ST. LOUIS — Before long, the vacant YMCA building in downtown west will be teeming with life — and penguins.
Construction has already begun to turn the 10-story building into a 21c Museum Hotel, a Louisville-based brand that renovates historic buildings into boutique hotels and fills their lobbies with modern art — including, at every location so far, whimsical statues of the flightless bird.
The St. Louis version will have 173 rooms, 13,000 square feet of curated exhibit space, a restaurant, café and wellness center that will include a hot tub, spa and the YMCA’s historic lap pool. The building’s old gymnasium and track will remain, but turn into exhibit and event space.
“Art is supposed to be lived with,” 21c founder Steve Wilson told the Post-Dispatch. “It’s not necessarily supposed to be behind a red velvet rope in a traditional museum.”
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The redevelopment is one piece of a bigger renewal of the downtown west neighborhood. Around the time 21c announced plans here, the Taylor family and Jim Kavanaugh, CEO of Maryland Heights-based World Wide Technology, announced plans for a Major League Soccer team to be based a half-mile west of the hotel. And Development Services Group of Memphis announced plans earlier this year to redevelop the Butler Brothers Building on Olive Street, just blocks away.
The pandemic delivered a heavy blow to the hotel industry. Commercial real estate firm CBRE projects the local market will finally see a turnaround by 2024.
The 21c brand launched in 2006 as a one-off hotel from Wilson and his wife, Laura Lee Brown, who wanted to unite their love of art (they own over 5,000 pieces) and urban renewal. The couple also sought to stave off sprawl by revitalizing old buildings. They’ve turned an old Ford Model-T factory and a former bank building into 21c Museum Hotels. Only one, in Bentonville, Arkansas, was new construction. St. Louis marks the company’s 10th location.
“A lot of people, especially banks, didn’t think it would work,” Wilson said. “We proved them so wrong.”
21c will plan unique programming for the hotel-museum. “We don’t take a cookie-cutter approach,” said Molly Swyers, chief brand officer. The company is beginning talks with local organizations to find artists and arts programming. Open 24 hours a day, the 21c will showcase local and global contemporary artists, whose pieces will be featured throughout the entire building.
“Seeing art and walking through the space at 3 a.m. is very different than at 12 noon,” said 21c COO Sarah Robbins, a University City native.
Built in 1926, the 1528 Locust Street building housed the downtown YMCA for 91 years before the nonprofit moved to a smaller location farther east in the Mercantile Exchange district in 2017.
The 21c hotel group, part of French hospitality chain Accor S.A., is working on the redevelopment with Denver-based hospitality developer NuovoRE, which bought the building in late 2018. The project is receiving 15 years of tax abatement and up to $92 million in industrial revenue bonds.
The bonds will help finance the project, which saw construction prices rise after COVID-19.
Construction, led by St. Louis-based Russell HBD, is slated to wrap up by the end of 2022. Pittsburgh-based architects Perfido Weiskopf Wagstaf + Goettel are working with interior designers from Hufft Projects of Kansas City and New York-based Bill Rooney Studio.
“We think the building is amazing and has an amazing history,” Swyers said. “Hopefully we’re a catalyst for additional development in and around the neighborhood.”
