ST. LOUIS — Fifty years after facing demolition, the historic Wainwright Building again faces an uncertain future. And that uncertainty has drawn even more questions about the future of downtown St. Louis.
Missouri state government, which was key to the building’s survival in the 1970s, this month announced it would abandon the historic structure, moving most of its workforce there to the suburbs.
The decision to sell the Wainwright and another downtown office building marks the latest public relations blow for City Hall, which has faced renewed criticism over its public safety strategy for the central business district following a chaotic Fourth of July and from the Wall Street Journal.
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It also forces St. Louis’ economic development agency and a private sector partner, Greater St. Louis Inc., to grapple with another downtown albatross ahead of a September deadline to present Mayor Tishaura O. Jones with solutions for tackling vacant buildings. And the move won’t help with the city’s office vacancy rate, which has already been rising in recent years.
“The state’s announcement is unwelcome and unhelpful,†Greater St. Louis Inc. said this week after the Post-Dispatch reported on the Missouri Board of Public Buildings vote to unload the real estate.
In many ways, the story of the Wainwright Building, at Chestnut and North Seventh streets, reflects broader questions about what to do with downtown St. Louis.
The property houses several state agencies like the Department of Insurance, Auditor’s Office and Department of Mental Health. But it’s unclear how many of the roughly 600 people the state said it would relocate to Chesterfield actually come in to the office. There was little activity around the building in recent days.
The state also has been slowly pulling out of the city for nearly two decades. Employment records show that more than 5,300 state employees worked in St. Louis. By 2021, that number fell to 3,259. That correlates with a similar decline of public employees across Missouri, from 57,000 in 2013 to 51,000 in 2022, according to the state’s latest annual report.
The state’s decision also follows a broader trend of companies shrinking their real estate footprints after the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting more to work-from-home schedules. That further impedes historic preservation, said Andrew Weil, who leads the nonprofit Landmarks Association of St. Louis.
“What do we do with these buildings?†Weil said. “At the end of the day, everybody in the state of ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ owns that building. It’s a real jewel in our statewide and national architectural crown.â€
Landmark structure
Famed architect Louis Sullivan designed the Wainwright Building in 1891 for Ellis Wainwright, a prominent brewer, art collector and socialite who later left St. Louis after getting indicted for conspiring to bribe state lawmakers. After about 20 years in Paris, Wainwright returned to St. Louis, where he died in 1924, months after Sullivan’s own death.
The 10-story Wainwright Building, with intricate geometrical designs across its terra cotta façade, is considered one of the world’s first skyscrapers, a status that gave it global recognition and .
George Kassabaum, a founder of prominent architecture firm HOK, said in the 1960s that the Wainwright was one of five buildings in the downtown area that gave St. Louis its personality along with the Eads Bridge, Old Courthouse, Union Station and Old Post Office Building.
But by 1973, the Wainwright was half vacant and no longer profitable. Its owner, Michelson Realty Co., sought to demolish it.
That’s when the office of then-Gov. Christopher “Kit†Bond intervened.
Henry Meade Summers Jr., an official in the Republican’s administration and leader of the Landmarks Association at the time, advocated Wainwright’s historic significance and was instrumental in persuading Bond, who was not available to comment for this story, to take action to save it from being razed.
“They saw it as a win-win situation: It saved the building and it also (brought) 600 additional people to the central business district,†said his son, Meade Summers. “Governor Bond understood the significance of downtown and listened to Dad.â€
Bond rallied his fellow members of the Missouri Board of Public Buildings, which included then-Attorney General John C. Danforth, to buy the Wainwright over another building in Midtown that politicos had preferred. The decision, Bond said at the time, would also help to stem the recent loss of businesses that had weakened downtown.
His administration eventually got the Legislature to allocate money for the renovation and expansion as well — about $18 million at the time, or roughly $62 million in today’s dollars.
Plans, however, stalled as Bond lost reelection in 1976 to Democrat Joe Teasdale. Bond, in a comeback, beat Teasdale in 1980; .
In June of that year, at the dedication of Wainwright, Bond said: “One need only stand here to feel the poetry of this building.â€
Just business
The dynamics have shifted dramatically in recent years.
Since COVID started in 2020, office occupancy on average across the region has fallen from 88.4% to 82.6%. The downtown area saw it decline from 81.3% to 73.5% over the same period — and now has the lowest occupancy of any neighborhood in the metro area, according to the latest data from commercial real estate firm CBRE.
The Wall Street Journal, in the controversial article published in April, characterized St. Louis’ downtown as “real estate nightmare,†prompting the city’s economic development agency, St. Louis Development Corp., and Greater St. Louis Inc. to publicize an effort to find solutions for the biggest empty buildings, the Railway Exchange and Millennium Hotel. The organizations set a September deadline to come up with a plan. They’re likely to add Wainwright to their to-do list.
Calamity over the July 4 holiday, in which one person died, multiple were shot down and several windows were shot out of downtown’s still-occupied office buildings, led to a public outcry to City Hall to do more to protect residents and visitors.
As for the Wainwright, the state’s Office of Administration has said it would cost $23 million to maintain and repair the building. But an agency spokesman declined to detail those costs, saying any records with that information would be closed to the public until the state sells the building.
City records show the state has pulled less than five building permits over the past decade, suggesting it’s been years since Wainwright saw any semblance of a renovation.
It’s also not clear whether the state has identified an office building in Chesterfield. Real estate sources said they were told the state wouldn’t make a choice until Wainwright is sold.
The building is for $5 million, with a closing date of Aug. 29.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson has defended the decision to sell, saying it’s just business.
“It was just an opportunity. There’s another facility there in Chesterfield … a much more modern facility,†Parson said. “Needless to say, we’re finding ways to try and save money for the state of Missouri.â€
But he also acknowledged that he hasn’t been in contact with city officials, who have lamented the decision.
“Downtown St. Louis is the economic engine of the St. Louis metro, which accounts for over 40% of the economic activity in the state of Missouri,†Tony Wyche, a spokesman for regional business group Greater St. Louis Inc., said in a statement. “The state should be doing more to partner on efforts to strengthen Downtown.â€
Neal Richardson, who heads St. Louis Development Corp., in a statement declined to speak on the state’s decision. But he added that “reactivating vacant buildings and blighted assets†in downtown is the focal point of his St. Louis Development Corp. and Greater St. Louis Inc.’s plan to turn around the neighborhood that will be presented to the mayor in September.
Summers, who leads real estate firm Hilliker Corp. and whose father helped save Wainwright 50 years ago, said there’s no market for office space now. But converting the building to residential could hold promise.
Renter demand has improved over the year with vacancy falling nearly 3 percentage points to just over 20% as new apartment complexes have opened, such The Victor in Downtown West, 11th & Spruce and Ballpark Heights, which are both just blocks from Wainwright, according to real estate data from Costar.
“The historic preservation in downtown has been fabulous, and the city of St. Louis has never looked so good physically,†Summers said. “But it’s never been as in as bad a shape from a safety standpoint.
“We are seizing defeat from victory,†he said.
Kurt Erickson of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.