downtown | If the architectural significance and sheer beauty of an office building were important factors in keeping workers from escaping downtown for the County, the historic, Louis Sullivan-designed Wainwright Building would be a huge draw. Built in 1891, the 10-story reddish building at Seventh and Chestnut is considered to be one of the first modern skyscrapers. But beauty is only a terra-cotta exterior deep, apparently. Because the State of Missouri, which had owned the building, sold it to Greater St. Louis Inc., the city’s marketing arm, and many of the approximately 600 state employees at the Wainwright will be relocated to Chesterfield. The Wainwright is one of two city buildings the state is relinquishing, the other being Mill Creek Office Building at 220 S. Jefferson Ave. State officials have claimed that taxpayers should not be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars needed for repairs and upkeep of the Wainwright, which sold for $8 million. Greater St. Louis hasn’t divulged how it intends to use its 234,600 square feet. An empty Wainwright is but another of the large chunks of office space to be left unoccupied in recent years. It still remains unclear what will become of the vacant AT&T tower. And the Crane Insurance Agency, downtown for almost 140 years, in February started moving its 270-some workers from the home office to Chesterfield for consolidation with the company’s off-site employees. Many observers have blamed this significant exodus on the perception that the city is crime-infested. That may be one factor, but another for certain is the increase in remote work since the pandemic. And urban planners elsewhere in the metro are taking full advantage of this paradigm shift: To wit, the demise of Chesterfield Mall for the Downtown Chesterfield development is rolling right along. Developers say its infrastructure could be in place by June 2026, the first buildings two years after that, with full build-out projected for 10 to 15 years.
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One of them condemned in 2016, the other vacant since the 1960s, the two buildings that are being renovated into U. City’s new police department and municipal courts buildings had been waiting a long time for some love from city hall. Repurposing the historic Trinity and Annex buildings near the west end of the Delmar Loop, behind city hall, will cost somewhere between $22 million and $28.5 million, depending on where you dig for the details. The Annex, larger of the two at 36,000 square feet, was built in 1903 and was police headquarters for 80 years. It is, you guessed it, attached to U. City’s distinctive city hall. (A slice of that architectural gem—an eye-catching five-story, octagonal structure—is at the rendering’s far left; Trinity is the standalone building at right.) The department will continue working out of the trailers behind city hall until police move back into the renovated Annex, perhaps as early as spring 2026, when both buildings are projected for completion. Issues to be addressed with the structures include leaky roofs and mold. Trinity, an adjacent building that dates to 1934, is 8,512 square feet and will become the new Municipal Courts Building; it served as the city’s public library. It will include interior spaces for public use. Abatement and asbestos removal began soon after the Aug. 1 groundbreaking and should be completed by the end of the year, whereupon construction will begin. The city issued $28.5 million in bonds for the project.
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Al Franken is both a fulltime comedian and a one-time politician, and you can bet he’s still pretty darn funny, as he was one of the “Weekend Update” anchors from the perennial political skit during the heyday of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. His hair’s not nearly as long and bushy as it was in 1980, just wavy and shot through with plenty of gray. But you can bet he has plenty to say, considering the present state of our nation’s political landscape, which is arguably even more crazy than both the Carter and Reagan administrations put together, then turned upside-down and inside-out. For one thing, we were a long way from most of the monumental changes in mass communication, as the internet was yet to be a gleam in some tech wizards’ eyes. Few could have imagined such features of our everyday lives as smartphones, memes or social media. Which brings us to podcasts, specifically Franken’s, which will be live at 8 p.m. on Oct. 10 from The Factory in Chesterfield. He will be joined by millennial couple Jason and Diana Kander, the former of whom you may remember as the Missouri secretary of state who then gave incumbent Republican senator Roy Blunt a run for his money in 2016. But he transitioned from the campaign trail to mental health advocacy. A former army captain, he quit politics to battle PTSD. He’s written two New York Times bestsellers, including Invisible Storm: A Soldier’s Memoir of Politics and PTSD. Visit thefactorystl.com for more information on this unique podcast event.
notable neighbors
florissant
For reasons yet unknown to medicine, many, if not most, addicts cannot decide when to get clean and sober. Very few can keep New Year’s resolutions to quit forever on Jan. 1. The key is not stopping so much as it is not starting again. That’s why ‘One Day at a Time’ is a mantra in 12-Step programs. Christy Ivory happened to quit on Aug. 15, 2010, her 40th birthday, and has remained clean and dry ever since. Ivory asserts that she’s done very little herself, beyond relying on spiritual help to make a daily decision, and attributes it to a higher power. “God was just waiting for me,” she says. “I never knew that God had a plan for my future. And I was raised in the church.” Tillman Roland, her father, was a seasoned, self-taught, locally renowned gospel musician. But sometime during high school at Hazelwood East, she turned her back on her faith community, started smoking pot and drinking. Despite doing well in school, her substance use eventually led to using crack cocaine, a habit that ramped up in college. By the summer of 2010, she didn’t know herself. She’d managed to keep jobs despite dropping out of college, working in hospitality for many years before taking a position as resident manager of a large apartment complex in North County. That’s when she reached the end of her rope, getting fired for embezzlement. Soon thereafter, her journey into 12-Step recovery began. “I was raised in a good family—I didn’t have to steal. It wasn’t my parents’ fault that I made the decisions I made.” Men and women at meetings started suggesting she go back to school, and she enrolled at SLCC-Florissant Valley. Meanwhile, she met her husband, Vance, in recovery. And before she finished up at the community college, she met The Next Step, a local nonprofit that provides scholarship money to students who have at least a year of 12-Step recovery under their belts. She was able to finish up a degree in social work and complete her master’s with The Next Step’s financial assistance. Then, she started paying it back… as well as paying it forward. While working as a behavioral health professional, she paid back all the money she had taken from the property management company that released her for cause. And ever since graduating and becoming a licensed MSW, she’s dedicated her career to helping others face and recover from their addiction. Recently, after having worked eight years at Queen of Peace Treatment Center and at Places for People, she joined Mercy Health’s Virtual Substance Abuse Use Recovery Program (VSURP), working online from home with regular clients, who sometimes just don’t show up. Unfortunately, from personal experience, she doesn’t always have to wonder why. Ivory, who’s now a board member at The Next Step, laments that it isn’t always easy to reach potential scholarship applicants. But she celebrates the program’s successes. For more information or to get involved, visit thenextstepstl.org.
