About Alex Ihnen

According to the St. Louis Business Journal, The DESCO Group has a preliminary plan in place for an $80M development including a three-story, 36K sf mixed-use building at the former Shriners Hospital site on South Lindbergh Boulevard site adjacent to the Plaza Frontenac. Two 6,500 sf restaurants and a Lifetime Fitness would also be added to the 9.5-acre site.

“Preliminary Concept Design Only, DESCO Building to Have Similar Design Intent”:

From our previous report: DESCO has Frontenac Shriners Hospital Site Under Contract 

nextSTL has learned the commercial real estate division for Schnucks Markets Inc., DESCO Group, has the Shriners Hospital for Children campus in Frontenac under contract. The parcel has attracted much attention from developers since 2013. That is when the Tampa-based organization announced plans for a new $47 million hospital in the Central West End (CWE).

nextSTL sources say at least four groups have made serious offers for the Shriners property thus far. This includes a second attempt to land a Frontenac location by high-end health club chain Lifetime Fitness, and interest from BJC. Activity regarding pursuit of the property has been so high that the Shriners decided to handle the sale itself, forgoing local representation.

The Frontenac children’s hospital opened in 1963, and will see its final patients on May 16. It is situated between St. Joseph’s Academy to its south, and Plaza Frontenac to its north. A residential community along Litzsinger Rd. comprised of 14 estates borders the hospital property to its west.

According to nextSTL sources the DESCO Group has one year to do its due diligence. This involves the buyer completing a thorough investigation of the property before committing to buy. Due diligence reduces the risk the buyer will be disappointed and increases the chances the seller will have its terms met. Still way too early to tell, but high-end retail plans for the site have been mentioned.

Any commercial development at the site would almost certainly meet fierce resistance from residents. That is what killed the proposed 2012 Sansone Group mixed-use project at the Ladue Early Childhood Center near the Spoede and Clayton Roads intersection. Opposition from neighboring homeowners, including three-time U.S. Open golf champion Hale Irwin, was too much to overcome. An attempt to reach the Shriners and DESCO for comment was unsuccessful.

Similar opposition has organized against a proposal for 30 villas, 24 townhomes and an 86-bed assisted living facility at the site of the closed Ladue Early Childhood Center on Clayton Road. A citizen group titled “Citizens AGAINST High-Rise Assisted Living & High Density Housing” has opposed that development under the banner of “preserve the beauty of Frontenac”.

The new 4-acre Shriners St. Louis Hospital for Children will be located at the corner of Clayton and Newstead Avenues, on the BJC campus in the CWE. This will be the third facility for Shriners Hospital for Children in St. Louis. In July of 1921 property for the first hospital, located only two blocks from the new CWE hospital, was purchased for $150,000. In January, nextSTL was first to report that the Washington University School of Medicine is exploring converting the 1921 building to medical student housing.

The retail landscape in St. Louis isn’t healthy. Vacancy is high, we’re famous for our dead malls and empty retail strips, and even new retail is struggling. But St. Louis is a large and diverse metro area, with a diverse retail sector. While standard retail suffers, some specialty and local retail is finding success. The latest indicator of this is Goebel & Co. Furniture opening a retail storefront in the former Monarch restaurant space at 7401 Manchester Road in Maplewood.

Goebel has been building to this point for years. We profiled the company back in 2012 when it was operating out of the Temtor Building at 8125 Michigan Avenue in far south city. The building was long home to a Coca-Cola syrup manufacturing operation. After sitting vacant for years, it was redeveloped into a mix of residential, retail, and office space. It’s most trafficked tenant was and still is Perennial Artisan Ales.

When Goebel outgrew the space, it relocated to a 6,500 square feet in Midtown Alley and the Locust Business District. That building has something of an office and showroom streetside, but not exactly a brick & mortar retail presence. The Maplewood location saw the Goebel sign erected today and is set to open this fall. The company continues to seek a larger space for its manufacturing operations.

7401 Manchester:

Goebel & Co. was founded in 2011 by St. Louis natives Martin Goebel, Nick Leidenfrost and Noah Alexander, the latter two of the Classic Cars Studio. The company specializes in
residential, commercial and hospitality furniture, having supplied product to Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, Vicia restaurant, The Libertine, 4 Hands Brewery, Washington University in Saint Louis, Monsanto/The Climate Corporation, Tommy Bahama New York, Christner Inc., and others.

From our 2012 profile: Design Week Feature: Goebel & Co. Furniture and How St. Louis Fosters New Design Enterprises

For Goebel, choosing St. Louis has much more to do with the resources the City has to offer his company than just a desire to return to his family’s home town. In fact, basing Goebel & Co. in St. Louis capitalizes on a number of competitive advantages innate to the City, its business culture, its geography, and the revitalization of the City’s classic building stock.

St. Louis’ first competitive advantage is found in the hardwoods preferred for their furniture being native to Eastern Missouri, including classic offerings in Cherry and Walnut, but also specialty woods like Siberian Elm which produces a distinct blonde coloration to the woods.

Goebel & Co. selected products:

There are a handful of residential buildings facing Kingshighway in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood. In one view they’re woefully out of place, fronting seven lanes of a traffic and an interstate interchange. In another view, the homes anchor the edge of the residential neighborhood, holding and presenting its identity to those hurriedly passing through.

The homes on the west side of Kingshighway, in the tiny Kings Oak neighborhood, don’t seem nearly as challenged, but these FPSE four-families have been in limbo for more than a decade. Three years ago we write about Drury Development’s acquisition of these homes and others. It was a somewhat surprising expansion of its holdings. The 2008 hotel tower proposal seemed long gone, but with that move, seemed to still be alive.

Drury Dev hoping to demo 1 2-family on Kingshighway in FPSE. (Been following this activity a long time: https://t.co/NFVKdeILqP) pic.twitter.com/DZMAYeyPy4

— NEXTSTL.com (@NEXTSTL) May 12, 2017

Now Drury is seeking to demolish the building at the corner of Oakland Avenue and Kingshighway, just one of the row which has been assumed would make way for a hotel entrance if the plan ever comes to pass. Demolition will be considered at the city’s Preservation Board meeting later this month. We’ve watched this plan and process for nearly a decade, and it’s once again time to take a look at past proposals and current Drury holdings:

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May 12, 2014:
Drury Eyes Future Hotel, Adds 15 Parcels to Holdings in Forest Park Southeast

It’s a smart bet that there will be a landmark Drury Hotel in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood. Exactly when, and what it will look like is less certain. nextSTL has learned that Drury Development Corporation recently purchased 15 parcels on the edge of the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood for $1.675M.

Back in August 2008, Drury presented plans for two 16-story hotels towers with a total of 690 rooms. The idea received a mixed response from a packed church of more than 100 residents. Then the recession hit full force. Plans were put on hold.

Drury is currently focused on the completion of the 210-room Drury Inn & Suites Brentwood at Interstate 64 and Brentwood Boulevard just a few miles west. If that hotel performs as expected over its first year or so, the company’s attention is likely to turn to Forest Park Southeast (The Grove).

{rendering of twin 15-story hotel towers from 2008}

There are currently no revised renderings or site plans available, and Drury has not decided whether to pursue a plan similar to its 2008 proposal. The 15 parcels are added to five already owned by the company at the northwest corner of the neighborhood.

A Drury representative told nextSTL that the company had reached a point that it needed to make a decision on the FPSE site. The parcels had been marketed by KH Ventures LLC for several years. A number of the buildings have been vacant for up to a decade.

Drury plans to renovate a half dozen or more properties on Oakland and Arco. Current plans include renovating 4564 Arch and 1074 S. Kingshighway. Two homes on Gibson (4571 and 4521) will also be renovated as rental properties. The Gibson homes were acquired as part of a package with the church property several years ago.

{buildings such as these on Arco will be renovated as rental properties}

At that time, the idea of historic homes serving as hotel rooms or extended stay hotel rentals as a buffer between the hotel and residences was floated, and Drury stated that the church itself may form the lobby of the new development. It’s unclear if these ideas will be pursued.

This corner of the neighborhood has clearly been a target for development since at least the time MoDOT’s plan to remove the expansive I-64/Kingshighway cloverleaf interchange came along. Since then, some truly horrific plans have been floated.

While dead-on-arrival with zero chance of support from the neighborhood, or alderman, the K2 Commerical Group promoted images of a CVS, QuikTrip, and several office buildings. The idea would have required the demolition of more than 120 residential units.

{the K2 plan would have faced a mountain of opposition}

The site is challenging to access, and neighborhood residents have made it clear that they would not like to see hotel traffic on residential streets. Any development would require access at Oakland Avenue, the end of which was recently permanently vacated by the city, removing access to the neighborhood from Kingshighway at that point.

While the expanding adjacent medical center is seen as underserved by hotels, this is changing. A Hilton Home2 hotel is planned for the northeast corner of Chouteau and Taylor Avenues nearby, and the Cortex development further east is planned to include a hotel.

{the former church at Gibson Avenue has been owned by Drury for several years}

{buildings facing Kingshighway will likely be targeted for demolition}

About Chris Stritzel