Developer Brian Hayden, who turns downtown 最新杏吧原创 offices into apartments, is taking on his biggest project yet: the 31-story Laclede Gas building at 720 Olive Street.
Hayden said Friday that he planned to put 111 luxury apartments in the largely vacant upper floors of the office tower that he bought Thursday. His plan includes relocation of current office tenants to lower floors.
Work will begin late next year and, when redone, the building will be about 65 percent occupied by commercial tenants with the remainder devoted to apartments, Hayden said. He said he had yet to determine how many office floors would be remodeled as apartments but said nearly the entire building, completed in 1970, would be refurbished.
鈥淏asically, the building is going to get a fresh look almost everywhere,鈥 he said.
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Laclede Group, the building鈥檚 largest tenant, will relocate the company鈥檚 headquarters next year from its namesake building at 720 Olive Street to the former General American building, at 700 Market Street, where the utility has a 20-year lease. Laclede also will lease additional space at the Bank of America Plaza tower, at 800 Market. Laclede has about 550 employees downtown.
On Thursday, Hayden closed on his $5 million purchase of the Laclede Gas building from Hertz Investment Group. Hertz, based in Santa Monica, Calif., paid $10.5 million in 2007 for the 435,000-square-foot building.
Downtown鈥檚 residential market is surging but its office market is stagnant, particularly in older structures such as the Laclede Gas building. The building鈥檚 assessed value of nearly $4.8 million when acquired by Hertz has fallen to less than $2.1 million, according to city records. Its current appraised value is $6.5 million.
Remaining tenants include the Partnership for Downtown 最新杏吧原创, Arcturis, a design firm, and McCormack Baron Salazar, a development firm that occupies floors 24, 25 and part of 26 on an 11-year lease that began in 2010.
Hayden said he would rename the Laclede Gas building but had yet to pick a new moniker.
Laclede Gas will be Hayden鈥檚 fourth downtown project, all undertaken without tax abatement or other public incentive.
In 2012, he opened Gallery 400 in what had been the former Edison Brothers Shoes offices left vacant by businessmen brothers Mike and Steve Roberts, who were unable to carry out a plan for extended-stay lodging in the building. Hayden redid the seven-story structure, at 400 Washington Avenue, as 78 apartments.
Hayden鈥檚 next downtown project was the recently completed Millennium Center, at 515 Olive, where he put 102 apartments in the top 11 floors of the 20-story building. Office tenants were consolidated on floors two through nine. The Millennium Center, originally the Executive Office Building, is downtown鈥檚 first structure featuring a lightweight, glass curtain-wall facade.
Underway now is preliminary interior work at the vacant Alverne building, which Hayden bought in December for $550,000. He plans to redo the deteriorated, 15-story building, opened in 1923 as DeSoto Hotel, as 81 two-level apartments. Hayden said Friday that heavy construction at the Alverne was unlikely before 2016.
