I mean, we're not on the level of some cities receiving huge box apartment buildings. Our "building boom" has been fairly tame in this aspect whereas some cities that have grown like a weed really got hit hard with those types of developments (sometimes referred to as Texas Donuts). Our neighborhoods, even the ones that have received a good chunk of new construction, are visually interesting and diverse in architectural styles. However, I'm not against small scale development and multiple property owners. The only real issue I see rising from this are fights between neighboring property owners when someone wants to build right up to another building in a gap.
For example, lets take the 900 block of South 4th Street and subdivide the land to John Q (900), Johhny Appleseed (902), and John Doe (904-8). Since 900 and 904-8 are existing structures that border a gap at 902, Johnny Appleseed could propose an infill building there. John Q is fine with it but John Doe is not and puts up a fight. His argument, "my building could be damaged during construction!" This concern ends up turning into an argument between the two property owners with threats of lawsuits getting involved over "altering my property by building right up against my building" or something along those lines. Ultimately, Johnny Appleseed may decide to cancel his project and sell the parcel to John Doe, leaving it up to John Doe what to do there.
Bring it back into reality and that problem doesn't exist there. Midtown Locust owns the entire 900 block. If they wanted to build a infill building at 902 South 4th Street, they could with no opposition from neighboring property owners because they are the neighboring property owners. The point I'm making here is that in some cases, a single property owner is a better option than multiple.
Finally, in St. Louis where we have so much land and are continuing to lose people, we can afford to build sprawling buildings (like Chroma, Terra, and SoHo). If we actually turn the corner and start growing as a City again, then some changes to how we build can be considered but for now, I see this as creating an issue out of nothing.
