urbanSTL

A $45 million apartment complex in the works for years on a prominent corner in the city of St. Louis has increased its planned units ahead of starting construction.

The Flats at Forest Park, a project from St. Louis-based developer Pier Property Group, has expanded its units from 119 to 144, said Michael Hamburg, owner of the firm. The new apartment building, first proposed two years ago, will be built above a historic car sales building at 490 Kingshighway Blvd. in the Central West End, at the intersection of Kingshighway and McPherson known as the Holy Corners Historic District. The St. Louis Board of Adjustment granted the project approval for the expansion and design changes last week, the developer said. More units require more parking, so parking spaces have been increased from 121 to 153, which required a change in the rear setback, Hamburg said.
The project will still have five floors of wood-framed apartments built atop the two-story historic concrete building that occupies the site, the former Reliance Automotive auto sales facility.
With design work from architecture firm Acturis completed and approvals granted, the developer plans to start construction this summer, pending the completion of all its financing, Hamburg said. Since the project was proposed two years ago, the cost has increased from an estimate of $35 million to $45 million.
“The current financial climate has slowed capital raising efforts, but we are very close to filling the remaining stack, so we can begin,” he said.
The developer received approval from the St. Louis Preservation Board to build the new apartments above the Reliance structure after the project was first proposed in 2022. The original timeline given to the city was that construction could finish in 202 and the apartments could be occupied by 2024, but the development team ran into challenges that delayed the project, Hamburg said.
The original plan was to use the concrete structure of the Reliance building as a parking garage, but that created cost issues and problems with maneuvering parking spaces inside the building’s existing column layout, Hamburg said.
After going back to the drawing board, the developers found it would be the same cost to remove the interior of the building and build new parking inside its walls, Hamburg said. Since that change allowed more parking spaces to be fit in the same square footage without having to navigate the existing columns of the building, it also allowed the project to expand with more units, he said.

“This helped to make the project more financially feasible,” Hamburg said.
Despite the revamped parking design inside, the project still looks the same on the outside and keeps the existing facade of the Reliance building, with that as a base to the apartments, Hamburg said.
Pier was confident that the new units would be leased after seeing strong leasing in other new complexes that have opened in the Central West End and neighboring DaBaliviere Place neighborhoods, Hamburg said. The Flats at Forest Park’s location at the historic intersection is also an advantage for attracting new residents, he said.
“With this project, this should become a gateway into the CWE’s core again, within walking distance to several food, beverage, entertainment and employment opportunities,” Hamburg said.
The city’s urban renewal board, the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority, last year voted to issue The Flats at Forest Park up to $40 million in industrial revenue bonds. The project also received a property tax abatement of five years at 90% of the assessed value of incremental improvements, then five years at 75%, along with a sales tax exemption for construction materials.
As part of the incentives package, rental rates for about 10% of the units will be reduced to be accessible to those at 80% of the area median income, Hamburg said.
As of the end of 2023, 270 apartment units were under construction in the Central West End, according to a report from commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. The vacancy rate at year's end was 10.6%, the same as the region as a whole, with average rent in the CWE of $1,533, compared with $1,209 for the region, according to the research.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Mar 16, 2025

Is that neglect or storm damage?

Ebsy wrote: ↑

Mar 16, 2025

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Mar 16, 2025

Is that neglect or storm damage?

Can't it be both?