A top Obama administration official will be in St. Louis Monday to announce a major federal grant meant to rehab a housing complex, build a community center and fund a suite of social services on the city’s near north side.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro will be in St. Louis to announce what is likely the final round of the administration’s Choice Neighborhoods grant program, a prestigious designation that has been awarded to a handful of cities and housing authorities since 2010.
It could be an important boost next to at Cass and Jefferson avenues.
It won’t be Secretary Castro’s first visit to St. Louis, but it likely will be the last major piece of federal help from an administration that appeared to give the St. Louis region more attention following the Ferguson unrest.
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beat out 29 other cities to make the round of five finalists.
It was likely helped by north St. Louis and north St. Louis County’s designation as a federal Promise Zone, which gives the region bonus points on applications for federal grants to aid the poorest neighborhoods in St. Louis. to announce St. Louis’s inclusion into the exclusive program. A few months later, for north St. Louis County housing developments near MetroLink stations.Â
The competitive Choice program being awarded to St. Louis Monday requires cities or housing authorities to line up private and nonprofit resources to supplement the federal money with education and employment training programs.
St. Louis, which partnered with housing developer McCormack Baron Salazar, St. Louis Public Schools, and human services coordinating firm Urban Strategies, expects to leverage some $75 million or more worth of services on top of the federal money.
The program centers around the Preservation Square (formerly O’Fallon Place) subsidized housing complex, owned by McCormack Baron. It would tap some $20 million of federal money and, in combination with other funds, use it to update the housing units and reconfigure streets to open up the complex, which has only one entrance accessible to cars.
Plans call for retail space along the complex’s 14th Street border in an effort to beautify a street seen as a key corridor to downtown. With a wall of warehouses separating the area from downtown, 14th Street is one of the few connectors between the two neighborhoods.
Education, health and job training services will be available to residents beyond the 675-unit Preservation Square. St. Louis Place, Carr Square, Columbus Square and Old North residents can also take advantage of services. Preservation Square residents, however, will be given case workers who help them access the new programs.
Meanwhile, plans also call for using some of the grant money to rehab the old Carr School into a new community center for a new Jonas Hubbard Jr. Family Center. The YMCA and Carr Square Tenant Management Corp. have indicated interest in running the new community center.
