When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, Against Catiline
I wasn’t going to write about this, but on Friday my drive around the city to various gallery openings brought me down Taylor Avenue, past Westminster Place, where a recent board bill, BB231, introduced by 28th Alderwoman and mayoral candidate Lyda Krewson, has sought to declare the area blighted. According to Missouri State Statute, the definition of blight is:
“Blight shall mean any area where dwellings predominate which, by reason of dilapidation, overcrowding, lack of ventilation, light or sanitary facilities or any combination of these factors are detrimental to safety, health and morals.”
As I gazed up at the elegant buildings at the intersection, designed by some of the most prominent architects of St. Louis, owned by some of the city’s most famed residents and restored by some of the most devoted rehabbers, I grew angry. This is not a blighted area. There is no predominance of dilapidation, overcrowding or lack of ventilation. This is one of the most desirable intersections in the entire city of St. Louis. On the northwest corner, Second Presbyterian Church, designed by Union Station architect Theodore Link in 1899, stands proudly and in an impeccable state of preservation.
On the southwest corner, a beautiful Renaissance Revival building constructed in 1908 stands in excellent condition, though it does have a window air conditioner sticking out of one of its windows. Perhaps that can qualify as blight. On the southeast corner, there is a stately home that once belonged to Benoist Carton, who worked at A.G. Edwards and the Union Trust Company, and was a member of the upper echelons of St. Louis society. His former house has been carefully restored and sports what looks to be a relatively fresh coat of paint.
And then we get to the northeast corner of Taylor and Westminster. For whatever reason, and the explanation has been lost to the sands of time, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese constructed a convent for nuns belonging the order of the Helpers of the Holy Souls, which prays for those souls trapped in Purgatory. How appropriate, considering that this is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s denunciation of the concept of Purgatory, setting off the Protestant Reformation. The former convent (which, it’s important to note, has not been owned by the Archdiocese for a long, long time) is not particularly attractive, featuring bland brickwork and a weird Mansard roof. Its most noteworthy feature, as 11th Ward Alderman Thomas Villa pointed out, are the Modernist stained glass windows in the chapel.
“That looks like new construction in my ward,” 4th Ward Alderman Sam Moore dryly remarked at the January 10 meeting of the Neighborhood Development Committee of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. You see, the “blighted” conditions of the Central West End necessitate the awarding of tax abatements to encourage development of five new, $675,000 townhomes in such a run-down neighborhood as seen at the corner of Westminster and Taylor. I did see a cracked sidewalk, which was good enough to declare another area blighted elsewhere in St. Louis.
“I’m having a hard time understanding why any abatement would be needed to sell townhomes on one of the most sought-after streets in the city,” observed 20th Ward Alderwoman Cara Spencer.
“I need a magnifying glass to read all of this,” Alderwoman Krewson admitted, trying to read the fine print in the proposal. She was testifying before the committee in order to secure a tax abatement for the proposed townhomes in BB231.
“What is the average sale price of single houses in that neighborhood?” asked 22nd Ward Alderman and mayoral candidate, Jeffrey Boyd. Krewson suggested around the $500-$600,000 mark. According to Zillow, the former Benoist Carton House, across from the old convent, sold for $1.1 million in September 2014. If this is a blighted area, then the entire St. Louis region, with perhaps the exception of the Orthwein Mansion in Huntleigh, is blighted. Though I did notice a cracked sidewalk out front when I toured it two years ago; perhaps it needs to be blighted as well.
Readers, and city leaders, would benefit from taking a drive, or preferably a stroll on foot, up Taylor from Westminster Place, and get a tour of the Tale of Two Cities illustrated in just the span of ten blocks. As the rehabbed mansions give way to abandoned buildings, just as august back in the day as their southern neighbors, you quickly realize that those invisible lines that separate this city have real-world consequences. As I photographed Westminster and Taylor Saturday morning I watched as metal scrappers, their carts loaded up with discarded steel and copper, rolled down Taylor from Fountain Park and Lewis Place to the north.
One man, his shopping cart heavily loaded down with scrap, struggled to push his load up a sidewalk ramp. I will admit, as he stumbled and heaved under the Sisyphean weight of his scrap metal, that I had a flash of realization of how fortunate and privileged my life has been. I considered asking his opinion of the construction of $675,000 townhomes, but realized how insulting that would be. As I watched him pick through the dumpsters behind Westminster Place, I wondered when his tax abatement legislation would come before committee downtown.
The committee then turned to the arithmetic of the developer, James Dwyer’s plans for the five townhouses. Simply put, it came down to the desired profits for the developer; frankly, that is his problem, not taxpayers’, if he cannot make it work financially. And from an aesthetic standpoint, they are far too large, too boxy, to fit in with the elegant single family mansions of Westminster Place. They incongruously feature Mansard roofs, which were long out of fashion when the original mansions of the private street were constructed. I struggled to understand why Alderwoman Krewson was even bothering to do this. Could it be the $250 that Mr. Dwyer gave to her mayoral campaign? Surely not, I hope.
“It just is not necessary,” Alderman Boyd observed, speaking of the tax abatement. No, it is not. Tax abatements should be used to rejuvenate struggling neighborhoods, such as Lewis Place or Fountain Park. As Cicero asked two millennia ago, “When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours?”
Related: How Owners of a $600,000 House Get Away With Paying $400 in Property Taxes
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via email at [email protected].
