urbanSTL

Is it 'normal' to announce that you hope to close on a project 9 months from now or is this a hey-I-have-an-idea-is-there-anyone-who-wants-to-pay-for-it announcement?

Chris_on_Kingsbury wrote:http://www.hillikercorp.com/Brochure/Fa ... 0House.pdf

This isn't the Lemp Brewery. It is the Falstaff brewery just east of Gravois. It's been for sale for quite a while now.

Grover wrote:Is it 'normal' to announce that you hope to close on a project 9 months from now or is this a hey-I-have-an-idea-is-there-anyone-who-wants-to-pay-for-it announcement?

It smells like they're fishing for money.

shadrach wrote:Same old story backin the news again. I forgot about this. Hopefully this will go though.



http://southsidejournal.stltoday.com/ar ... er.ii1.txt

"Businesses would include restaurants and an upscale coffee shop that will be better than Starbucks, Hassenflu said."



Ooooo - Ahhhhhh! Better than Starbucks! I'll believe it when I see it! The owner of the salvage shop in the Lemp told me a month or so ago that someone had a contract on the complex. It sounds as though he's been kept well informed. I'll have to keep up with him.

The Business Journal is reporting that Ebersolt + Underwood has been hired to do the design work. 399 apartments and 75,000 sf of commercial space are planned. Target start date is May 2008, and the project will be built in phases over four years.



Eberholt says they'll be working to re-establish the street grid to better integrate the complex with the surrounding neighborhood.

DeBaliviere wrote:The Business Journal is reporting that Ebersolt + Underwood has been hired to do the design work. 399 apartments and 75,000 sf of commercial space are planned. Target start date is May 2008, and the project will be built in phases over four years.



Eberholt says they'll be working to re-establish the street grid to better integrate the complex with the surrounding neighborhood.

Not sure how they would do anything with the street grid. They could put 18th street through part of the complex, but not to Broadway without some demo. I think this is the same with Deminil. They'd be very smart not to insulate the area from the surrounding neighborhood, but it will interesting to see how this can be done.

shadrach wrote:(Unfortunately, most of my visions for a better St. Louis don't include existing St. Louisans.)

Are you on Civic Progress?

I'm a little surprised that with the asking price on this property that A-B never bought it and the Lemp label. This could have been quite the A-B funhouse! I'm thinking of Clydesdales in the open areas, more interactive displays - great locale for an A-B owned micro-brewery etc.

Sashi Palamand owns the Lemp complex still.

I have never gotten all of the dirt on this project, but it seems many, many developers have taken a long, hard look and then quickly backed away. Jacob Development was very excited about this project and then let their option expire. Perhaps it is the asking price? More likely it is simply too complex, i.e. too many uncertainties, for anyone but an OPUS-sized developer to tackle. From what I have heard though, the buildings are in decent shape structurally. The main complaint I have heard was that many of the buildings would be nearly impossible to adapt to a new use and still meet the historic tax credit requirements. There aren't a whole lot of windows in most of the brewery buildings, for example, and you obviously wouldn't be able to cut any new ones.

From MayorSlay.com:

At its meeting earlier this week, the City of St. Louis Planning Commission recommended approval of several zoning matters to the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. /snip/ Lemp Brewery: Industrial to Commercial. The historic Lemp Brewery complex is no longer suitable for modern industrial development, but it is one of the City’s most important resources and should be preserved for adaptive reuse. The proposed zoning classification will set the stage for the property to be rehabilitated as a mixed-use residential and commercial complex. The current zoning does not allow residential uses.

http://www.mayorslay.com/desk/display.asp?deskID=841

^Hey now, no posting from other sites without commentary. But wait, it's your commentary linked.

I really hope that this is going happen. I have always loved the brewery and the history of the Lemps. I have read the book on them and man what a shame what happened to them. I have also always wondered what it would be like if they were still around to this day.



Anyway I would love to see the Lemp Brewery turned into something useful that can be enjoyed by all.

Some more of the same ol' talk. However this article mentions that the area has been rezoned, good news?. Hopefully there are dozers behind these words.



http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/busine ... enDocument

Yeah, the Lemp Brewery definitely needs to be bulldozed ASAP.

Wait, what?

Hey, at least it wasn't redeveloped as another "Union Station"! It seems as though the current plan makes the most sense, but there's nothing new in the story - how does this keep popping up in the P-D? It looks like we'll have to wait until July to know if this is going forward.

ntbpo wrote: Some more of the same ol' talk. However this article mentions that the area has been rezoned, good news?. Hopefully there are dozers behind these words.



http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/busine ... enDocument

By dozers I certainly didn't mean demolition crews. I just meant some sort of construction activity.