Information is from Deb Peterson's P-D column. I found the photo on the Internet a few years ago.
Assassinated Lebanese leader once invested in "Clayton Hole"
By Deb Peterson
Of the Post-Dispatch
02/18/2005
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JUST PASSING THROUGH: In the small-world department, Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated Monday in Beirut and is being mourned throughout the world, was once an investor in our town. In the early 1980s, Hariri was a contractor in Lebanon and became the largest investor locally in what was euphemistically called the "Clayton Hole."
The hole began as the $300 million Clayton Towers project, and I.E. Millstone, then topper of Millstone Construction, recalls his company excavating the 16-acre site for several months, digging 60-feet into rock and then beginning to shore up the perimeter of the property when the plug got pulled. "We got an order to stop construction. Just to stop," Millstone said Thursday. Shortly after that, Millstone said Hariri's agents and other investors came into town and put the property up for bid.
It was bought by developer George Capps' Capitol Land Co. and eventually became the site of the Ritz-Carlton with surrounding condominiums, office space and a restaurant. Richard Roloff, who worked with Capitol Land at the time and is now with Washington U., said Hariri had reportedly been displeased with his agents' expenditures on the site and "concluded it was too large a development to be feasible in St. Louis County," when he pulled out of the project.
Roloff said that about 60 percent of the site remains undeveloped, with much of that property leased to private developers who have not yet built.
Source
Assassinated Lebanese leader once invested in "Clayton Hole"
By Deb Peterson
Of the Post-Dispatch
02/18/2005
JUST PASSING THROUGH: In the small-world department, Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated Monday in Beirut and is being mourned throughout the world, was once an investor in our town. In the early 1980s, Hariri was a contractor in Lebanon and became the largest investor locally in what was euphemistically called the "Clayton Hole."
The hole began as the $300 million Clayton Towers project, and I.E. Millstone, then topper of Millstone Construction, recalls his company excavating the 16-acre site for several months, digging 60-feet into rock and then beginning to shore up the perimeter of the property when the plug got pulled. "We got an order to stop construction. Just to stop," Millstone said Thursday. Shortly after that, Millstone said Hariri's agents and other investors came into town and put the property up for bid.
It was bought by developer George Capps' Capitol Land Co. and eventually became the site of the Ritz-Carlton with surrounding condominiums, office space and a restaurant. Richard Roloff, who worked with Capitol Land at the time and is now with Washington U., said Hariri had reportedly been displeased with his agents' expenditures on the site and "concluded it was too large a development to be feasible in St. Louis County," when he pulled out of the project.
Roloff said that about 60 percent of the site remains undeveloped, with much of that property leased to private developers who have not yet built.
Source
