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ST. LOUIS — Officials have approved a raft of subsidies, design plans and work permits to help save Hillvale Apartments from ruin. That effort tests the reality of reclaiming one of the roughest parts of north city in the modern era.

So far, the first of 11 existing buildings has been refurbished. Black metal cages secure new air conditioning units around the perimeter. New cabinets, appliances and plumbing have been installed. Vagrants were cleared out of the basement.

“I am thankful for my kids to be out of that other apartment,” said Lelesa Harris, 31, a Hillvale tenant who transferred to the refurbished building in August while construction rolls on throughout the rest of the complex, which dates to 1967.

But her praise stopped there. She said one of the new metal doors to the building was recently unhinged. At other times, she said, children stuffed rocks in the locks to keep them from functioning.

One night, she said, a bunch of water was leaking in from the floor above.

“I called the maintenance line and nobody called me back until the next day,” said Harris, speaking outside, by a ground-level window that’s been busted out for weeks.

Hillvale, long synonymous with crime and desperation, represents much more than another struggling apartment complex in a struggling city. Millions of dollars are now being spent on the moderate rehab project while plans to improve the beleaguered neighborhoods around it are either out-of-date, vague or far off.

On April 6, 2021, Mayor Tishaura O. Jones held her victory party in the nearby Omega Center parking lot, celebrating a victorious campaign that vowed to refocus redevelopment from the slick central corridor to the city’s forgotten northern half.

In a recent interview, Jones didn’t immediately recognize Hillvale by name, but she said she knows the broader area around Goodfellow Boulevard and Natural Bridge Avenue.

“We have to start somewhere, so the refurbishing of Hillvale, I think, is a good step because affordable housing doesn’t have to be dilapidated housing,” Jones said. “That area of town is long overdue for a refresh.”

That area was once leaned on to help win World War II. Some 16,000 people used to make .30 and .50 caliber ammunition for the U.S. Army along Goodfellow. Today, it’s a ghost town, with six lanes of empty roadway leading to nearby Interstate 70.

Only 80 employees are left at the 62.5-acre, 23-building Goodfellow Federal Center. The federal government said it will turn over the partially contaminated campus property in 2025 to a buyer. The city is expressing interest, but it already owns many pieces of vacant land in the area. Population in those census tracts has tanked for years — 23% just in the past decade, nearly all of them Black.

A Rally’s drive-thru is the latest business that couldn’t make it on the strip.

On a different front near Hillvale, Pierre Laclede public school has been hammered by absences and a drop in enrollment. In 2022, just 8% of students tested proficient in English and 2% in math.

“It didn’t get like that overnight,” Jones told the Post-Dispatch. “And I’ve only been here for two and a half years. So we have to make sure that we are laying the foundation to make plans to redevelop that area.”

A Denver-based affiliate of Steele Properties sees opportunity in the decline, which is part of their national business model. It bought Hillvale in 2022 from a New Jersey-based company that failed to control and maintain the property at 5830 Selber Court.

Steele’s $30.5 million effort to turn the 146-unit complex around equates to about $209,000 a unit. Rehab is expected to cost $14.3 million, according to the most recent city records on file. Including the cost of a new community building and leasing office, that’s about $98,000 in work per unit.

Just about every possible local, state and federal subsidy out there has been approved to help the private firm redevelop and sustain Hillvale in an area that the open market would not. It has access to $17 million in tax-exempt bonds, $19.5 million in low-income housing tax credits, and $2.5 million in local and national affordable housing trust funds. The city recently approved Hillvale for discounts on future property tax liability increases.

Revenue streams are essentially guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That’s because nearly all Hillvale units are covered by a coveted Project-Based Section 8 Housing Assistance Payments Contract that’s been in place for years. Tenants pay a sliding scale of rent, depending on their income. Several tenants have said they lived there for free because they were unemployed.

But even with millions of dollars in taxpayer support at multiple levels, Hillvale shows how challenging it is to maintain an investment in an area facing the winds of disinvestment for so long. Between 2019 and early 2022, there were at least 1,400 calls for emergency police service to the immediate area.

It also shows how one investment is not enough.

Many people familiar with the area say Hillvale improvements won’t last unless there is much better property management and broad collaboration to stabilize surrounding neighborhoods with meaningful policing, economic development and other vital city services.

“Don’t throw a whole bunch of money into a hole and expect flowers to grow out of it,” said Philip White, manager of the Omega Center, a former United Auto Workers union hall now mainly used as a charitable gathering place for funerals and bingo.

Before a career as an officer in the Air Force, he grew up at Pruitt-Igoe.

“Everything was great until they stopped inspections,” said White. “To the new management over there: Stick to the rules. And be accessible to the tenants.”

“Hillvale can’t be a success unless the bigger area north and south of it are also cleaned up and cared for,” said Jim Roos, 79, a housing activist who owns apartments in the area.

Martha Cole has lived in the 5800 block of Ferris Avenue since the 1970s.

“I’ve seen so many people get shot over here,” Cole, 67, said from her front porch. “When I moved here, it was so nice.”

Her neighbor, Tina Blackwell, 47, said few small children are left in the broader community. Those who remain mainly stay indoors. Even her home was hit by gunfire.

“Dudes,” she said, “hanging out in back.”

Relocate vs. remodel

Pam Boyd, who took over as alderwoman of the new 13th Ward in April, said her expectations for the neighborhood are high.

“I want to make sure that residents are living in a clean and safe environment,” she said.

She said she’s challenging them to come to the table to express their wishes. She said she also recently talked to the new owners of Hillvale.

“I just told them they had to clean it up,” she said.

Until somebody slashed it, a big blue banner recently hung from the front entrance of the sprawling apartment complex. It said “exciting changes” were happening at Hillvale and to “come check out our renovations.”

Long-time on-site property manager Anna Richardson referred a Post-Dispatch request for a tour of the rehabbed units to leaders of her new employer, Monroe Group, an apartment management company affiliated with Steele Properties. That inquiry was ultimately referred to Justin Unger, Steele’s development director, who denied the request. He wrote by email that “we remain focused on managing the rehab process for the residents to ensure safe, decent and sanitary housing.”

He’s previously said there would be better security, inspections and maintenance. Social service programs for tenants, some of whom were formerly homeless, have also been promised. The rehab project is expected to be complete next year.

Harris, and other residents interviewed at the complex, said Hillvale continues to wrestle with deep-rooted challenges, like teenagers flying across the parking lot in stolen vehicles.

“In my opinion, they should have knocked these down,” said Harris, mother of five. “I don’t want to live in this neighborhood.”

“I feel like they need help,” she said of the new owners.

Another attempt

People have been down this road before, just two minutes from Hillvale.

In 1991, developer Housing Solutions Inc. and general contractor Westminster Builders rehabbed eight historic properties in the 5600 block of Labadie Avenue in the spirit of preserving affordable housing. According to the Missouri Housing Development Commission, the project received $1.584 million in low-income housing tax credits spread across a 10-year period and a $275,000 loan from the commission. Total development cost was $1.651 million, with an estimated cost per unit of $91,730. The commission said it last monitored the properties in 2012.

Today, the brick properties look bombed and abandoned. According to city records, the St. Louis Equity Fund owned and managed the properties since 1990. In 2022, after several years of sitting vacant, the firm donated them to the city’s bloated land bank.

Cate Trende, director of asset management for the equity fund, said by telephone that “they are pretty properties” but she acknowledged the area is challenging. She couldn’t be reached for a deeper follow-up conversation about what happened.

Jeffrey Boyd represented the neighborhood for years as alderman of the old 22nd Ward. Before he went to federal prison for bribery and insurance fraud, he told the Post-Dispatch in 2022 that the Labadie development mainly turned four-family flats into two-family townhomes.

“It was beautiful how they did it,” he said.

Then somebody got shot and killed.

“There were other concerns,” he said. “You weren’t going to pay that money to walk past drug dealers every day.”

Robert Petty, 50, recently drove down Labadie in a red tow truck.

“Everybody pulled out,” he said. “Every time there was something we were proud to say was over here is gone.”

He checked off a list of nearby locales, ranging from the famous Goody Goody restaurant (burned) to Joe’s Clothes (recently demolished) to the Rally’s.

“Crime has a big part,” he said. “But if you don’t have nothing to look forward to at your home, your community, you are going to get dilapidated buildings. Just like your car, if you don’t take care of it, it will fall apart.”

Demetrius Taylor, 49, came up and said he wants to do his part. His body was covered in tattoos that paid tribute to the “Shoe Mob,” his old gang.

“I went to jail off this block. Dope. I ain’t going to lie to you,” he said. “It was like the projects.”

He’s back now. He said he refurbished a home and is selling used cars parked beside it in the grass.

“I am trying to bring the community back,” he said.

‘The bones’

So is Neal Richardson.

As director of the St. Louis Development Corporation, he’s responsible for helping carry out the mayor’s economic growth vision for the city.

In an interview, he said, strategic plans to revitalize neighborhoods around Hillvale are out-of-date and need revision.

“We are working on that now,” he said.

More broadly, he said, the Jones administration committed $286 million in COVID-19 relief funds to support nonprofits and small businesses extending north from Delmar Boulevard. Grant applications are due by Oct. 30.

“It’s really just a drop in the ocean of challenges that we are up against but really lays the foundation for the future,” Richardson said.

He said vast parts of the city have suffered from decades of population decline and poverty.

“We have the bones of an industrial city,” he said.

Running past Hillvale, toward I-70, there used to be thousands of jobs along Goodfellow.

“We need to bring those jobs back,” he said.

At the end of September, the city applied for a $500,000 federal grant to help create an initial planning process to better connect neighborhoods with I-70, nearby industrial areas and roads.

“It would put us in the next stage where we could receive up to $100 million in implementation,” he said. “Hopefully by the end of the year, we will have a response.”

Meanwhile, he said, the city is in “early conversations” to acquire the storied Goodfellow Federal Center campus and surrounding properties on the east side of Goodfellow. He said the city wants to piece together roughly 70 acres of contiguous land that would be desirable for long-term industrial use or manufacturing.

“It’s going to take a lot of demolition,” he said. “Brownfields cleanup.”

He described the area as the “most distressed of distressed communities in the state.”

Bringing back more density and prosperity to the neighborhood couldn’t happen soon enough for Sandra Dobynes, co-owner of Eye Fashion Factory, a former ward business of the year that has been at the intersection of Goodfellow and Natural Bridge since the 1980s. She said the business helped put four children through college. Now she and her husband want out.

“Where am I going?” she asked. “I can’t sell it.”

She pointed to all the surrounding buildings that closed, including one that burned and somehow remains standing. Right across the street, somebody recently spray-painted “Murda” on the side of a gas station people call the “Killer Mobil” and “Murder Mobil” despite a formal name change.

“They can’t even spell right,” said Dobynes, 67, discouraged.

On a recent day, there were cars that pulled up to the pumps and never got gas. Others milled around on foot for long periods of time. There have been about 100 calls for police service at the gas station in the past year, according to city records. Western Inn, just beyond it, remains shuttered since police raided the motel in 2022.

Dobynes said she already applied for grant money from the COVID-19 relief funds that Richardson touted.

“I want a big fence around the whole property,” she said. “Then I want a locked gate. They need to clean this north side up.”

Intro to management

One Friday afternoon in September, police drove down Goodfellow and turned into Hillvale Apartments. They ended up outside the front office, head-to-head with Travez Taylor, who was irate with management.

“They just illegally had my car towed away,” he told police.

While the black 2001 Chevy Lumina looked old, he said, it still ran and was one of his few possessions. He said he felt targeted. He said he saw an assistant manager talking with the tow truck driver before it went missing.

Police went to inquire. The sign said the front office was closed, but there were employees inside. They told police that they denied authorizing the tow.

“If they didn’t authorize the tow, then why not roll the camera?” Taylor asked.

A new surveillance system was installed along with the ongoing upgrades to the complex. Police said management couldn’t immediately produce the archive footage in question.

“We’ll have the video by Monday,” Anna Richardson, the on-site manager, came out and told Taylor.

It started to rain.

“I am at my breaking point,” said Taylor, standing in the downpour. “I gotta figure something out for my family.”

While many people in north city say they would never live at Hillvale, for others, it’s a life raft. Taylor, 29, and his girlfriend, Charlece Gassoway, 27, were previously living in extended stay motels. In November 2018, they moved into Hillvale. Gassoway was eight months pregnant with their second child.

“It was perfect timing,” Taylor said.

They settled in, had a third child. Eventually, mice ate through their belongings and they got crossways with management. Taylor likes to work on cars, breed dogs. His name wasn’t on the lease. Still, they were one of the fortunate families to move into the first building refurbished in the remodeling project.

Gassoway gave the Post-Dispatch a tour. Their rooms were barren. They’d thrown out most of the furniture from their old apartment to keep rodents out.

She pointed to new appliances, cabinets, countertops and wiring, as well as some blemishes. The front door handle jiggled loose. New vinyl molding wasn’t sticking to the base of the kitchen floor. Chipping paint in a door frame. Old Sheetrock tape coming apart between two wall boards in the living room. New carpet coming up in a bedroom corner.

And she showed a picture of a large mouse they trapped beside the refrigerator.

“Basically, in one year or two, it’s going to be like the other apartments again,” she predicted. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Management apparently doesn’t want her family there either.

Taylor’s car never turned up, but a letter addressed to Gassoway and “all other occupants” recently arrived in the mail. The lease was being terminated “for material non-compliance” and “other good cause,” according to the letter.

They had until Friday to vacate.

Gassoway said she would fight the letter, even if they hadn’t signed new house rules that came with the rehab. Hillvale is in one of the roughest neighborhoods, but it’s provided a roof over their heads rent-free.

Where else can she find that?

“I am a mom of three,” she said. “I don’t have nowhere to go.”

Post-Dispatch reporter Blythe Bernhard contributed to this report.