6 hours Ago By By Steph Kukuljan St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — The brick two-family building stood at Penrose Street and Florissant Avenue for more than a hundred years. On Monday, a few demolition workers flattened it in less than an hour.
St. Louis' land bank has owned the Hyde Park property at 2115 Penrose for more than 20 years. City records indicate the building has been vacant since at least 1997.
Last year, the city's land bank, also known as the Land Reutilization Authority, launched a demolition program to remove 1,000 vacant structures by 2026 that have pockmarked neighborhoods across the city, paid for with $15 million from the state of Missouri's American Rescue Plan Act. So far, crews have razed about 108, primarily on the north side. It's a dent in the more than 24,000 vacant properties scattered across the city, a problem that has built up over decades as St.
Louis' population has dropped. But Deion Broxton, vice president of communications for St. Louis Development Corp.
, said the program makes a difference block by block, attracting developers and investors who wouldn't otherwise buy properties with decrepit buildings on them. Officials said that at least five have sold recently. The land "is more valuable when it's flat," Broxton said.
The city is continuously adding properties to its list; Broxton said the buildings that are targeted for demolition are most often public safety hazards, have a litany of resident complaints or gain public attention via other means, like through a fire. "People want to know the city is safe," he said. The land bank has stabilized some properties, hoping to save them.
But Broxton said it's less expensive to demolish them. Public records provide little information about the vacant Penrose home. St.
Louis officials condemned the property around 2008, records show. The property was the last structure on its corner block; another brick two-family next door came down a few years ago. A squat, one-story commercial building on the southwest corner was razed long before that.
Ley Woods, general manager of Hillsdale Demolition, which the land bank hired for this job, said this was the first LRA job of the year for the local company. Hillsdale Demolition has worked with the city on at least 30 other demolitions. As one of her employees operated the machine Monday that smashed into the building, another employee hosed down the brick to keep dust from floating.
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