The troubled Senate Square apartment complex in Benton Park—made up of 30 rowhouses in the northern part of the St. Louis neighborhood—is up for auction next month after its out-of-state owners defaulted on its mortgage.
The properties will “sell at public auction to the highest bidder for cash” on October 19, per a public notice in the St. Louis Daily Record dated Tuesday. The notice stipulates that the sale is for failing to pay debt secured by a “deed of trust,” similar to a mortgage, on the properties. An attorney at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, William Easley, is the successor trustee for the sale, overseeing it at auction to recoup the costs on the defaulted deed.
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It is not clear how much money is owed, or for how long it’s been due. Easley did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Neighbors and residents at Senate Square raised alarm about the properties’ condition to SLM over the summer, warning about water leaks, unsecured units with reports of squatters, overgrown weeds, and vacancy in an otherwise scenic corner of the South City neighborhood. Now, after uncertainty, it appears the properties could soon change hands. It is not clear if the boundaries listed in that notice, which also show properties elsewhere in the city, is the entirety of Senate Square, but all the streets with Senate Square buildings are listed.
Kendah El-Ali, a neighbor who has been vocal about problems at Senate Square, was pleasantly surprised by the news, but says she’s worried about the properties going to another neglectful landlord.
“My dream would be that people go in there on a more individual basis and flip them,” says Ell-Ali. “It’d be cool if they’re cared for. … I feel like Benton Park needs more homes still.”
Senate Square’s current owners are a complex set of shell companies, including ST. LOUIS 5 2022, with ties to multiple out-of-state companies. The apartments—consisting of roughly 30 buildings and 100 units—were sold in 2022 to New York-based David Stern Management, along with a number of other local complexes.
David Shemano, listed online at one point as the CEO of David Stern Management, was the registered agent of that shell company until 2022, when it transferred ownership to a man named David Shores, who’s also named as a potential receiver for another Shemano-tied property in Memphis, Tennessee. Nearly all those complexes sold in 2022 are managed by Aurox Equities, another firm out of New York. In Memphis, the owner of Aurox is referred to as an “investor” into Shemano’s properties.
