St. Aloysius Saved — For Now!

A week ago I was convinced the Preservation Board was going to rubber stamp a 20+ home subdivision on the site of the former St. Aloysius church.

But a lot can happen in a week.

Earlier tonight the Preservation Board voted 5-1 to deny the developer the necessary demolition permit. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a final denial. This meeting, it turns out, was a preliminary review (counter to the posted agenda). This means the developer can come back to the table with a new proposal. They may propose a compromise but based on comments made on Fox 2 following the meeting it looks like they will come back and seek full demolition again.

The vote to deny the demolition permit followed a motion to approve the project with qualifications noted in the agenda. That motion was rejected by a vote of 4-2.

Before the votes were testimony for and against the demolition request. Speaking in favor of demolition were developer James Wohlert, Father Vincent Bommarito, and Alderman Joe Vollmer. I spoke against demolition along with a representative of the Landmark’s Association and two licensed architects that are highly experienced at renovating old buildings. I’m not going to give you a play by play of the nearly two hours spent on St. Aloysius. Instead I want to highlight a few things.

The developer who has been working on this for months submitted a letter from an engineer in an attempt to show why he should be granted a demolition permit. This, you’d think, was prepared months ago when evaluating the building for reuse. No! This was prepared this morning! Yes, it was not until today that an engineer was consulted and asked to prepare any sort of evaluation. And what an evaluation it is:

Dear Jim:

At your request, I walked through the subject structure with you this morning for the purpose of reviewing the probable causes of existing cracking in unreinforced masonry walls. This letter summarizes the conditions reviewed, and provides an assessment of probable causes of masonry cracking.

St. Alouicious Church [spelling per letter] is reported to have been constructed in 1925. The conditions and type of construction viewed are consistent with a structure of this approximate age. The structure is constructed of unreinforced masonry walls, with wood roof framing. The north and south walls supporting the main sanctuary roof are a nominal 2-stories in height, with 1-story masonry walls forming sides on both the north and south sides of the building. Numerous cracks are visually evident in the south, east, and north walls. Photos taken at the sit ethis morning are attached to this letter.

The letter goes on describing each and every crack and what the cause might be for each. Let’s cut to the chase:

The likely cause of masonry distress appears to be foundation settlement at the northeast and southeast building corners. The diagonal and vertical masonry cracking pattern evident is consistent with this condition. The cause of the settlement is unknown, but may be due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, leaking downspout drain and/or sewer lines, swelling soils, poor drainage, uneven bearing stresses in foundations, and inadequate compaction of bearing soils.

The existing structure does not appear to be an immediate collapse hazard; however, the conditions noted herein will likely worsen without remedial repair work. Before masonry repairs are made, a foundation investigation should be conducted to determine the likely causes of the settlement, and foundation stabilization would likely be required, which could include underpinning. A cost study would be required to determine the probable costs associated with such stabilization and repair work, which could be relatively costly.

I do agree with part of the above, that a study should be done to evaluate costs to stabilize the structure. Had the developer given any thought to reusing the buildings he would have already had such a report prepared.

Father Bommarito argued it would be too painful to see the church used as anything other than a church. He cited a case where a former church ended up being used as a warehouse. I’ll agree that I’d rather not see this lovely grouping of buildings used as a warehouse but I wouldn’t mind if that kept them around until someone was ready to convert them to residential use. The question Father Bommarito could not answer is why St. Aloysius must be razed yet other closed churches like St. Boniface can be sold for condos. Are we to believe the former parishioners of St. Aloysius are so different than parishioners all the other churches closed at the same time?

But the bigger issue was an alleged contractual clause requiring demolition of the buildings by the previous owner, the Saint Louis Archdiocese. This was the focus of much of the debate. Neither the developer nor the priest could produce a copy of the real estate sales contract. One member of the Preservation Board, Mary “One” Johnson, acted as if this unseen contract was… gospel. Initially she acted as if the sale hadn’t gone through but then it was pointed out the sale had already closed. She still argued this purported clause must be observed by the Preservation Board. I wanted to scream!!!

I’ve seen real estate clauses whereby a seller stipulates what a buyer cannot do after the sale. Examples are retail outlets will often indicate that a competitor cannot purchase/lease a property for a period of time. Other times a deed restriction is used to indicate that a property cannot be razed. In all examples of such clauses the buyer is restricted from doing something at a later date. In some cases a buyer can be required to do something — such as grant access to the seller to remove stained glass windows. But here is where the difference comes in. A clause that is counter to applicable law cannot be enforced. For example, I cannot sell a property I own to someone else and require them to only use the buildings for a brothel or the manufacture of crystal meth. I can write it in the contract but enforcing these clauses would be difficult. But Ms. Johnson attempted to argue the developer would face financial hardship if they were not granted the demolition permit because the contract requires demolition. I’m not a lawyer but experience tells me we have severability clauses for a reason — that if part of a contract is deemed invalid it does not invalidate the entire contract. I believe that is where this stands. The intent may have been to require demolition but ultimately that decision rests with the City of St. Louis, not the seller or buyer. The property has changed hands and by denying the demolition permit it will not revert back to the Archdiocese.

Members Mulligan, Fathman, Burse, Callow and Robinson did an outstanding job of questioning the testimony that was given. Richard Callow got some really funny jokes in as well, if only I had taped the hearing. I was highly disappointed by the general acceptance of the proposal by Johnson and Porrello.

This is not over.

The developer will be back.

So will we.

Watch this space for more action items!

– Steve