I was just told that yesterday NPR reported that the Lemp Brewery is finally going to be renovated. The last that I heard, and this was years ago, was that two executives from Anehuser-Busch, one of the Pointers who owns the Lemp mansion, and somebody else who I can't remember had purchased the complex from a company based in Texas and that they had big plans to turn it into a massive mixed-use entertainment and residential development. So who owns it now, and what are they planning to do with it??
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Wait - NPR scooped the Post? In their own backyard? Why am I not suprised.
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the post-dispatch doesn't seem to be able to scoop much these days. it's pretty hard to write a good story when you have only ten sentences per page.
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Interesting. I'm surprised there's not even a press release on the Business Journal's web site.
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nevermind. i wasn't paying attention and someone already has one of these things going entitled 'falstaff' brewery. which isn't the same thing.
I searched the KWMU website and haven't found anything about it. Perhaps they heard it somewhere else?
Anyway, the current Lemp owner is Shashi Palamand, but the rumors on this forum is that he is getting ready to sell it to an experienced developer. Or perhaps it has recently happened. I'm guessing we'll be hearing more about it soon.
Anyway, the current Lemp owner is Shashi Palamand, but the rumors on this forum is that he is getting ready to sell it to an experienced developer. Or perhaps it has recently happened. I'm guessing we'll be hearing more about it soon.
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okay, i've already made an ass out of myself on the falstaff brewery page because of all of this so i'll just finish this off here- apparently npr did report that but they were mistaking the lemp for the falstaff brewery. so no, unfortunately the lemp brewery is still in limbo with a junk shop and light industrial works as its only tenants.
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Buyer sought to tap Lemp's potential
St. Louis Business Journal - September 8, 2006
by Lisa R. Brown
Owners of the sprawling and storied Lemp Brewery complex are putting the property up for sale.
The brewery has not been in operation since Prohibition. The complex -- which includes 30 brick buildings at 3500 Lemp near South Broadway and Cherokee -- is now home to a few small commercial tenants. But most of the buildings sit empty with 'for lease' signs throughout the property.
The 15-acre complex in the Benton Park neighborhood in South St. Louis City is being marketed to local and national developers for mixed-use projects, said Ed Rosenthal, vice president of urban development in the Los Angeles office of CB Richard Ellis, the broker on the property. Jeff Kaiser of CB Richard Ellis' St. Louis office is the local broker for Lemp Brewery's majority owner, Shashi Palamand, and his father, Rao Palamand a minority owner.
An asking price has not been set for the property but real estate sources said it could sell for $30 per square foot, or as high as $30 million. Proposals are due from developers in early October. A group of investors, Historic Lemp Brewery LLC, purchased the property in 1999 for $1.8 million. Shashi Palamand said he and his father bought out four of the other investors in 2003 and 2004 privately for several times the amount paid in 1999.
"The last few years have been spent stabilizing the property and bringing it up to code," Shashi Palamand said. The Palamands spent several million dollars on improvements on the property, including installing new roofs on about 25 of the buildings.
Rosenthal said the former brewery's smoke stack offers a potential tenant good visibility. The complex is located a few yards off of I-55 and is a few blocks south of Anheuser-Busch Inc.'s headquarters and brewery.
"It's an opportunity to create a little city within a city," Rosenthal said. "It's an unusual, historic site that played a big role in St. Louis development. It's a bit of history. And it's self-contained so a developer can create a beautiful mixed-use community."
The first building in the Lemp Brewery complex was erected in 1864. Up until 1911, additional buildings were added as the brewery's operations grew, until the plant closed in 1919 due to Prohibition. A few years later, the brewery property was sold to International Shoe Co. for $588,500.
The buildings total 1 million square feet of space. All of the buildings are Italian Renaissance Revival style, and the largest has 105,000 square feet of space.
Previous proposals to revitalize the Lemp Brewery property, which is in the Cherokee-Lemp Historic District, failed to materialize. In 1997, former owner Jim Goss planned a $12.5 million conversion of the property into an entertainment complex with restaurants, music venues and a microbrewery. The project never got beyond the planning stages.
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The brewery is one of the more amazing places in the city. If you haven't yet, go down there on Saturday and Sunday and walk through Junque - a salvage shop that occupies part of the property. You can enter from Broadway or from Lemp (drive through the gate and you get to see a good part of the property - including an HOK office). If there were one property I could wave a wand at, this would be it. For all of the city's preservation woes, not to mention those who may cry foul for the millions the current owner will reap from a sale, it's really amazing that this property appears to be headed for renewal. 
So what to do?
1. a grocery in the open lot at Lemp and Broadway
2. retail facing Cherokee (& of course a beer garden)
3. as many condo units as will reasonably fit
4. streetcar, Broadway-Jefferson-Market
So what to do?
1. a grocery in the open lot at Lemp and Broadway
2. retail facing Cherokee (& of course a beer garden)
3. as many condo units as will reasonably fit
4. streetcar, Broadway-Jefferson-Market
The possibilities are as fantastic as they are endless...
...a great new location for the Museum of Transportation.
...a great location for a new Smithsonian museum of brewing.
...a great new location for the Steamboat/ship museum (currently an underdeveloped hidden little thing in Bee Tree Park).
...a great new location for the Museum of Transportation.
...a great location for a new Smithsonian museum of brewing.
...a great new location for the Steamboat/ship museum (currently an underdeveloped hidden little thing in Bee Tree Park).
1. Put the Lemp name back on the stack as well as the building that faces Broadway right at Cherokee. I believe it used to say Wm. J. Lemp Brewing Company or something like that. Restore the shield logos that are all over the complex.
2. Put a brewery back on that property. I don't care who does it (prefer the guys who brew Lemp, so they can bring the brewing home to STL instead of Pennsylvania like it is now), just get it there NOW.
3. I love the Brewing museum idea, just as long as we don't turn it into an A-B love fest.
By the way, the riverboat museum in Bee Tree (in the Nims house) closed a year or more back.
2. Put a brewery back on that property. I don't care who does it (prefer the guys who brew Lemp, so they can bring the brewing home to STL instead of Pennsylvania like it is now), just get it there NOW.
3. I love the Brewing museum idea, just as long as we don't turn it into an A-B love fest.
By the way, the riverboat museum in Bee Tree (in the Nims house) closed a year or more back.
I hadn't heard that the museum in Bee Tree had closed.
When you see pics of the STL riverfront during the riverboat era, it's amazing that there isn't something larger to tell that story.
I also read that the big Misssissippi riverboat company in N.O. is relocating their HQ to St. Louis.
When you see pics of the STL riverfront during the riverboat era, it's amazing that there isn't something larger to tell that story.
I also read that the big Misssissippi riverboat company in N.O. is relocating their HQ to St. Louis.
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Matt wrote:I hadn't heard that the museum in Bee Tree had closed.
.... I also read that the big Misssissippi riverboat company in N.O. is relocating their HQ to St. Louis.
I think the article said the hq wa going to Seattle and the operational base (maintenance, docking, etc.) would be based in St. Louis. But if that's so, the hq seems an awful long way from the field ops. But that's what I got out of the article.
Spotted on the Business Journal site this morning: Desco's $100 million plan for Lemp Brewery site. Not many details though.
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Let the Preservation, rehabbilitation, and historic tax credits pour in to remake St. Louis into a Come Back City!
Hmm...
Its good to read that the buildings are Historical thus protected.
Seeing that DESCO is looking to develop the area I was afraid they might demolish the brewery for parking lots.
I hope they turn it into a truely unique area.
A brewpub would be fitting amongst the office, retail, and residential!
Its good to read that the buildings are Historical thus protected.
Seeing that DESCO is looking to develop the area I was afraid they might demolish the brewery for parking lots.
I hope they turn it into a truely unique area.
A brewpub would be fitting amongst the office, retail, and residential!
Doug wrote:Hmm...
I hope they turn it into a truely unique area.
A brewpub would be fitting amongst the office, retail, and residential!
I know some company is (was? I can't find anything current) licensing the Lemp name for a microbrew. It'd be pretty cool to have a Trailhead-style brewery/restaurant in the complex...
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RBB wrote:Doug wrote:Hmm...
I hope they turn it into a truely unique area.
A brewpub would be fitting amongst the office, retail, and residential!
I know some company is (was? I can't find anything current) licensing the Lemp name for a microbrew. It'd be pretty cool to have a Trailhead-style brewery/restaurant in the complex...
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It's been done a couple of times in the last couple of years. I've sampled both tried and didn't like either beer.
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[/quote]
It's been done a couple of times in the last couple of years. I've sampled both tried and didn't like either beer.[/quote]
I had one a year or so ago and it tasted like super skunked budweiser. I think they called it their 1904 Lager or something similar.
It's been done a couple of times in the last couple of years. I've sampled both tried and didn't like either beer.[/quote]
I had one a year or so ago and it tasted like super skunked budweiser. I think they called it their 1904 Lager or something similar.
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I didn't like it either, which was unfortunate, considering how expensive it was.
Yeah I tried it too.
Its supposed to be some great beer yet it is quite nasty.
Its supposed to be some great beer yet it is quite nasty.
I haven't tried the beer yet, but DESCO sure left a real nasty taste in my mouth.
I had one a year or so ago and it tasted like super skunked budweiser. I think they called it their 1904 Lager or something similar.
1904 Lager was Schlafly's brew to commemorate the World's Fair. They also made a beer to honor Lewis and Clark.
I actually enjoy the newer Lemp brew. It tastes way better than many of the "domestics" made in town.
Film maker Carson Minow went under the Lemp Brewery with her camera.