To Convert or Not?

I’m referring to the current St. Louis trend of taking two-family buildings and converting to a single family house and taking a 4-family building and converting to two attached townhouses. So prevalent is this trend that to suggest anything other than such conversions is like suggesting a suburbanite trade-in his vinyl-clad box of a house and SUV for a downtown loft and a Toyota Prius. You get blank stares and arguments.

The most common arguments presented by the pro-conversion faction are reduced density and more appealing living space. I hear the rhetorical question all the time, “What else are you going to do with a four family?”

Before I get into some of the specifics I think we should define some of the buildings. I’m going to break down the buildings into two broad categories – the shotgun style and the hall & bedroom style:

Shotgun style:

These are usually the basic 3-room deep configuration. Two parlors, a small bathroom and finally a kitchen at the rear. They vary in size. In some of oldest areas you access the upstairs unit not from a front door and stair but from exterior stair (located on the back or side) and enter through the back room. The newer shotgun units generally had a front door and interior stairs at the front & back. Often the 2nd floor didn’t have direct access to the basement – instead having to go outside and enter the basement from the rear.

My first St. Louis “flat” was a 3-room shotgun on Sullivan in Old North St. Louis on the first floor of a four family. The building dated from roughly the 1880s so it didn’t have indoor plumbing originally. A corner of the middle room was walled off into a small bathroom containing only a tiny shower and a toilet. Washing hands & brushing teeth took place in the kitchen. It was 1991 and the rent was only $75/month.

My next flat was a block over on Hebert, also in a four family. This time I was upstairs. Being an older building I had to access the unit from a wood stair located on the side of the building. This brought me into the 3rd room – the kitchen. This actually worked well and the rooms were bigger than the first place on Sullivan. Like my previous flat, this building didn’t originally have any plumbing – the brick outhouses still divided the yard from the alley. However, at some point bathroom additions were added off the kitchens so the bathrooms were decent sized and actually included a sink! Moving on up…

Hall & Bedroom Style:

The H&B style differs greatly from the shotgun by having, obviously enough, a hall and bedrooms. No more walking through a parlor/bedroom to get from one room to the next. These can be found in one, two and three bedroom configurations. Some of these can be quite comfortable for a single, couple or family.

A Third Style:

One of my favorite types is the 3-story multi-family building. These include either a shotgun or H&B flat on the ground floor and then a more spacious flat on the 2nd & 3rd floor – typically the owner’s flat. The 3rd floor on these can be a large attic space with dormers or a partial floor with flat roof.

Flat vs. Apartment:
For my purposes here, a flat has its own entrance to the exterior. When you see the building with four front doors that is a four-flat. But you see a similar sized building next door also containing four living units but one entrance with access to the four units this is a four-unit apartment building. Apartments have a shared building entrance and stair while flats have separate entrances for each unit.

Now that I’ve defined some terms lets move on to the question of conversion from two to one and four to two.

Design Choices

The easiest type to argue against converting is the four-unit apartment building with the single entrance and shared front stair. No matter what you’d do on the inside, it looks like an apartment building. The internal stair used by the two upstairs apartments would be useless if each side became townhomes. Some advocate making each floor a unit – interesting concept but not ideal when it comes to sound transmission (who’d want to be downstairs) and often difficult given the center brick wall of many of these buildings. The best use for these buildings is to remain four units – either as rentals or as condos.

Next is the H&B type of unit which is most often found in two-family buildings although I know of some large four-family buildings containing H&B units. These are excellent living spaces configured exactly as they are. Granted, if you want a single family house you may not find these appealing but I know many people quite happy living in one flat and renting the other. I’d never even think of altering my 1924 H&B two-family.

This brings us to the shotgun flats – either in two or four-family configurations. Having lived in two different shotgun units I can certainly agree these are not the most ideal arrangements. As a single person just out of college they did work reasonably well. The general consensus in St. Louis is these should all be converted. The argument about not being appealing living space has validity. It is the assumption that combining two units into one is the only feasible solution that I find disturbing. Other viable solutions exist but they are not given much, if any, consideration by most people.

The easiest solution for these is to move the kitchen from the 3rd room (back of building) to the middle room. The front two rooms become a living, kitchen and dining space. You are not going to set up a dinner party for eight but for a single person or couple this can be a great arrangement. Many buildings already have a bathroom located between the middle and back room with the latter now becoming a private bedroom. I know of one landlord in the Southwest Garden neighborhood that has reconfigured his rentals in such a fashion. These could also be sold as condos.

A more exciting alternative is to gut each of the units and make them very open and flexible living spaces – loft-like if you will. To a single person (that keeps a neater house than I do) all that is really needed for privacy is the toilet.

Assuming all multi-family buildings need to be converted down as the only appealing design solution is simply not thinking very creatively. Numerous choices for these buildings exist just as many different types of city dwellers exist. We all don’t need 3 bedroom, 2-1/2 bath houses.

The Density Issue

I hear it all the time, “we need to reduce density.”

“Dense concentrations of people are one of the of the necessary conditions for flourishing city diversity.”

The above quote is from Jane Jacobs’ classic, ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities.’ In chapter 11, ‘The need for concentration,’ Jacobs continues:

“One reason why low city densities conventionally have a good name, unjustified by the facts, and why high city densities have a bad name, equally unjustified, is that high densities of dwellings and and overcrowding of dwellings are often confused. High densities mean large numbers of dwellings per acre of land. Overcrowding means too many people in a dwelling for the number of rooms it contains.”

Yet all over the city I hear various arguments which are, ultimately, counterproductive to reestablishing St. Louis as a great urban city. You get the person suggesting that every other building be torn down. You get the person suggesting the fewer property owners the better (hence two owners in a former 4-family turned townhouse is better than four condo owners). You get the person thinking we need less people.

No, no, and no! Our buildings and, specifically, the relationship from building to building is our greatest asset. A streetscape of ordinary buildings is equally important as a landmark building, perhaps more so. The rhythm of our buildings is important. Removing a building is like removing your front tooth – it looks out of place.

Every city is going to have owner-occupants and renters. Most of both group are responsible citizens. Some of both are irresponsible and possibly destructive to urban life. Issues of race, religion, ethnicity, or economic class are irrelevant. Again, most people are good for city life. More importantly, a cross section of society is critical to creating a vibrant city.

Less people. What? People seriously tell me this. I think this is simply a reaction when people see a large group of young black men hanging out. Less people in the city is not the answer. In fact, the less people we have in the city the less opportunity we are going to have for employment and activities to keep youth involved and out of trouble (or simply perceived trouble).

We need 100,000 more people. At least. It isn’t going to happen overnight or even in five years but it should be a long term goal. Twenty years from now, 2025, we should have another 100K people living within the boundaries of the City of St. Louis! We must begin now working toward that goal.

Back to Jane Jacobs,

“In districts where densities are too low, they can be raised and variation increased by adding new buildings simultaneously in different, separated spots only. In short, densities should be raised – and new buildings introduced for this purpose – gradually rather than in some sudden, cataclysmic upheaval to be followed by nothing more for decades. “

Jacobs is not advocating wholesale destruction of neighborhoods to create high density housing – she is suggesting over time cities need to increase densities to a level to support a diverse & vibrant city life. The ideal place for increased density is near MetroLink stops – both current and future. Most city neighborhoods are low density and need more dwellings and people – not fewer.

Before you advocate converting another two family to single family stop and ask yourself if another viable option exists. If it does, give it as much consideration. You may still convert that building but then again you may not. Weighing options is always wise when it comes to building a vibrant city.

– Steve