology of Absence || What Can I Do?