Blairmont in the news

In addition to the recent chapel wall and roof collapse at the Clemens Mansion, Paul McKee's activities on the north side continue to garner media attention:

Mow Your Lawn, Mister? - from the Riverfront Times

      - Mow your OWN lawn, Mister! - an RFT blog response

Developer Paul McKee -- Target of City Hall Protest - KMOX radio report

What Does Paul McKee Have Planned? - KMOX radio report

Neighbors Complain of Developer Letting Vacant Buildings Decay - KMOX radio report

State Representative Demands Developer Reveal Plans - KMOX radio report

Developer Accused of Nudging the Poor Out of North St. Louis - KMOX radio report

A short video report at KMOV has unfortunately not been made available at their web site.

Daily Dose of Blairmont 80

Left and right:
• 1820 Warren Street (Dodier Investors LLC, July 2007)
• 1822 Warren Street (LRA)

June 2002 - photographs by Kevin Keiffer

May 2008

An 1891 twin townhouse, the LRA half has been vacant since 1999. Blairmont bought the other half just last year. Someone saw fit to strip out the upper floor floorboard-ups and windows from both halves. Who would have interest in doing such a thing, I wonder, and why?




It was condemned for demolition in July 2007... only ten days before Blairmont bought it. City records are oddly silent about the house's sales history.

Of note, a recently renovated block of townhouses stands across the street. Children were riding their bikes around me as I photographed. This is not some empty wasteland; it's a neighborhood.

Links:

• 1820 Warren 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 79

• 2500 Montgomery Street (MLK 3000 LLC, October 2006, $125,000)
• 2524 Montgomery Street (Noble Development Co. LLC, May 2006, $20,000)

Blairmont owns the ancient warehouse on the left, at 2500 Montgomery. It doesn't look like much, but behind it lurks a most remarkable block.

May 2008 - Blairmont owns 2500 Montgomery, at left.


May 2008 - privately owned houses.


May 2008 - privately owned houses.

The houses on the rest of the block went up as a group in 1905. Their peaked rooflines make a charming streetscape, unlike any other in the city. Today, they're all occupied, mostly by owner-occupants.... all except for one.

Yep! Surprise surprise, the one vacant house, at 2524 Montgomery, is owned by Blairmont.


May 2008 - Blairmont's sole house on the block.

Does Paul McKee intend to force out all the other owners and destroy this lovely block? It seems unfathomable, but he's done it before.

Price bounce: 2524 sold for $4,000 in January 2006... then again for $20,000 four months later. Did the other surrounding properties see a corresponding rise in value? Or is Blairmont's slumlord ownership dragging the value of everything around them down?

Links:

• 2500 Montgomery at the city's Geo St Louis database
  
• 2524 Montgomery 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 78

Left to right:
• 2129 Madison Street (Noble Development Co. LLC, May 2006, $105,000)
  
• 2125 Madison Street (Noble Development Co. LLC, May 2006)
  
• 2123 Madison Street (Noble Development Co. LLC, May 2006)

August 2003:


May 2008:


This trio of party wall buildings stands just beyond the south end of St. Louis Place Park. A decade ago, this might have been fertile ground for redevelopment. But around 2003, a large building project filled this block and several blocks around it with new construction, fitting new buildings in among the remaining historic ones. Why Paul McKee would buy into such a location is a mystery, considering that he seems dead set on total site control. It should be abundantly clear that this neighborhood isn't about to go anywhere.

The buildings themselves are memorable for their strikingly odd white-with-black paint job. The group includes a single house, a twin house, and a ground-floor store with apartment above. It's a good sample of the kind of diversity inherent to the area's original building stock.

August 2003:

The houses appear to have been occupied when I first surveyed the area in 2003, but now they're vacant and boarded up. Still, considering the top floors got a proper board-up job, they're a step up from the usual Blairmont abuse. Perhaps with so many neighbors nearby, the usual slipshod board-up and upper-floor window removal couldn't cut it.

May 2008:

Links:

• 2129 Madison 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 77

Left and right:
• 2571 Montgomery Street (Sheridan Place LLC, November 2006, $80,000)
  
• 2569 Montgomery Street (Blairmont Associates LLC, May 2005, $23,000)

May 2008

Yes, that's TWO properties there, and BOTH have been damaged by brick rustlers. They've totally destroyed the one on the right. They've also done significant damage to the left-hand building, though; note the gaping hole in the rear side wall:




As for the destroyed building, here's what it looked like before:

July 2003 - photograph by Kevin Keiffer

No price bouncing in evidence on these two, but $80,000 seems a bit inflated, even for a house that seems to have been in good repair before the brick rustlers hit it.

The destroyed house was vacant since 1996, but the intact house was occupied as recently as March 2006. Both have now been condemned for demolition. Thanks, Blairmont!

Update, August 11, 2008: 2571 was demolished in early August 2008.

Links:

• 2571 Montgomery 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 76

• 2916 Gamble Street (N & G Ventures LLC, May 2005)

May 2008

Vacancy and a Permastone slipcover can't hide the urbanity of this massive mountain of house. Made for a narrow urban lot, it speaks to a time when this neighborhood was valued enough to be built tall and thick.





Today it stands almost alone on its block, facing a neighborhood park heavily used by local teens. It's been vacant since 2000. But just imagine when that streetwall was complete, when long-vanished neighbors stood shoulder-to-shoulder. What a sight it must have been!

Links:

• 2916 Gamble 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 75

• 2631 Hebert Street (MLK 3000 LLC, September 2006)

February 2008

It's right around the corner from yesterday's house. It's big, massive, handsome, isolated, has nice cornice brickwork, and has the usual complement of Blairmont ownership hallmarks: missing windows, incomplete board-up, vacancy.

Price bounce: first sold in July '06 for $118,000. In September '06, it sold again for $132,000. The Transaction Type is listed as "Related Party" -- what could that mean?

Links:

• 2631 Hebert 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?

Clemens mansion chapel roof collapses

Hot on the heels of Paul McKee finally securing the old Clemens Mansion on Cass Avenue comes word that the long-rotting chapel has suffered a serious roof collapse.

Photos and video at Fox News. (The latest video rather amusingly refers to the chapel as a "cathedral". The initial video even more hilariously confuses the building with the Mullanphy Emigrant Home, while also stating "we believe this may have been a church". It's pretty overt evidence of the disconnect between the city and the suburbs.)

Additional reporting and photos at KSDK.

Though the timing may seem suspect in light of how frequently Blairmont's properties are subject to deliberate destruction, the collapse is not surprising. The chapel roof had rotted through over five years earlier, allowing rain and snow to rot the structure, and just this week Ecology of Absence reported a bowing west wall.

Daily Dose of Blairmont 73

Left and right:
• 3508 Cozens Avenue (JVL Renaissance)
  
• 3510 Cozens Avenue (Dodier Investors LLC, 200 )

May 2008

Here's an absolutely beautiful pair of buildings in the southern reaches of JeffVanderLou. Blairmont owns the one on the right (vacant, deteriorating, unsecured), while the left one is owned and operated by omnipresent rental company JVL Renaissance (maintained, occupied, freshly painted.)





These two stand amid the urban prairie common in JeffVanderLou's southern reaches; they are very nearly the last buildings on their entire block. The Blairmont building has already lost a cornice bracket and a terra cotta medallion. What a shame it would be for this lovely house to come down.

Like yesterday's building, 3510 Cozens seems to have bounced between owners with a sharp jump in price, from $17K to $28.5K only a month later.

Links:

• 3510 Cozens 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 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?

Daily Dose of Blairmont 71

Left and right:
• 2215 Dodier Street, built 1887 (privately owned)
  
• 2209 Dodier Street, built 1887 (MLK 3000 LLC, October 2006)

November 2007

It's another owner-occupied house, butted up against Blairmont's neglect and abusive depopulation tactics.



Another slice of St. Louis's rich architectural heritage, another fine example of its unparalleled masonry and red brick vernacular.


February 2008

Another piece of the city's urban environment, which needs to be built up and encouraged instead of desecrated and sabotaged.


June 2002 - photograph by Kevin Keiffer

And another property that was doing just fine till Blairmont bought it.

Links:

• 2209 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?

Blairmont update

I've done some follow-up on houses previously covered by the Daily Dose. Click each link below for updated photos, from the weekend of May 10-12, 2008.

• 2617 Slattery has been destroyed by brick rustlers.
  
• 1358 Leffingwell has been destroyed by brick rustlers.
  
• 2540-2542 Hebert has been attacked a second time by brick rustlers, and completely destroyed.
  
• 2546 Dodier was destroyed by an arsonist.
  
• And in what may be the scuzziest move of all, the emotionally charged graffiti left behind by the evicted occupants of 2933 Montgomery -- the "heartbreaker house" -- has been painted over.
  

Daily Dose of Blairmont 70

Left and right:
• 2210 Hebert Street, built 1891 (Sheridan Place LLC, November 2006)
  
• 2216 Hebert Street, built 1886 (privately owned)

Let's play Count the Broken Windows, shall we? I see 1, 2 broken windows.


November 2007

How many do you see from before Blairmont got hold of it?


June 2002 - photograph by Kevin Keiffer

You know what else I see in that first photo? Renovation on a privately owned residence. Maintenance and upkeep. Investment. Further signs of the undeniable: this is a neighborhood that is home to people, not an urban wasteland in need of demolition.

Links:

• 2210 Hebert 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 69

• 1439 Warren Street, built 1917 (Dodier Investors LLC, October 2006)

November 2007

Blairmont has the building on the left, formerly an auto body repair shop for the now-closed Al's Auto Sales around the corner on Florissant. They also own two vacant lots to the left of the buildings.

The building on the right, from 1900, is privately owned. But then, it's also got windows, so you already knew that, right?

And let's do the ol' window comparison check. Here's the building five years back. Windows in place? Check!


May 2003 - photograph by Kevin Keiffer

And here it is four and a half years later, after one year of Blairmont's careful stewardship. Windows missing? Check!


November 2007

Look at that! They didn't even take out the security grilles, which would at least be worth something for scrap value. Just the windows! The intent of demolition by neglect could not be more clear if it was spray painted on the wall.

Links:

• 1439 Warren 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?