ST. LOUIS, Missouri — About a block away from the banks of the Mississippi River, a confluence of St. Louis' most pressing societal issues brought one historic architectural landmark crashing to the ground, and temporarily closed another.
Plumes of black smoke billowing from the old Federal Cold Storage Company building swept south over the Stan Musial Bridge on Tuesday morning as orange flames leapt out of the roof. The Missouri Department of Transportation closed the bridge to commuter traffic for at least two days while the St. Louis Fire Department doused the flames and demolition crews grappled with the century-old structure.
The crumbling heap of brick and concrete stood for a century as a fortress of frozen food. It was considered state-of-the-art architecture when it was built in 1922. The warehouse of ice, razed by fire, kept food cold through sweltering summer months and fed one of the nation's great cities during the Great Depression.
Eventually, the building's backstory landed it on the National Registry of Historic Places. But its current owner believes the city's ongoing struggles with housing the homeless caused it to go up in smoke, along with his pending plans to sell it to a new buyer in just four days.
"I'm incredibly frustrated," Armin Properties owner Adam Kuene said. "I don't have insurance. Nobody wants to insure a building like this. This is a $650,000 loss for me."
Property records show Kuene's company, a sole proprietorship, purchased the building in 2019 for $162,700.
"I put about a half a million dollars into the building, cleaning it up, removing graffiti," he said. "Within six months of me doing that, once people weren't down here (during the pandemic), homeless people started moving in."
Commercial real estate listings show the listing for sale at $495,000, down from a previous listing at $795,000. Some of the selling points included references to the building's historic status, which could come with tax breaks for developers.
"Somebody's supposed to close on Thursday," Kuene said, acknowledging the fire could derail his five-year plan to sell it.
The St. Louis Fire Department's arson investigators continue to look for evidence that could help them determine the official cause of the fire, but the chief acknowledged the building, known for its climate control, was often an attractive destination for homeless people.
Firefighters successfully put out a small fire inside the same building back in late July. The city's Building Division came out for an inspection and issued a citation, but Kuene said he quickly repaired the damage and closed off access.
"I board something up, they break back in. I board it up again. They break back in," he said. "I've called the police. I've had really no support from the police. I've had no support from the city in trying to stabilize this building."
"We know it's an area where the unhoused individuals do gather and stay warm," Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson said.
"The homeless problem in this city has gotten so out of control and there's nowhere for these people to go," Kuene added. "The city has a billion dollars. They're doing absolutely nothing with that money for the homeless population."
He believes the fire could've been avoided if police had been more responsive to a call he placed on Sept. 4. According to police communications reviewed by 5 On Your Side, Kuene alerted police to the incident at 4:36 p.m. Officers dispatched to the location at 7:07 p.m.
"There were three people trying to break into the building," Kuene recalled. "I held them at gunpoint because they kept approaching me. I was on the phone with the police for two and a half hours and then the police told me that they would not show up."
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Spokesman Mitch McCoy confirmed that someone did call officers on Sept. 4 seeking assistance, but after reviewing the call log, McCoy said he did not have the impression dispatchers knew there was a gun involved.
"That was never relayed to dispatchers," McCoy said. "That would've elevated the call right away."
McCoy said the police department doesn't consider trespassing incidents in vacant buildings as high of a priority as armed standoffs.
The fire comes as Mayor Tishaura Jones' administration faces questions for sending contractors to repair or stabilize vacant properties with what she calls "absentee" owners.
"I've had no support from the city in trying to stabilize this building," Kuene said.
The fire chief, who often works with the Building Commissioner, said the scope of the problem in an aging city with shrinking population is immense.
"There are a lot of older, large buildings in the city that... can they be salvaged?" Jenkerson asked.
He said he watched fires ravage vacant properties in Central West End and Soulard neighborhoods decades ago and they still recovered to become thriving cornerstones of commerce.
"Well truthfully, this is a case study for the city," Kuene said. "Everything that happened down here is happening to the entire city of St. Louis. This is a little tiny microcosm of what is happening all around here."