ST. LOUIS 鈥 Paul McKee鈥檚 NorthSide Regeneration is planning a hotel and office building on the site of the former Pruitt-Igoe housing complex across Cass Avenue from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
Construction company Clayco, which has worked closely with McKee in the past, submitted zoning applications to the city for the site. The project is in the very early stages, but the applications reference a hotel, a commercial building with a cafe and event space, two office buildings and two parking garages.
McKee confirmed the applications were for zoning but released no other details. Building permit applications for the two office buildings provide an estimated cost of about $26 million total.
The project, if it moves forward, would represent one of the largest private investments in McKee鈥檚 NorthSide Regeneration footprint that covers hundreds of acres of north 最新杏吧原创, signaling new momentum for the project. Many residents have grown frustrated with the condition of hundreds of buildings owned by NorthSide, and allegations of the company鈥檚 misuse of tax credits prompted the city to take steps to cancel its development rights in 2018.
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Building Commissioner Frank Oswald said the applications were for zoning only so the applicant knows whether it will be allowed to build prior to spending money on more detailed plans.
The city held a hearing on conditional use permits for the site Thursday morning. Oswald said that review is part of a contemplated overlay district requested by the federal government so it has oversight of what is built next to its NGA campus, which handles sensitive intelligence.
Alderman James Page, 5th Ward, said he was 鈥渆xcited about the developments planned on the old Pruitt-Igoe site.鈥
Aside from the NGA, which needed to acquire much of its land from NorthSide Regeneration, NorthSide Regeneration developed a gas station and grocery store along Tucker Boulevard. It is also nearing completion of a $20 million, 19-bed hospital along Jefferson Avenue on the Pruitt-Igoe site that it is calling the Homer G. Phillips Hospital 鈥 named after the famous north 最新杏吧原创 hospital that treated the city鈥檚 Black population during segregation.
A private, for-profit medical school based in Puerto Rico, Ponce Health Sciences University, also says it will build a campus on the Pruitt-Igoe site. The school鈥檚 leader, David Lenihan, has said Clayco would also build that campus beginning in 2023.
The site is owned by 20th and Cass LLC, tied to McKee鈥檚 companies, which exercised an option with the city to purchase the site in 2016. The site was the location of the troubled Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex, which was demolished in the 1970s.
Steph Kukuljan and Mark Schlinkmann of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
