After months of eyeing the partly demolished Fur Exchange and two adjoining downtown St. Louis office buildings, hotel developer Charles Drury is moving ahead with a $20 million-plus plan to renovate them as a hotel with two restaurants.
“We are willing to jump in and get going,” Drury said. “We don’t want to see those building shoved off into the river.”
The three buildings–the Fur Exchange built in 1919, the 1950s Thomas Jefferson, and the newer, stainless-steel-sheathed American Zinc, stand in a row on the east side of Fourth Street, just south of Market.
Even though two have holes in their walls and are missing some of their architectural trim, Drury and his associates at Drury Development Corp. say they’re not too far gone to save.
Drury’s plan, contingent mostly on tax abatement and historic tax credits, is to renovate the three buildings with 250 to 270 hotel rooms and suites, and 307 indoor parking spaces. They’d also lease space for restaurants or other commercial activity.
Specifics of the plan:
– Build parking in the basements of all three buildings.
– Build parking in the second, third and fourth floors of the Fur Exchange and Thomas Jefferson.
– Renovate the first floor of the Fur Exchange and Thomas Jefferson to include a hotel lobby and breakfast area for guests.
– Lease part of the Fur Exchange’s first floor for a restaurant or other commercial activity.
– Lease American Zinc’s first floor for a restaurant and perhaps a banquet area.
– Build rooms and about 50 suites in upper floors of the 4-story American Zinc, the 8-story Fur Exchange, and the 9-story Thomas Jefferson, and add atriums in the two taller buildings for more natural light.
– Build a swimming pool and sun deck atop the Fur Exchange.
Drury plans to spruce up the existing exterior of the American Zinc, but would put a new skin on the Thomas Jefferson. He and his associates are trying to find, and retrieve, missing pieces of the Fur Exchange that were taken away before wreckers stopped exterior demolition work last spring, after Drury told the owner, SIBAG Investments of New York City, that he wanted to buy and renovate the buildings. After that, only asbestos removal and other interior demolition work continued.
A company official said that if Drury doesn’t proceed and exercise an option to buy the buildings by mid-December, the exterior demolition likely will resume.
Drury said he didn’t push his plan earlier because over the summer, city officials offered the property to Ralston Purina, which at the time was looking for a site for a new headquarters.
But with Ralston out of the picture, Drury said, he’s back on track.
“We want to restore the exterior of the Fur Exchange as much as we can,” he said, “but the inside has been gutted, so there’s not much we can do there.”
Sources say the project would cost more than $20 million.
Drury isn’t giving out a cost estimate yet. But he said room rates likely would range from $85 to $110, and suites would cost more.
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He also expects the hotel to attract a variety of tourists, families, convention-goers–“anyone looking for high quality, moderately priced rooms.”
Larry Hasselfeld, Drury Development’s chief financial officer, said he’s “confident” of getting private financing for the project. But he said it would need tax abatement and historic renovation tax credits from the state or the federal government.
Drury has applied for the city tax breaks, which the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority and the Board of Aldermen must approve.
Said Drury: “If we can get timely approvals for our plans, we’d hope to have the hotel opened by spring, 1999.”
Carolyn Toft, executive director at the Landmarks Association, plans to meet with Drury about the tax credits.
“This is a project that makes sense,” Toft said.
Drury’s properties include 85 hotels in 14 states. Three are downtown St. Louis renovations: Hampton Inn at 2211 Market Street; the Railroad YWCA near Union Station; and the Drury Inn atop the Union Market building.
Drury and his wife, Shirley, discovered and decided to renovate the old YMCA after climbing a security fence years ago to see construction work at Union Station.
They discovered the Fur Exchange buildings, with the wreckers already at work, when going to Mass at the Old Cathedral.
“Every Sunday, we’d go down to the Old Cathedral and look up at those darned old buildings,” Drury recalled.
“Finally,” he said, “when they started getting into the concrete part, I said, `Well, if we are going to save these buildings, we’d better get going. I called SIBAG the next Monday morning.”