Roberts Brothers To Transform Former North St. Louis School
I often spend considerable time writing about projects gone bad. The last week was consumed with the possible destruction of a historic church. It is the holidays and I needed relief from the negative. I needed something positive to write about.
The Roberts Brothers delivered, big time.
They will soon embark on a major task — turning this long vacant public school building into apartments. Why not condos you ask? To utilize federal historic tax credits the project must be investment property, not owner occupied. I can imagine these going condo after the minimum requirement has been met.
The Enright school is located on Enright just West of Union (google map). For years people have told newcomers to St. Louis not to live North of Delmar. Until recently this ‘advice’ was also included in a guide to students at Saint Louis University Medical School (click here). This was and is about race and class.
But if we wish to grow our city we must get over this old way of thinking. North St. Louis neighborhoods must become increasingly racially and economically diverse. This project by the Roberts Brothers will do wonders to that end.
The former ball fields between the school building and Enright Avenue will become 24 new home sites. While I love the big open front lawn of the school I also recognize the need to repopulate the neighborhood and to return a reasonable profit to the developers. A new street and alley will be constructed and deeded to the city.
Most new homes don’t have the right look. Builders try to copy old houses with a few tacked on details but miss the main points of materials, scale and proportion. The ticky tacky homes that replaced McRee town suffer from this problem. But, from the drawings I’ve seen of the new Enright houses, the Roberts have done an excellent job and will avoid the common pitfalls of new construction.
Both the school and the new homes are part of the Visitation Park Local Historic District. From the presentations at the Preservation Board on Monday it sounds like the Roberts Brothers have worked closely with the city and state officials (for tax credits) to finesse the details of the project. More info here (PDF).
It is so nice to see a developer open to some give and take in the interest of producing the best possible project not just for their short-term financial goals but for the long-term interests of the city as a whole.
I have some observations. Not so much about the project but the adjacent area.
A very sad looking old attempt at traffic calming is in the middle of the block where the new houses will be built on Enright. Presumably this old mid-block turn around will be removed. However, this might be necessary as the area only has one way in and out. I hope that will change too.
Continuing Westbound on Enright you run into a road block, the trusty old “ghetto barriers.” With Enright closed at Belt that means all the new residents in the school apartments and new houses have only one way in or out — Enright at Union.
Hopefully the developers, alderman, city planners and residents will evaluate reopening Enright at Belt.
A short private street between Delmar and Enright, called Beverly Place, is a must see. It is, like the others in the area, closed off at Enright. However, as a pedestrian you can walk from Enright to Beverly Place. Like so many streets in North St. Louis, Beverly Place has remained a dignified street of well maintained homes. Private streets, while a bit snobbish in principal, do a great job of being self sufficient and protective. Unlike the new suburban gated communities, St. Louis’ private streets are relatively short and work well in an urban setting.
Arlington Avenue is the Western boundary of the Enright school site. A couple of vacant lots are just outside the project boundary but the Roberts brothers are planning to construct new homes there as well. They are also going to renovate a couple of the existing homes along Enright.
The old fence around the field, which will become the new home sites, is in amazingly good condition. Thankfully this fence will be retained. Along Enright gates will be cut into the fence line for the front walk of each house. It might get a bit busy seeing that many gates (12) but I’d rather see that than not have the fence at all.
I love that Arlington is still brick. I hope it stays that way.
Looking West we see that Clemens Place is blocked off from the school site & Arlington Avenue. To get to this one block section of Clemens you must do so off Belt either from Delmar to the South or Cabanne to the North.
The residents of Clemens Place may do well to open their street to Arlington once the new project is complete.
Whereas most city parks are open to neighbors on all sides, Visitation Park is not so open. Adjacent streets have built fences to keep people out of their areas.
This is where I think this major project will make a big difference. For a long time the park has been viewed as the source of neighborhood ills. With an influx of new residents this may tip the scales in the park.
I had hoped that when the project is complete these gates at the end of Arlington Avenue, separating Enright School and its neighbors from Windermere Place, could be removed. However, the other side of this gate the drive is privately owned. Besides, the residents of Windermere Place don’t want lots of traffic on their quiet street. They do, however, love the idea of re-connecting to Visitation Park from a pedestrian perspective.
Windermere Place, the street just to the North of Enright School, has seen a resurgence of interest in the last few years. Friends of mine moved from Lafayette Square to renovate one of these spectacular homes.
To learn more about the significant homes on this special street check out the Homes of Windermere Place
Adjacent to the project area is the football field and track for Soldan High School. The school is located across Union to the East and pictured at right. Magnificent huh?
Also in this stretch of Union are several churches and a beautiful branch of the St. Louis Public Library. Just down the street is Forest Park. You are pretty much centered between the West End and The Loop. It all adds up to being one highly desirable project.
Kudos to the Roberts Brothers!
– Steve
I am very excited about this project!
Enright, of course, was the gifted Classical Junior Academy school from 1980 until 1993. I attended summer programs there for three years, 1991 through 1993.
The building, originally Smith Academy and later Blewitt High School and Harris Teachers College, is magnificent, huge, but also quite dilapidated. Even in the early 1990s, when it was still in use, it was in poor condition. The auditorium was on the fourth floor, with no air conditioning and no elevators. Quite an experience when parents came to student performances! TVs and all other supplies had to be carried up the stairs.
Also, until the school closed in ’93, Enright was still open at Belt. I believe those sewer pipe barriers were put in place about the time the Metropolitan Psychiatric Center opened.
I look forward to seeing what the Roberts Brothers do with this property. The eastern classrooms on the fourth floor have great views of the Arch! To me, it’s not really North; it’s West St. Louis. The West End and Academy neighborhoods are a natural part of the West Side; they should be ripe for Renaissance!
Some additional information about Enright Middle School is on our site:
http://www.eco-absence.org/stl/mta/
The school buildings never received their proper architectural kudos until the Roberts Brothers purchased them. Many people I know, including historians, had no idea about the buildings and few had ever seen them. Now that the redevelopment is proceeding, people recognize these buildings for their exceptionally fine design and setting. The many different interior spaces may be the best part of the buildings and offer lovely views of the city framed by the abundant trees of the neighborhood.
I, too, attended summer school at Enright in the early 90s. I remember that the building had a distinct, sad smell of decay even then, and that its strange floor plan often had us traipsing up and down stairs to get to a room on the same floor as the place where we’d started out. Still, I was fond of the huge row of trees out front and the wonderful giant windows of the building (The windows, as Michael noted, make it very nice inside.). I wondered what was going to happen to it.
Overall, I’m very excited about this new plan, especially since it is going to be rental rather than condos–I’d like to think that I could afford to live in my old school, if I wanted to. It was a public building, after all.
My only disappointment thus far is that the Roberts Brothers have thrown out some of the very nice old school furniture that was inside the building. While I don’t imagine everyone would want their living quarters full of school desks, there were some more practical pieces that were in pretty good shape. There were nice, large wooden cabinets with glass pane front doors, most of which would have only needed to have their glass replaced (and a few of which were fully intact). It would have been neat for each apartment to come with one of the teachers’ cabinets. Also, science lab tables with thick (slate?) tops and wooden bodies were removed, despite only needing minor cosmetic work. Personally, I would really like it if one of those was in my home. They could have been used in kitchens (I guarantee you the new countertops will not be half as nice or as solid.), or just as work space. Enough of this stuff was in good shape that we were pretty surprised when we found it all smashed to bits in the rehab dumpsters. In the grand scheme of the development, the school furniture is a relatively minor point, but to me it would have made the place that much more interesting if that little (practical, useful) bit of the building’s history was kept, as a reminder of its past life.
(…although saving the cast iron fence is pretty damn cool!)
…what timing! I just visited Enright for the first time on my pass through the city Thursday morning (the 22nd). It’s always been “that school over there, behind the trees, that I really should come back to some time and photograph.”
I couldn’t help thinking of possible renovation schemes for the buildings and site. What to do with that huge field? Turn it into a park? Put housing on it? What kind? I finally decided the thing to do was to cut a new street through the site — with that magnificent line of old trees on one side — and put houses facing outwards in both directions on the old playing field.
And now, if my quick skim of that PDF is correct, it’s actually happening!! Complete with an alley between the two rows, and renovation of the existing Blossom House.
I’m beyond astonished. Thumbs up!!
I have also taken pictures in that area and the link to my photography thread at UrbanSTL is below
http://www.urbanstl.com/viewtopic.php?t=1226
This was the West End which the Central West End is one section of. The West End originally began east of Grand and extended west between Forest Park Parkway on the south and Page on the north.
I attended grade school at Enright back in the 80’s when it was CJA. I remember those steps well.
I think that car parked by the back fence was there when I was.
I attended 3rd through 8th grades at CJA. I think the traffic control curbs on Enright in front of the school were for the safety of kids boarding and unloading from school buses. I had noticed that it was unoccupied and feared for its future. It’s great to see the Roberts Bros. taking on the project.
How much is the City and Agencies financing on this project?
I attended CJA in the late 80’s and loved the views of the trees lining the field from inside my classroom.
I wonder, however, if Roberts plans on disclosing the nature of the kid who died in the hallway there after he fell from the 4th floor to the basement.
Wow! I went to CJA from 80-85 and was THRILLED to see this old building saved. I remember sitting under those big trees and playing king of the hill and walking the track and taking dance class in that huge audorium on the 4th floor. Thanks for saving this beautiful building.
J. Smith:
1988-91 here. The stairwell tragedy you mentioned happened just a few months before I started at CJA, in Jan ’88.
One thing most people don’t notice is that when this was first built, only one of the halves was constructed. The other half, almost an exact duplicate in outward appearance (though not inward), came later, and with that came the thin corridor connectors between the two halves.
Please give me more information. I love it, Thanks again.
Update – toured the apartments today. Exceptionally nice!
That said, only at 55% occupancy.
None of the barriers have been removed.
Bordering park and neighborhood still full of trash.
Only 3 new houses so far.