Chairman and CEO of McCormack Baron Salazar
By Katie Connor | Photograph by Scott Rovak
Richard Baron arrived in St. Louis in 1968, fresh out of law school and eager to make a difference. He’d grown up in a mixed-income neighborhood in Detroit, attended racially integrated schools and learned to care passionately about cities and communities. As chairman of the development firm McCormack Baron Salazar, he helped lay the groundwork for today’s re-energized St. Louis with commercial projects—including the Westin Hotel at Cupples Station—and more than 3,000 residential units. As a founder of the Center of Creative Arts (COCA), he gave the region easy, affordable access to the arts and arts education. Today, Baron has set his sights on improving the city’s schools through the Vashon Compact, a public-private collaboration based on his successful renovation of the Jefferson and Adams elementary schools into neighborhood centerpieces. In 2004 his innovative projects earned him the Urban Land Institute’s J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development.
Is there a key to slowing sprawl?
I think that, as the city becomes more attractive, and developers get more involved in reclaiming areas of the city, it will slow.
You wanted to change the world. Why choose real-estate development instead of law or politics?
It was a much better vehicle for me to satisfy my interests than practicing law, which was far too slow—and certainly politics is painstakingly slow; it’s like watching paint dry. I needed something that was a little more result-oriented.
Of all your projects, is there one you’re most proud of?
COCA has to be right up at the top of the list. Everybody told me something like that would never work in St. Louis. But it’s become one of the most interesting centers in the United States.
Were mixed-income developments ever a hard sell?
Initially there were people who felt, “Well, that’s not something I might do, so therefore nobody else would do it.” That’s not at all true. Most of the time there isn’t any clear sense of who’s living in a neighborhood anyway. People buy because of the quality of a home, its amenities and its location.
Have you battled misperceptions as a provider of low-income housing?
There’s always a certain amount of skepticism about your motives: Are you really there to work with existing families and will they really get an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of what you’re doing, or are they going to be forced out? Over time, people have gotten to know us, they’ve seen what we’ve done in other cities. In the end, it’s worked out well.
What would happen if historic tax credits were no longer available?
There’s just no way most projects would continue. Having the state historic credit generates almost twice as much equity for a project; that’s why it’s such a powerful tool. The loft developments along Washington Avenue, the Old Post Office, the Westin, the Renaissance Hotel—all of those projects were done with state historic tax credits as part of the mix. That’s why this thing took off.
Some say it’s the residential developments that have made the difference this time.
There’s no question. But people have been talking about residential for many years. The problem was, you could never make it work; without the state historic credit, you couldn’t get anything done. Now the question for St. Louis is whether we’re going to start to see new residential products built; whether we can start to see new condominiums like those in Clayton built downtown.
Will new residential developments help ensure that this renaissance will be a lasting change?
Yes, and I think the real test will be Ballpark Village; it’s going to be the first real test of anything of scale in the downtown market that’s not rehab.
Will it also help to bring nonresidents into the city for more than just a game—and get them to stick around after a game?
I think that’s exactly what Ballpark Village is going to do. There will be entertainment, retail, restaurants and all kinds of venues for people to enjoy both before and after games. It’s a very, very interesting mixed-use project, and I think it will be the thing that finally changes the way people relate to the city.
We’ve got Washington Ave.—now what?
The activity has spread west, and all down Locust headed toward Grand Center you see new development. I think ultimately that will all fill out, so there will be a corridor running from downtown all the way out to Grand, where it will hook up with Grand Center.
As an urban developer, are you frustrated by the persistence of suburban sprawl?
Yes. It puts an enormous strain on public agencies to support that development with infrastructure. The region has been very unenlightened, and there needs to be a change. The metropolitan area really hasn’t grown that much in the 35-plus years I’ve been here, but the population is living on about 500 percent more land area. It’s probably the most egregious example of westward expansion that we’ve seen since Lewis and Clark and the Louisiana Purchase.
