[ back ]
San Luis is coming down
(by Kara Krekeler - July 21, 2009)
A group of preservationists is still fighting the demolition of the San Luis building, despite the fact that the St. Louis Archdiocese, which owns the high-rise, is already tearing it down.
Circuit Judge Robert Dierker on July 27 denied an injunction to halt demolition of the San Luis building filed by Friends of San Luis. The preservation group, which has led the charge against tearing down the 50-year-old building, filed for the injunction in the hopes that it could stop work on the building while it appealed a June decision by the city’s Preservation Board that approved demolishing the building to create a surface parking lot.
The San Luis building was originally constructed as a hotel in the 1950s and most recently housed apartments for senior citizens, although the building has been vacant for more than a year, since the archdiocese announced its plan to tear down the building and construct a surface parking lot on the site. The parking lot would serve the neighboring St. Louis Cathedral Basilica and Rosati-Kain High School.
In a five-page decision, Dierker wrote that Friends of San Luis “lacks standing” to seek an injunction. Friends of San Luis “has not shown any pecuniary or personal interest, other than its generalized interest in preservation of ‘historic’ structures in the city of St. Louis,” Dierker wrote, noting that the group doesn’t own property or house an office within the Central West End Historic District, which encompasses the San Luis.
In his ruling, Dierker also cited the archdiocese’s concern that delaying demolition would cost “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to keep up the “vacant and deteriorating” building. He also offered his support to the Preservation Board by noting that “the regulators appear to have acted with common sense and with a consciousness of defendants’ constitutional rights as an owner of property.”
“Essentially, it means that the fight to save the building is over,” said Michael Allen, president of Friends of San Luis.
Allen said that he wasn’t surprised by the judge’s decision — Dierker is the same judge who presided over a lawsuit challenging a plan to tear down the Century Building downtown in order to replace it with a parking garage. The building was demolished in 2004 following Dierker’s ruling.
Nor was Allen particularly surprised that the fight for the San Luis had to be taken to court.
Alderman Lyda Krewson, whose 28th Ward encompasses the San Luis and the Cathedral, said in June that the archdiocese had put her in a tough position, making it clear that it had no intention of ever selling or renovating the building and implying that Rosati-Kain High School’s future in the Central West End may be in question if it didn’t get more parking.
“There’s no doubt that a surface parking lot is not the best use for the site,” Krewson said in June. “I wish it wasn’t the only plan on the table, but a vacant building is no good either.”
For that reason, she “reluctantly supported” the parking lot at the June 22 meeting in which the Preservation Board approved the San Luis’ demolition.
“I empathize with Lyda,” Allen said. “Preservationists were faced with the same choice. The archdiocese rebuffed our offers to help find a developer. We had no better shot at influencing them than Lyda did. We would have much rather had an amicable discussion with them.”
Those involved with the archdiocese’s plans agreed that it would have been nearly impossible to make the Catholic powerhouse budge on its decision.
“It would be hard to persuade any large institution to give up ground so close to a major location. It just wouldn’t happen,” said Dan Jay, an architect for Christner Inc. and the man who designed the parking lot that will replace the San Luis. He added that there was at least one developer who was seriously interested in taking on the San Luis. “But that doesn’t oblige [the archdiocese] to sell it.”
Jay said that he can’t deny Friends of San Luis’ argument of a parking lot not being the “highest and best use” of the space, particularly given the poorly developed lots elsewhere on Lindell. But the need for parking at the Cathedral and Rosati-Kain is equally undeniable, he said.
“The Cathedral is a major destination and the high school serves the whole St. Louis area. Both are grossly underserved by off-street parking,” Jay said, noting that the Cathedral hosts about 260 non-mass events a year, including concerts, weddings and funerals, and many of the Cathedral’s visitors are currently forced to park on neighborhood streets.
For that reason, several neighbors quietly supported the plan, he said. “We didn’t go out and ask for support, but I heard a lot about parking problems at neighborhood meetings.”
Jay said demolition would continue for about three months and that the parking lot would be ready for use three to four months after that.
Meanwhile, Friends of San Luis still plans to appeal both the Preservation Board’s decision and Dierker’s ruling, in part to help define preservationists’ ability, or lack thereof, to fight similar developments.
“If the present ordinance doesn’t safeguard the citizens’ right to appeal, it needs to be clarified,” Allen said. Right now, the historic district ordinance is ambiguous on how citizens can react to such projects, making it “completely inadequate” to handle future developments, particularly those on Lindell Boulevard. “The ordinance really needs to be changed or these battles are going to take place again and again.”
[ back ]
