ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Building Commissioner Frank Oswald peered in through a hole in a board at the Railway Exchange Building that his department was supposed to repair Wednesday and was instantly brought back in time.
“This door led into the men’s department,” he said, recalling the high school and college days he spent working at the Famous Barr that was once inside the massive historic structure in the middle of downtown St. Louis.
It takes up an entire city block.
And now, Oswald says it also takes up too many city resources, and it's continuing to deteriorate.
City leaders and downtown stakeholders are scrambling to find ways to put an end to the safety concerns at the privately-owned structure. When asked if eminent domain is among the options the city is considering, Oswald said, "At this point, nothing is off the table. People are very frustrated with this because it's such an important part of downtown."
He continued: “It's really troublesome to me that very wealthy people who own these type of buildings are able to get away with this type of stuff.”
This year alone, his department’s board-up crews have billed the building’s owner, Florida-based Hudson Holdings LLC, about $40,000, and another $18,000 to tear down a pedestrian bridge that used to connect a parking garage to the upper floors.
And the city hasn’t recouped a dime.
"We don't have anybody we can go arrest, we don't have anybody we can go after individually," Oswald said. "Our legal team is doing everything they possibly can."
Jeff Hunt, the lawyer for Hudson Holdings at the Rosenblum Goldenhersh law firm, did not return 5 On Your Side’s phone call seeking comment. Calls to Florida-based Hudson Holdings went directly to voicemail, and the mailbox was full.
Police have been called to the building at 615 Olive Street 23 times so far this year – compared to just once in 2021.
Thirteen of those calls happened in January.
A search and rescue dog was killed after falling from the building earlier this year.
And, in July, the building’s owners stopped paying a private security company to guard it, according to Oswald.
It’s arguably become the city’s de-facto homeless shelter, as vandals and squatters have broken glass doors like the ones that used to lead into the men’s department and ransacked the place.
The smell of mold hangs in the air outside the many holes cut into the boards that have been removed. And parts of the terra cotta architectural details have fallen apart.
On Wednesday, 5 On Your Side saw the words, “Sex this way,” along with arrows spray painted near one of at least four openings in the boards the building department can’t seem to keep secured.
“This is a continuing thing because every day somebody is either trying to break into this building or somebody, in some cases is, breaking out of the building,” Oswald said.
Alderwoman Cara Spencer says she’s concerned that the city isn’t checking to see if anyone is inside the 1.2 million-square-foot building before boarding it up, and could be potentially trapping them inside.
“We need a plan for homelessness, and I think that's a real, real obvious fact here,” she said as she snapped pictures of the damaged building with her cellphone. “And we need a plan for a building like this.
“If this building were to, for example, catch on fire like many vacant buildings that are housing folks that are unhoused without services provided, it would be absolutely devastating for our downtown community.”
Spencer said the city should apply historic tax credits to the building to “make it a viable investment opportunity for the private sector.”
The building went to auction earlier this year, and it was unsuccessful, she said.
“I'd like to see our city or a civic-minded organization take control of the asset, install the security back again, and then figure out the financial mechanisms through which we can make this a viable investment opportunity and an asset that it can and should be for our community,” she said.
Oswald said the city can impose a lien on the building to force the owner to pay the city’s costs upon a sale.
“I knew the building very well, and it's a beautiful, beautiful building inside, it's a shame,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment.
He then called the board-up crew to repair the hole he had just peered into. Someone had taken a power saw to it.
“It’s about two feet wide by about three or four feet tall,” he told the crew.
Then, he walked away from the former entrance to the men’s department.