ST. LOUIS — For years, a row of vacant buildings on Kingshighway just south of Forest Park and the BJC medical campus have marred one of the most heavily used entrances to the city.
But a developer is finally proposing to put the prominent stretch of land just off Highway 40 (Interstate 64) into use. Lux Living, a prominent local development company led by Victor Alston and Sid Chakraverty, is pitching a six-story, 144-apartment building on the site near Oakland Avenue.
Lux’s proposal, which the company planned to present Tuesday night at a meeting of the Forest Park Southeast Neighborhood Association, calls for demolishing the seven vacant residential buildings on the east side of Kingshighway to make way for the new apartments, which will include a 144-space underground parking garage.
For years, the properties were held by an arm of Drury Hotels. Back in 2008, Drury pitched a massive, $100 million project for two 16-story hotel towers overlooking Forest Park. But after the Great Recession hit, the plans never materialized, and a new proposal never came forward.
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Earlier this year, Drury finally sold the land to a Lux affiliate, including several more parcels backing into the neighborhood along Arco and Oakland avenues. Those buildings aren’t included in the apartment building plans.
The Lux affiliate also signed an agreement with Drury, promising not to use the land for a hotel development nor to rent out its apartment rooms through services such as Airbnb.
Lux isn’t seeking tax abatement for the project, according to its presentation. That could have been difficult, given the developer’s ongoing dispute with the city’s economic development arm. Lux recently dropped a lawsuit against the St. Louis Development Corp., which it accused of not issuing it a tax abatement in retaliation for its attempt to use old restrictive covenants to force a competing development to change its plans and add parking. It’s unclear though, whether the developer will refile its lawsuit against the SLDC entity that actually grants the tax abatements.
But the company may not need it. It does not appear to have taken out a loan on the land buy the properties from Drury. And Lux has been on a building spree recently, constructing several apartment buildings in the Skinker-DeBaliviere area and around Soulard.
