While we may not have the money to "entice" the powers-that-be to save some of these buildings, we have a great deal of determination and since we are citizens, we have power at the ballot box. Those of us who genuinely care about a better economic future for the city of St. Louis and have no interest in selling out these amazing structures, are resolved to move forward and do what we can in this ongoing long and difficult fight.

To those of you who go behind the public's back and engineer your backroom deals in the name of "progress," selling out our history to line your pockets, a sincere promise: you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Marti Frumhoff
Rehabbers Club Project Coordinator

Cupples Station

The Virginia Mansion

Virginia Mansion Commentary

The Century's History in a Nutshell 

The Century Commentary

News Articles about The Century

Link to "...it's just one building"
a new movie by Alan Brunettin
Needs QuickTime Player

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Preservation Organizations

The National Trust for Historic Preservation:
Richard Moe, Executive Director
National Trust for Historic Preservation
1785 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington DC 20036-2117
202-588-6000
Peter Brink, Senior Vice President, Programs
Don Holm, Associate General Counsel

State and Local Partnerships:
The National Trust works with preservationists around the country to protect America's heritage and build better communities.

NATIONAL TRUST STATEWIDE INITIATIVE website
Becky Snider, President
Barbara Fitzgerald, Executive Director
P.O. Box 1715
Columbia, MO 65205
573-443-5946
FAX 573-443-5946
E-mail: preservemo@aol.com


OTHER MISSOURI PRESERVATION RESOURCES
Missouri State Historic Preservation Office website
Mark Miles, SHPO, Director
State Dept of Natural Resources
P.O. Box 176
Jefferson City, MO 65102
573-751-4422
FAX 573-751-7627

National Trust for Historic Preservation Midwest Office website
53 West Jackson Boulevard, Suite 350
Chicago, IL 60604
312-939-5547
FAX 312-939-5651
E-mail: mwro@nthp.org

National Park Service Regional Office
Midwest Regional Office
1709 Jackson Street
Omaha, NE 68102
402-221-3431

Missouri Main Street Program national website
Missouri Department of Economic Development
P.O. Box 118, 301 West High Street
Jefferson City, Missouri 65102
573-751-7939
FAX 573-751-7385

-- If you want to know more, read these articles on the subject:

Battle of the Century [PD 7/4/04]

Couple Wants To Hug Two Threatened Buildings [PD 6/29/04]

National Trust Backs Plan To Raze Building [PD 6/28/04]

Going Postal [RFT 1/28/04]
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/issues/2004-01-28/feature.html

Wrecking Crew [RFT 3/20/02]
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/issues/2002-03-20/news2.html

Metropolis' Save the Century page

Save the Century

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Century Commentary

A Letter to Don Holm [associate general counsel for NTHP]
From Steve Wilke-Shapiro

I am writing to express my utter outrage at the National Trust's continued disregard for the hard work of local preservation activists in St. Louis. Almost 2,000 of us have declared our stand in a petition against the demolition of the Century Building. It is a sad, sad day when those of us on the front lines of preserving this country's national building heritage find ourselves battling the National Trust to save a historic building from the wrecking ball.

The basic premise in your press release is flawed at its core: redevelopment of the Old Post Office district does not require a garage to be built on the site of the Century Building. Not only are there alternate viable parking options in line with the current downtown plan, but the entire south edge of the OPO Square is currently under development and construction. The National Trust has made a grievous error supporting this travesty - it appears from your press release that you are accepting the word of the developer at face value.

Through its financial assistance, the National Trust is setting a dangerous precedent. You are rewarding the practice of "demolition by neglect" by unscrupulous developers. This is particularly poignant given the ongoing work of a dedicated group of local activists who have just won a battle to protect another St. Louis architectural gem, the Virginia Mansion. Shame on you for aliging against sound urban planning, against your membership, and most of all against the ideals of preservation - you make a mockery of the National Trust's mission.

If you refuse to reconsider your position and the Century Building is torn down, I will respectfully request the return of my membership dues.

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A promise to the backroom dealers
From Steve Patterson

They are forcing us to get more organized and determined. Furthermore, we are increasingly becoming a major voting block.

Come next Spring when the Mayor and a third of the Board of Aldermen are up for reelection rest assured we will not forget the loss of our history, the backroom deals, the unwillingness to admit you were wrong, and the f*cked up 1950's "urban renewal" mentality with respect to cities.

Either these elected officials need to do an about face or leave public office. Otherwise, they may just see all of us that give a damn about this city packing and leaving for cities where the 'leadership' understands what it means to be a city and not a sprawling car-centric suburb.

Demolition of the Century Building is as wise as building Gateway One in the middle of the Gateway Mall. At least one National Register building was demolished to create the Gateway Mall yet then Mayor Vince Schoemel allowed a new building to be built destroying the concept. He later regretted this decision. Mayor Slay - you will regret allowing the Century to fall!!!! If it does, we will make sure you regret it as that single decision will become your legacy from your four years in office (and it will only be four).

The problem in St. Louis is not lack of vision. Folks like the Gill's, Pyramid, the McGowen's, etc.. all have great visions for our city. It is the political and big business leaders that continue to make really stupid mistakes that hurt the city. I don't think they do so intentionally - simply out of ignorance. Whatever the reason - they must stop before they destroy what we have left.

I am ANGRY!!!!! I think we all need to get a bit angry. We need to unleash this anger in a flood of emails, protests, marches, boycotts (Schnucks), voting booth, etc.

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More Thoughts
From Wes Ballew

Barbara Geisman, deputy mayor for development, confirmed Tuesday that "There is a deal, and we are moving forward with it." ...we city leaders know much more about how the city should work than you citizens do.

I really think that Barb Geisman is the biggest liability the Slay administration has. She is often the force behind these issues. What is amazing is that she is the Director of Development for the city but admits that she has almost never travelled. How can she claim to be an innovative force for the city and not have been other places and observed what works in those other places?! Pretty ridiculous. Rarely does she provide any sort of thoughtful response to citizen concerns.

Also, Mary Campbell, a senior vice president at the bank, said that "on the surface," the Gills' offer "is a fine idea."But she said it would delay the sale of the two other buildings, something the bank and HRI want to avoid.

Good. So we will anger the citizenry in order to avoid delaying a project what... a few months. How long have they been saying they are going to do this project? How long have these building been sitting empty? I guess waiting a little longer is not a big deal in my opinion. HRI has dropped a notch or two in my book.

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Politics, Ego and What's Next
From Frank Absher

Congratulations are in order for all who have had a hand in the effort to inform the citizenry of this issue. With tongue placed only partially in cheek, the mayor's office will have to invest in a truckload of legal pads just to add all the new names to its enemies list.

On a more serious note, you can be assured that the big guns will soon be pulled out on this down at City Hall. The mayor hates being made to look so stupid, so revenge will be sought in some fashion. It appears his only motivation in office is paying off political supporters, even at the expense of doing what is right for the future of the city.

The fantastic response on the petition really makes Mr. Slay and his cronies look very bad, but it also makes the National Trust look bad. They are the ones whose position is most likely to be changed by all this. The mayor is most likely to dig in his heels and fight this effort with everything he has.

You want to get the attention of the people who can really stop the insanity? Organize an effort to persuade the public to do their shopping at stores other than Schnucks. That will definitely get your message across.

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A Century's History
From Matt Ghio

Someone asked the question "why don't we seem to hear about these things until it's too late?..." The short answer is that those involved made the case early and often - going back to 1995.

The problem is that the Century's fate was rigged even before the city gained site control in 2001. I will explain below. [As to why we don't find out early, so there's time enough to do something] -- sometimes we don't know what's happening until the end because the power brokers keep it secret. sometimes those that might be interested but not fighting the battle on a daily basis [like some rehabbers on this list] don't find out until the very end is near. This happened here, when Landmarks was forced to go public in its dispute with the National Trust when the demolition date was set for June 30. That date thankfully passed with no demolition.

The long answer is the background to the Century Building situation. This should answer the question more fully. For Landmarks Association of St. Louis, this has been an 11-year fight. for members of Metropolis St. Louis, downtown and other city residents, and the Coalition for the Environment, this has been a 5-year fight.

The Century Building Saga began in 1995 when the owner at the time applied for a demolition permit. the City of St. Louis denied the demolition permit because the owner, Mark Finney of the Conlon Group, had signed a redevelopment contract for the Syndicate Trust/Century Building in 1994. He bought them both for about $700,000 in 1993. The city said "no, you can't tear the buildings down and build a parking lot" because you signed a contract to redevelop them. The City of St. Louis fought him in court for more than 6 years and WON! the Missouri Court of Appeals [EDITOR'S NOTE: the same court who wants to move into the Old Post Office] issued an opinion in 1998 that stated that both the Syndicate Trust and the Century could be redeveloped.

Fast forward to 2001. After more legal issues were fought at the trial level, in July 2001, the City of St. Louis and Finney settle the case. Tthe city agrees to pay Finney 6 million dollars. Yes, 6 million. The City of St. Louis now owns both the Sydicate Trust and the Century.

To recap: the City of St. Louis fought for almost 9 years to stop the demolition of the Century. What does the City do almost immediately after regaining site control? Privately, very secretly, with no public input whatsoever until the DESCO plan is announced in October of 2001, the City does a complete 180 and hands the building to Mark Schnuck of the DESCO Group and Steve Stogel of DFC Group without an RFP process.

What does the city do next? It goes back to the trial court and submits a demolition plan on January 31, 2002, to TEAR down the Century, but not the Syndicate Trust, for a parking garage! The City, who litigated for 6 years to stop the demolition of the Century, was now allowing a developer to tear down the Century. why is that? hmmm... The City won't allow Mark Finney to tear down the historic Century Building for a parking lot but the City will allow Steve Stogel and Mark Schnuck to tear down the historic Century Building for a parking garage. To paraphrase what a Bank of America official told Amrit Gill two years ago, when he proposed buying and renovating two of the Cupples warehouses, it appears Steve Stogel and Mark Schunck had the political clout Mark Finney didn't. By the way, one way to verify a person's political clout is by checking, for example, Missouri Ethics Commission reports, and other campaign finance reports. OpenSecrets is another favorite website of mine.

During 2001 is when groups like Metropolis St. Louis [the "parent" of the Rehabbers Club] and the Missouri Coalition for the Environment found out what was going on and joined the fight. Landmarks Association of St. Llouis had been in the fight from the beginning. Landmarks was a consulting party to the National Historic Preservation Act review from the beginning in 2000. Landmarks always opposed the demolition...the battle has been going on for years.

Some of you just may be finding out about it now. Part of the problem for that is that up until very recently our daily paper has not covered this continuing story. All of the hard news about this awful deal has been in the RFT. Deb Peterson, Robert Duffy and Charlene Prost [see articles section above] covered the latest round in this prizefight well, but I suspect if we had that kind of coverage from the beginning of this deal, for example, in an investigative series, we would not be fighting a headache ball in the near future.

One final note, in my opinion, a garage won't work. The other two 770- and 880-space monsters [see map] built within a half block of the Old Post Office are never full [two and three empty decks daily], and they want to build another 1,000 car monster garage? Webster University was quoted in the paper recently saying they only need 100 spaces. The Missouri Court of Appeals only needs between 14 and 70, max. Thus the two anchor Old Post Office tenants are at a parking need of 115 to 170 spaces. 500 spaces can go in a redeveloped Century Building. There is simply no proof that another monster garage is needed near the Old Post Office.

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The Virginia Mansion

-- Read the engineer's report [PDF]

-- Visit the official website dedicated to saving this beautiful and historic Dutchtown landmark

Virginia Mansion Commentary

From Dustin Bopp

It was an exciting day [June 28, 2004] in downtown St. Louis for preservationists [and several perplexed construction workers] who believe in the future of this city. We had a sizeable and spirited bunch turn out for the rally to save the Century [we did save it, didn't we?] and the march to the Preservation Board was an unequivical success!

In a 3-2 decision the Preservation Board voted to DENY the application for demolition of the Virginia Mansion. Undoubtedly, Our Lady's Inn will appeal to the Missouri Court of Appeals but with this win under our belt we will be ready. Fundraising will be key to protecting what the preservation board agreed is an architecturally significant structure and is a prime candidate for rehab. Our attorney was incredible, but it was the testimony of neighborhood residents that really swayed the board. The opposition made some incredibly wild assertions including saying that Dutchtown is not by any reasonable persons judgement historic [OLI points gun straight at foot - ready, aim, fire], once again demonstrating a complete lack of respect for the neighborhood. Luckily, we have a few very sharp pencils on the preservation board who saw through the all "unreinforced masonry buildings are unsafe in an earthquake argument" for what is was - HOGWASH.

The most scary thing was that they have been planning this for 3 years but they could not produce any kind of cost analysis that quantified their position that it was more expensive to rehab than tear it down and build new. As a matter of fact, what numbers they quoted proved the OPPPOSITE. They just kept saying things like, "my dadddy was in the union and his friend said it would cost more to rehab than build new." I mean, they are out there raising $800,000 and have no idea how they are spending it. This is the very truth we have been seeking from the begining. It is just a shame that it took so much effort [and money] on our part to prove what we already knew. The biggest shame is the waste of time, talent, and energy that could have been funneled into helping the organization make a successful project or at the very least concentrating on our own lives. Instead we both have lawyer's bills.

Was there any news coverage? Both channnels 11 and 2 were there. It will be in the Post-Dispatch for sure.

Thanks to everyone who showed up today. Your contribution made a big difference. The message is getting out. Let's keep up the fight.

Cupples Station

St. Louis Business Journal article

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