A 36-unit apartment building whose development has long been stuck at the city’s Preservation Board now appears set for construction off Morganford Road, just two blocks from Tower Grove Park.
In the past two years, developer AHM Group has twice been denied permission to knock down three historic, rundown buildings at Juniata and Morganford to make way for the apartments. But last week, the city’s Planning Commission, whose authority supersedes that of the Preservation Board, gave AHM the OK to knock down the structures.
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Two of the buildings at Morganford and Juniata have long been vacant, while the third houses Recs n’ Threads, a record and clothing store open a few days a week. The Preservation Board’s involvement comes because they reside in the Oak Hill National Register District, which is tasked with protecting architecture within historic districts in the city. They rejected AHM’s request for a demo permit in July 2023 and again last September not so much from a love for the current under-used buildings at the bustling corner but out of skepticism for the building AHM hoped to build.
At the July 2023 meeting, one neighborhood resident said of AHM’s proposed development: “This building looks exactly like my periodontist office in Creve Coeur off of Ballas Road, and I am not exaggerating.” She went on to say that the building didn’t belong in Tower Grove South or anywhere in the city. “It belongs in O’Fallon, Ballwin, Creve Coeur.”
To gain approval for the demolition from the Planning Commission, AHM principal Kyle Howerton says changes were made to the aesthetics. Initial plans featured a green wall around the ground floor parking structure. “The Preservation Board board did not like that at all,” he says. Now, the wall will be translucent and look more like a retail storefront.
Howerton says they still need to get a few zoning variances, but AHM’s other two buildings in the neighborhood—the MoFo and the Y|O, both sizable apartment complexes—provide a precedent. If their history is any guide, after those variances are secured, AHM will need to get a building permit for the site, at which point the existing structures can be demolished.
“We’ve cleared the largest hurdle we had,” Howerton says.
One resident living on Juniata near Morganford, who asked to only be referred to as Amber, said she supported the apartments getting built.
“It’s decrepit,” Amber said of the buildings currently occupying the corner. “I would much rather it be occupied than vacant.” She added the vacant buildings are magnets for loitering and graffiti. One property’s entire wooden back deck was stolen. Just down the block, another neighbor said that anyone worried about increased traffic should take a look at some neighborhoods in the city that have barely any traffic at all.
Throughout the process of AHM getting the OK to demo the buildings, several neighbors spoke out against the project, expressing concerns not only about increased traffic caused by the new units, but that construction of big apartment buildings would preclude small businesses from operating in the area, as well as drive up rents. Some neighbors expressed concern that the more these big complexes go up, the more the neighborhood loses its red brick character.
On the topic of raising everyone’s rents, Howerton pushes back. “Building additional units is what decreases rental rates,” he says. “Preventing construction will raise rents.”
He says that he hopes to break ground on the project by the end of the year. All developers operate under some base level of uncertainty, he says. That aside, he says, “We feel like we’re in a good spot in terms of construction, materials, and labor.”
The 36 units will all be one bed, one bath. Rents will be market-rate. Howerton says he expects rents to be around what one might pay in the Central West End. All told, the development will be a little north of $10 million.
As for Recs n’ Threads, the one business currently operating at the buildings now likely to be knocked down, Howerton says that it will have the option to relocate to another AHM-owned property. “We let him use the space at no cost to test their concept and whether they’d make it a full-time business vs. a passion hobby,” Howerton said in an email. “It was a test run for them.”
