Blairmont-owned 2621 Sullivan burns... again

One of the many houses owned by Blairmont, 2621 Sullivan Avenue, burned Friday night.



I was a block away when I noticed a cloud of smoke, too much to be a barbecue as I first thought. A number of neighbors were already watching in the street when I drove past the house. Just in case, I called 911 and reported the fire; the Fire Department showed up within minutes.



What started as some drifting smoke had become fairly intense a few minutes after the SLFD arrived; I saw flames leaping through the roof at one point.

This house was occupied in February. It was bought by Blairmont later in the year. This is now the second time it's burned; the first may or may not have been under their ownership, but the damage looked very recent to me.

Daily Dose of Blairmont 109

• 3015 Elliot Street (Sheridan Place LLC, November 2006, $119,000)

May 2008

3015 was one of the May 2008 arson victims. Though a plain building, it features the distinctive angled and recessed doorways to its four units that are characteristic of St. Louis buildings. The aerial view appears to show it occupied circa 2005.



The house next door, a privately owned building at 3019 Elliott, was brick rustled in 2007. It appears to have been very similar in appearance.

November 2007

Links:

• 3015 Elliott at the city's Geo St Louis database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont:
  Built St. Louis || Ecology of Absence || What Can I Do?

Daily Dose of Blairmont 104

Welcome to the 2500 block of Dodier Street, in the JeffVanderLou neighborhood. Here is an entire block laid to waste by Paul McKee's absentee shell companies. Arson and brick rustling have destroyed every building on the block's western end... except for one holdout, a profitable business that has refused Blairmont's offers of buy-out. Now they find themselves surrounded by a ghost town, a landscape of devastated architecture, buildings smashed by the hammer of McKee's speculatory schemes.

The southern half of the block, west to east:

• 2566 W. Dodier Street (Sheridan Place LLC, March 2007, $85,000)
  
• 2560 W. Dodier Street (Larmer LLC, April 2008)
  
• 2554 W. Dodier Street (LRA)
  
• 2546 W. Dodier Street (Blairmont Associates Ltd. Co., August 2004)
  
• 2540 W. Dodier Street (privately owned - not pictured)
  
• 2538 W. Dodier Street (privately owned - not pictured)
  
• 2534 W. Dodier Street (VHS Partners LLC, November 2005, $38,000)
  
• 2532 W. Dodier Street (privately owned - not pictured)

2566 W. Dodier - May 2008. Burned in the May 2008 arsons.


2560 W. Dodier - May 2008. Destroyed by brick rustlers.


2546 W. Dodier - May 2008. Destroyed by brick rustlers.

The northern block, east to west:

• 2515 W. Dodier Street (privately owned)
  
• 2517 W. Dodier Street (N & G Ventures LLC, May 2006, $65,000)
  
• 2525 W. Dodier Street (Larmer LLC, April 2008)
  
• 2527 W. Dodier Street (privately owned)
  
• 2547 W. Dodier Street (Larmer LLC, April 2008)
  
• 2549 W. Dodier Street (Clarence Machine Company)
  
• 2559 W. Dodier Street (Sheridan Place LLC, May 2007, $75,000)
  
• 2561 W. Dodier Street (Sheridan Place LLC, May 2007)

2517 W. Dodier (left) - May 2008


2525 W. Dodier - May 2008


2547 W. Dodier - May 2008. Burned in the May 2008 arsons.


The besieged commercial building, at 2549 W. Dodier - May 2008


2559 W. Dodier - May 2008. Destroyed by brick rustlers.


2561 W. Dodier (left) - May 2008. Burned, date unknown.

Blairmont also owns most of the vacant lots between the surviving buildings.

Links:

• 2525 W Dodier at the city's Geo St Louis database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont:
  Built St. Louis || Ecology of Absence || What Can I Do?

Daily Dose of Blairmont 74

• 3114 Glasgow Avenue (MLK 3000 LLC, October 2006)

Amazing what can happen in just three months, isn't it?


February 2008

May 2008

The handsome little front house is doing fine, but the wood frame back house was one of the May 2008 arson victims.

Price bounce: first sold for a paltry $1,000 in 2004. Then someone shelled out $90,000 for it in June '06. Then three months later, MLK 3000 has it for $96,000. Awful expensive property to just let it burn down like that!

Links:

• 3114 Glasgow at the city's Geo St Louis database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont:
  Built St. Louis || Ecology of Absence || What Can I Do?

Daily Dose of Blairmont 29

• 2534-2536 W. Dodier Street (VHS Partners LLC, November 2005)

August 2003 - Photograph by Kevin Keiffer.


March 2007

This mid-block storefront building, long since converted to full residential use, is a reminder of the diversity once inherent to the city. Someone once ran a business here -- perhaps a small grocer or other store, giving local residents an easy place to shop. Corner stores and mid-block businesses were once common throughout the city; now they have all but vanished in many neighborhoods.

And now, with Blairmont having bought the building, even the reminder that such diversity can exist may be destroyed.

Update: Note the 3-story mansard roofed building in the background. That's 2546 Dodier, owned by Blairmont, and destroyed by fire over the first weekend of May 2008.

May 2008


June 2002 - Photograph by Kevin Keiffer.

Links:

• 2534 Dodier at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont