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ST. LOUIS — A city appeals board on Thursday rejected plans to reopen a controversial downtown homeless shelter as a kind of church for the poor, with at least one member saying it wasn’t clear the new use would truly differ from the old one.

“It’s a shelter,� said Gene Cullman, chairman of the Board of Building Appeals.

Officials with New Life Evangelistic Center, led by the Rev. Larry Rice, had cast their new plans for 1411 Locust Street as a clean break from the old days.

They spent decades packing their building with hundreds of people per night. But about a decade ago, a surge of investment in and around the Washington Avenue loft district had new residents and young professionals surrounding the shelter, squaring up a clash.

Developers and neighbors took their case to City Hall, accusing New Life of fostering loitering, public urination and drug dealing. And in 2017, City Hall shut it down, citing code violations.

But last year, Rice said he wanted to reopen the building to serve people during the day with worship space, a food pantry and counseling. He and other New Life officials promised that closing time would be well before bedtime, and were careful to avoid calling it a shelter of any kind.

The city issued a permit for renovations aimed at bringing the building up to code and preparing it for reopening.

But some neighbors, led by longtime downtown resident and advocate Matt O’Leary, challenged the permit. They told the appeals board that even with the renovations, the building wouldn’t be up to code. They said that if the city allowed Rice to reopen at all, the old shelter would surely reopen.

And a visit to the building this week raised eyebrows: Rows of bunk beds could still be found on the upper floors, six years after the city closed the shelter. Rice said that would be sealed off before reopening.

But at Thursday’s meeting, board members unanimously sided with the neighbors. Cullman, the chairman, said it was clear to him that New Life wanted to open a daytime homeless shelter. And he said they’d yet to show they could keep order among all the people they would attract.

“It seems like that’s an attractive nuisance,� he said.

In an interview after the meeting, Rice criticized the decision as bigotry against the city’s homeless.

“Pure discrimination is what it is,� he said.

The building, he said, could be a place for people to go to get out of the summer heat, and to get help for what ails them.

He said New Life now plans to ask federal courts to allow it to reopen on religious freedom grounds.