Condos add new option for Shaw neighborhood – 8 Jun 2007 P-D

Michelle Duffe was tired of seeing her older neighbors leaving the historic Shaw neighborhood because they could no longer handle the upkeep of their large houses.

The problem was, the area was dominated by large single-family houses, and if people wanted to downgrade to a more manageable condo, it meant leaving the neighborhood.

Duffe and her partners in the CCND development group aimed to create a closer option for such residents with the Compton Gate Condominium development at 2201 South Grand Boulevard at Flad Avenue.

“A lot of us live in the neighborhood because we love the (Missouri) Botanical Garden and South Grand” and other nearby amenities, Duffe said. She often sees people who gave up their large Shaw houses return for church or social events or to go out to dinner.

“We decided that one thing the south side was missing was a condominium project of this scale.”

Space to build such a project was hard to come by in the Shaw neighborhood, though, until a vacant lot along Grand became available about three years ago, she said.

The condos, which strive to match the architectural feel of the neighborhood, are being built with elements of universal design – wider doorways and halls, walk-in showers and other features that promote accessibility – to accommodate older residents.

Builders also went to extra lengths to soundproof the building from road noise outside and to minimize sound travel between units to accommodate residents used to single-family houses on quiet streets.

The $10 million development has 30 units from 1,246 square feet to 1,935 square feet split between two buildings. Prices range from $239,000 to $415,000. Four units already are reserved, and the condos should start opening this month.

That’s several months behind schedule, thanks to a mysterious fire that brought construction to a halt in April 2006, about six months into the project.

The fast-spreading fire destroyed the wooden frame of the three-story buildings and did $3 million worth of damage. The roof was not yet in place, but some plumbing had been installed. No electrical wiring was in place.

Investigators suspected arson, but the cause of the fire still has not been determined.

“It’s a pretty traumatic way to start,” said architect Paul Doerner, a partner at the Lawrence Group, the St. Louis architectural firm that designed the condos.

Doerner and his team made sure the new buildings would fit better with the surrounding area than the Shoney’s restaurant that occupied the space before.

“The neighborhood is fairly eclectic. Finding some common ground is how you start,” Doerner said. “You have to make sure it gels with the neighborhood.”

The condos sit across Grand from the mansions of Compton Heights, a few blocks north of Tower Grove Park and the restaurants of South Grand.

The building features a mostly brick exterior, with some Tudor-style details and balconies and gables.

Duffe said that while her first ideas for the condos sprang from the needs of older residents, she also expects younger people to be attracted to the condos because of the number of nearby employers and the amenities of the area.

Doerner said the universal design used in the buildings also will be attractive to all age groups because it lends itself to a more open, comfortable feel.

“Most people don’t want things to be tight and claustrophobic,” he said. “They want them bright and open and airy.”

The developers also are working on a group of town houses on the site that will complete the project. They are expected to be complete by early spring.

Arson is suspected in fire – 28 Apr 2006 P-D

Investigators are looking into arson in a fast-spreading fire that destroyed the block-long shell of a 30-unit condominium development under construction on South Grand Boulevard.

“It went up too fast,” said St. Louis Police bombing and arson Detective Richie Williams. “The way it spread so quickly would indicate that an accelerant was used — but we’ve got no hard evidence at this point.”

The fire erupted about 4 a.m. Thursday at the Compton Gates Condominium development, at 2201 South Grand at Flad Avenue, causing an estimated $3 million in damages to the $10 million project. The development sits at the east end of the Shaw Neighborhood, one of the preservation success stories on the city’s South Side.

The heat of the fire was so intense that it blew out some windows of nearby homes and streetlights and melted plastic bumpers on parked cars and a large Jack in the Box sign next door.

The project was due to be completed by October or November, and nine of the 30 units were under contract, Duffe said. The condos are priced at $238,000 to $380,000.

Williams said samples were taken and would be analyzed to determine whether an accelerant had been used.

“To burn wood, you need a fuel to get it going,” he said. “This went up like a torch.”

Williams said a gasoline can that could not be identified as belonging there had been recovered from the debris.

Some area residents reported hearing loud booms at the time of the fire, but Williams said that the noises were probably caused by pipe glue cans exploding from the heat.

Duffe looked at the charred remains Thursday with sadness.

“It’s a terrible thing to see. It’s a great project, and it was going beautifully,” she said.

Duffe said that insurance would cover the loss and that the project would be continued.

Construction of the complex began in November. The three-story wooden frame had been erected, but the roof was not yet in place. Some plumbing work had been done; no electricity had yet been installed.

Williams said there had been no reported labor-related problems at the construction site. He said police had a couple of leads to explore if the cause of the fire was determined to be arson.

The development sits directly across Grand from the stately mansions of Compton Heights. It is a few blocks north of the thriving restaurant area on South Grand near Tower Grove Park and a few blocks south of the reconstruction in the old McRee Town neighborhood.

Conflict Charges – Agency Grants Broke Laws, Audit Says – 31 Jul 1991 P-D

For years, St. Louis redevelopment officials gave millions of dollars in federal funds to two neighborhood redevelopment groups that they headed, a violation of federal conflict-of-interest laws, according to an audit obtained Tuesday by the Post-Dispatch.

Mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr. must end the practice, says the audit from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the agency that gave the money.

The funds were given to the St. Margaret of Scotland Housing Corp., active in the Shaw neighborhood, and the DeSales Community Housing Corp., which is active in the Compton Heights, Tower Grove East and Fox Park neighborhoods.

Some board members of the city’s Community Development Agency sat also on the boards of the two agencies.

A spokesman for Schoemehl did not respond to questions. But Chuck Kindleberger, acting director of the city’s Community Development Agency, said the ”possible” conflicts of interest ”no longer exist, having been corrected more than two years ago.”

HUD wants Schoemehl to repay $50,415 in block grants that auditors say was given to city employees as commissions for selling property the city bought with block grants between 1986 and 1988. The bonuses were in addition to their salaries.

Michelle Duffe, who headed the Land Reutilization Authority, a city agency that acquires tax delinquent property, paid the bonuses to herself and some employees, the audit said.

In a memo date July 3, HUD’s regional inspector general, Phillip L. Whitaker, said: ”Conflict of interest situations . . . resulted in improperly spent federal grant monies. There is also the potential for favored treatment of individuals and/or subrecipient agencies.”

Whitaker’s report was based upon an investigation conducted by the General Accounting Office, the investigative agency for Congress, said John Susi, deputy manager of HUD’s St. Louis office.

The GAO began investigating the city’s block grant program last year at the request of Rep. William Clay, D-St. Louis. Clay’s office declined to comment on the report.

HUD gives St. Louis about $20 million in block grants annually for a variety of programs, including housing, economic development and social services. The money is targeted for areas populated by people with low-to-moderate incomes.

The city funnels the block grants to the Community Development Agency, whose board members have often run neighborhood organizations that received block grant funds, according to the audit.

One of those neighborhood organizations was the St. Margaret of Scotland Housing Corp., which received $3 million in block grants and Urban Development Action Grants between 1982 and 1989 for housing and other programs.

Two members of St. Margaret’s board – Dennis Coleman and the Rev. Richard Quirk – were members of the Community Development Agency’s board, which gave the block grants to St. Margaret’s, the audit said.

”I was a member of both groups,” Quirk said. ”I never voted on any proposals that were directly to affect St. Margaret’s. We were citizens committed to reviving our neighborhood. We did our best not to engage in any improper actions.”

Duffe also served on the corporation board. Neither she nor Coleman, who is now executive director of the St. Louis County Economic Council, is now a member of St. Margaret’s board.

Coleman denied that he had been a member of St. Margaret’s board while he ran the Community Development Agency. ”I was on the St. Margaret board for a very brief period of time,” he said. ”I think I attended a couple of meetings.”

The audit also raised conflict-of-interest questions over $1 million in block grants that had been given to the DeSales Housing Corp., whose board members included Coleman and Janice Huebner, another CDA board member.

Coleman said he had resigned from the DeSales board when he became the city’s CDA director. He returned to the DeSales board when he quit the job with the Community Development Agency.

”I abstained on any vote that had anything to do with DeSales,” Coleman said. ”I don’t think there can be a conflict if you abstain from voting.”

The CDA board gave block grants also to the Land Reutilization Authority, which used some of the federal funds to pay its employees, including Duffe.

Those employees also worked for a private company, LRA Real Estate Inc., that was headed by Duffe and housed in city-owned offices.

LRA Real Estate, which is now defunct, was formed to sell property owned by the city and private landowners. Its employees were to get commissions for selling private property but not land bought by the city with block grants, the audit said.

But HUD auditors found that Duffe had paid a total of $50,415 in commissions to herself and other LRA Real Estate employees who sold city-owned land bought with block grants while their salaries were paid ”in part or in whole” with block grants.

Duffe was on vacation and unavailable for comment Tuesday.

”It is unusual” for city employees to receive commissions for selling land acquired with block grants, Susi said. ”It shouldn’t happen.”

Instead of giving that money to employees, Susi said, the city should have used the $50,415 for other programs, such as housing.

Housing Firm, Alderman Koch Clash Over Issue Of ‘Control – 12 Mar 1990 P-D

Alderman John Koch, D-8th Ward, who has cut off $50,000 in city money for the St. Margaret Housing Corp., is trying to set up another housing group that he says ”will mesh more closely with the Shaw Neighborhood Association.”

Koch is appointing a steering committee of Shaw residents to set up a housing corporation that would reflect what such a group is meant to be, he said. ”That is, being a cheerleader for the neighborhood, to work on promotional events, to work on stimulating interest in people coming in, to work with individuals and developers.”

Tom Mangogna, whom Koch asked to resign as president of St. Margaret’s, called the issue a question of ”who controls the housing corporation.”

He said, ”The whole issue is not over specifics. It is a matter of control. About every time we met a specific demand ›of Koch’s, a new demand arises. He is trying to knock out St. Margaret’s.

”The politicians shouldn’t control housing corporations.”

Mangogna said that St. Margaret’s, one of the oldest such housing groups in the city, had outstanding loans of about $850,000 and about 14 pieces of property, most of it multifamily.

He said the housing group had basically been acquiring properties with ”severe physical problems or severe tenant problems. Our objective is to upgrade the neighborhood. We are not in this for profit. We are a non-profit organization.”

Mangogna contended that ”three or four of ›Koch’s closest friends want to control” St. Margaret’s or start their own neighborhood housing corporation.

Koch denied any ”political situation” but said that last fall, he had gone to the city’s Community Development Agency and asked officials there to change the ”designation of the operating appropriation and give it a generic of Shaw Neighborhood Improvement.”

Koch said he had told the development agency’s board that the St. Margaret board was ignoring the wishes of Shaw neighborhood leaders. He said Michelle Duffe and Dana Hines, who had been on the St. Margaret’s board, were ”orchestrated off.”

Mangogna said they had failed to be re-elected by board members.

Koch called the defeat ”a slap in the face” for two people active in the Shaw area. Duffee is a former vice president of the Shaw Neighborhood Improvement Association, and Hines is a former president of the group.

”If you talk about people ›on the St. Margaret housing board, you draw blank stares,” Koch charged.

Steve Conway, a longtime resident and chairman of the Eighth Ward Independent Democratic Association, called Koch’s argument that St. Margaret was doing a poor marketing job ”a red herring.”

”They have invested a lot of time, money and effort to get rental lunits back on the market. If they pull out $50,000, they’ll take some shortages, which means they will have to sell off in a depressed market, which will further erode prices of ›other neighborhood property.

”The impact, beside being financial, is going to add to the division we have in the 8th Ward. It will have an impact on everyone else in other housing corporations in the city. St. Margaret has served as a model.”

Conway said, ”Putting politics into funding through the city is a precedent” that would make a housing corporation ”a political extension of the alderman.”

BEAUTIFY HEADLINE: RESIDENTS PRAISE $15,000 GIFT TO HELP IMPROVE 39TH STREET – 26 Sep 1988 P-D

Calling efforts to beautify 39th Street extremely important to the Shaw neighborhood, leaders of the community say they are pleased by the recent $15,000 beautification grant from Southwestern Bell and the St. Louis Community Development Agency.

”Thirty-ninth runs through the center of Shaw,” said Michelle Duffe, vice president of the Shaw Neighborhood Improvement Association. It is ”extremely important how people perceive one of the main entrances to the neighborhood,” she said.

The landscaping, trees and light pole banners that the grant will pay for will tie in the north and south parts of the area between Magnolia Avenue on the south and Chouteau Avenue on the north, Duffe said.

Hardy trees such as green ash and red and hard maples will have different colors in spring and fall. The leaf colors will match those in the three-block redevelopment area from DeTonty Street south to Russell Avenue in the center of that stretch of 39th Street, Duffe said.

She said the association also would prepare brochures for prospective commercial tenants.

”The idea is to expand what is now the 39th Street Business Association,” she said. Grant funds will not be used in the redevelopment area, she said.

About $10,000 has been raised for landscaping, with much of that coming from neighborhood residents. ”We always wanted to deal with the whole,” Duffe said.

”Regardless of the controversies going on about 39th Street,” said Alderman John Koch, D-8th Ward, ”it’s still viable and has workable businesses.”

The plan shows an effort ”to try to make the neighborhood an attractive place for families, a real home neighborhood where small-business owners can work and thrive, ” he said.

Part of the area to be landscaped is in the Tiffany redevelopment area. ”We will be able to take a rather drab 39th Street, dress it up and make it far more attractive,” said Thomas J. Mangogna, executive director of the Midtown Medical Center Redevelopment Corp., whose area includes the Tiffany neighborhood to the north.

The building interiors are in good shape, Mangogna said, but the view is a ”stark streetscape.”

A ”rock” party was held Saturday at a vacant lot at 39th and Castleman Avenue when youths were offered 50 cents for every bucket of rocks picked up. The party was sponsored by the Shaw neighborhood group.

A Southwestern Bell spokesman said the purpose of the grant program is to improve the economic climate of the neighborhoods. The grant was one of eight awarded. He said 34 groups had applied for funds under the program.