Rendering courtesy of Cohen Architecture Company
Mike Curran is standing on an 8.2-acre plot that sits atop a little hill on South Broadway in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, just east of Highway 55. He is of medium height, with tan skin, thinning gray hair and a voice loud enough to cut through even the considerable breeze that billows his button-down shirt. An empty work-site trailer and his Mercedes-Benz station wagon sit behind him in the middle of a sea of dirt, rock and ragged brush. Out of view from the potholed street below dotted with “For Rent” signs, bus stops, decaying flats and the occasional prostitute, this land, according to the veteran developer, is
St. Louis’ “most prime piece of real estate.”
What makes this property so prime, he says, is its proximity to downtown. And the seclusion. And the view of the sunrise. Oh yeah, and it overlooks “the freakin’ Mississippi!”
“When I bought this, I thought it was the most magnificent piece of property I’d seen in the St. Louis area. Period,” Curran says, his gruff Minnesota accent coming through. “There wasn’t anything that could touch it.”
After battles with local preservationists and a major reworking of the site plans that cost him all but one of his potential buyers, he is finally starting to build the Mississippi Bluffs, the gated community of posh condominiums he’s had planned since he bought the land two and a half years ago. “I’m biased,” he says, “but I don’t think there’ll be a better place to live in the city of St. Louis.”
Curran’s enthusiasm for the river—and for his own accomplishments—is hard to miss when speaking with him. He’s building an oasis of 34 high-end condominiums on the Mississippi, each with its own garage and surrounded by 6.2 acres of park, sidewalks for dog walking and jogging, and a large pool. It sits on the city’s only mile of terrain above the flood plain, 80 feet above the Mississippi, perfectly positioned for views of the barge industry to the north, vast river to the south and Illinois forest to the east.
Now, if only he could sell that idea to everyone else.
The land Curran is so fond of was once the site of a retirement home run by the Good Samaritans. The nonprofit organization also owned the adjacent Doering Mansion, which sat unused for 30 years. When the complex went up for sale in 2003, the owners’ only stipulation was that the mansion and the home could not be sold separately—no exceptions. Thus both buildings just sat. And sat.
For the next two years, 11th Ward Alderman Matt Villa reviewed proposals from a number of nonprofits that wanted to build low-income apartments and a home for troubled children, but he discouraged them, he says, because he didn’t think the offers were “the best use of the property.” Villa says he wanted a little variation in the neighborhood—something owner-occupied, something less ... South Broadway. With upscale housing in mind, he called Curran.
Villa knew Curran from the developer’s prior 11th Ward restoration projects. Aside from his rehabs of more than 100 homes, Curran was best known to that point for restoring the Steins Row Houses, the Schmidt House in St. Louis Square Park and the Old Maddox School. In the Steins project Curran transformed seven 1830s working-class homes into three impressive living spaces, taking the group off the Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation’s 10 Most Endangered Historic Buildings list and winning awards from the Landmarks Association of Saint Louis.
Kate Shea, director of St. Louis’ Cultural Resources Office, gives Curran credit for taking on the project (“Nobody would touch that property”), but she also says that he takes a lot of chances: “He’s quite a character.”
“I’ve always produced better quality housing, always gotten good people to move back into the city,” says Curran. “That’s my track record. No one can debate or deny that.”
When asked about the fact that he handpicked the developer for the site, Villa defends the decision by focusing on the need for a development that took advantage of the land. “I would be negligent if I didn’t try to do something,” he says.
Curran bought the property overlooking the Mississippi for $1.6 million in February of ’05 with plans to “build something that would make people start thinking about the riverfront a little bit differently.”
He also ended up with two empty buildings that weren’t in his plan.
The Doering Mansion sat on 1.7 acres of the land, but Curran contended that he needed those acres to make his project work. (He said he didn’t want to inundate the site with buildings.) So in fall 2005 he asked the Preservation Board for approval to demolish it and the Good Samaritan Home.
Preservationists were appalled. Built in the mid-19th century and redesigned by St. Louis architect Guy Study in 1918, the mansion contributed to the overall integrity of the streetscape, says Michael Allen, a researcher for the Landmarks Association. Curran’s plan to demolish it was “extremely senseless and totally unnecessary,” given the amount of land he was able to acquire by demolishing the Good Samaritan Home, Allen says.
“Developers need to know what they’re getting into before they demolish a site,” says Steve Patterson, local urban preservationist and real-estate agent. “Curran bought a piece of land that happened to have buildings on it. He set his mind on land—not on the buildings that existed on that land.”
Curran balks at the notion that he was thumbing his nose at the city’s architecture by requesting permission to demolish the Doering Mansion. “I’m not some shyster guy who’s trying to destroy St. Louis’ historic heritage,” he says. “I’ve restored more historic buildings in this city than anyone I know.”
But at the time, Patterson argued that because Curran had extensive experience in rehab work, the mansion could have been restored or sold to another party, leaving 6.5 acres to work with. “It’s nowhere near beyond hope,” Patterson said of the mansion.
Curran says now that he couldn’t restore it himself because it would have cost too much—north of $1 million. As for selling the dilapidated building, he insists that he was not against that option. The only catch was that the buyer would have had to pay Curran enough—in the neighborhood of $600,000, he says—to offset the cost of not developing on the land he would be losing. “I told those people, ‘If you find somebody who wanted to buy it, that’s fine,’” Curran says, his voice growing louder. “Isn’t Patterson a real-estate guy? Couldn’t he have found a buyer?”
Patterson acknowledges the fact that it would have been expensive to restore the house (he agrees that it would have cost about $1 million), but regarding the sale, he says, “No one knows what the interest was in that house because it was never put on the market. No one ever got the chance [to buy it].”
Despite a finding from the Cultural Resources Department of the city’s Planning & Urban Design Agency that demolishing the mansion “would adversely impact this unique and intact example of a city property type,” the Preservation Board voted 6-2 in favor of Curran. Shea says she didn’t hear a lot of outcry over the board’s decision, but she was disappointed nonetheless. “It’s our job to protect historic property,” she says.
Patterson and Allen were surprised at the board’s ruling. “I was fairly hopeful that they would rule against him,” Allen says. “I’d seen buildings with no future and in much worse shape spared by their owners.”
The mansion was demolished in February 2006. By that summer, after showing a conceptual design to the public at an open house, Curran had 30 reservations.
Curran’s original plan for the Bluffs, developed with architect Tom Cohen, involved two tiers of buildings with a total of 56 units. To accomplish this, 20 feet of dirt had to be moved from below to create a “massive bluff extension.” A number of the buildings would essentially be built into the limestone rock, allowing for another row of buildings to be constructed behind them, also with a view of the river.
“As we got into engineering and developing it—the retaining walls, storm sewer, utility stuff—it got to be very complicated and very expensive,” Curran says. “So one day, I said, ‘Screw it! I’m not building the lower level!’”
Translation: The plan was scrapped.
Curran decided instead to build 34 units on the same amount of land.
He was left with four buildings (two with eight units and two with nine) on the same plane. There was now lower square footage per unit (the largest went down from 2,750 to 2,396), yet the minimum price per unit increased by nearly $150,000.
“The more density you have, the more you compromise the quality of the site. I wanted it to be simple and elegant,” Curran says in defense of his decision, “and I didn’t want to overwhelm the area with buildings. I wanted to build them specifically for this site.”
Once again, preservationists were up in arms. If the design that used 22 fewer units could still work on such a large plot of land, they argued, the mansion should never have been torn down in the first place. “Was the Preservation Board taken for a ride when they approved the demolition of the Doering Mansion?” Patterson asked in a post on his blog (urbanreviewstl.com) in September 2006. “I think so.”
Curran was undeterred. “Generally speaking, the state of the river bluff is sad,” he says. “I thought that this was an opportunity to redefine that—in other words, regenerate the revitalization of the rest of the bluff.”
A year and a half after Curran had purchased the property and several months after the mansion had been demolished, he was back to where he had started and responsible for returning the deposits of the dozens who had made reservations. They had the option to re-sign once the new plan was under way, but most scattered.
Ann Auer was one who searched elsewhere. “We were very excited originally—it’s a great location,” she says. “I wish he had had his ducks in a row. The price went up, and we lost confidence.”
Sandra and Mike Meagher of Carondelet, however, decided to stay with Curran after the alterations. Of the original 30 parties to reserve one of the condominiums, they were the only ones to stick around. “My husband was always a true believer,” Sandra says. “He wanted to move there so badly that he wasn’t upset about the price increase.”
The project finally broke ground in July, and the buildings are slated to be up by next summer. Reservations have been slow to come in, but Curran’s Coldwell Banker agents blame the slow market. They say they’re confident that once there are visible signs of development on the site, the inquiries will soar. The neighborhood ranks as one of the highest in car theft and robbery, yet if things go as planned, 60 to 70 people paying upwards of $450,000 apiece will soon be living in their own little sanctuary, enjoying the city’s hidden jewel of a view.
What will the next headline read? “Development Increases Property Tax, Stuns City Officials and Satisfies Residents” or “Bluffs Project Ahead of Its Time” or “Disinterest Stalls Curran Further”?
Never short for words, Curran is more than happy to weigh in. “I don’t think I’m a mover and a shaker, but I can build a pretty goddamn good project on this site,” he says. “Whether you agree with me or not, I’m building it; I’m writing the checks, so I’m doin’ it. Get outta my way.”
