ST. LOUIS — An animal control or shelter site? A motorsports, go-cart track or other recreational facility? A memorial or museum site? Renewable energy site? Return the land to native tribes?
All are among the potential uses for one of the city’s former jails known as The Workhouse that a steering committee says it is willing to continue to explore based on the 790 responses it got to a community survey.
Some of the jobs eliminated from consideration include a job and business training and support facility, emergency dispatch center, social service hub, healthcare or drug rehab and mental health services, legal or restorative justice facility.
The committee is now planning a second survey to narrow the choices again and prepare recommendations to city leaders, who will have the final say. Inez Bordeaux, who is the manager of Community Collaborations for the ArchCity Defenders, is a member of the steering committee.
"I'm excited because this is the beginning of the end of the process," she said. "It's been a very long, hard road with lots of tears and lots of sweat to get us to the point to where The Workhouse is empty and it's been empty for quite a while, but empty is not closed.
"And so the sooner we get through this process, the sooner the community gives us the input, we can get to this next stage, which is finally and forever closing The Workhouse and closing a chapter on just a racist and harmful history here."
Mayor Tishaura Jones made a campaign promise to close the structure, formally known as the Medium Security Institution, stating it housed inmates in inhumane conditions. She, along with former Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner and Congresswoman Cori Bush, toured the facility not long after Jones took office in 2021 and announced it must close.
The city spent about $7 million to renovate the facility following complaints of inadequate HVAC systems and other issues before Jones took office in 2021.
The last inmates were moved out in May 2022, about a year after Jones announced it would close.
The steering committee overseeing the facility’s future narrowed down responses to the community survey to five themes:
- Resource community stability
- Create an economic engine for the city
- Nurture joy and healing
- Facilitate memory and justice
- Municipal Services and infrastructure.
The committee also determined that the building’s location is isolated from residential neighborhoods, which makes it “uniquely beneficial for infrastructural uses that could be unattractive to humans nearby due to noise, air, or ground pollution; or because of lack of direct neighborhood benefit,” according to the committee’s website.
Therefore, the committee has decided to continue exploring the following uses for the MSI site:
- Industrial
- Renewable Energy
- Prairie or Nature Site
- Motor Sports, Go-carts, and other Recreation
- Animal Shelter or Control
- Memorial / Museum
- Demolish and Leave Empty
- Land Returned to Native Tribes
The committee also determined the site’s isolation, “makes the site challenging for uses that have been proposed, which are most effective when embedded in neighborhoods where people are,” according to the website.
The committee members also believe the soil likely has contaminants and could be exposed to continued pollution from adjacent industrial sites.
“Uses directly serving residents need good access and safe healthy conditions,” according to the committee’s website.
After touring the building, steering committee members noted the site “stinks, has rats is industrial and polluted,” and “is isolated from neighborhoods and people that would be looking for those services.”
That’s why the following uses have been eliminated from consideration:
- A Community Center with education, youth services, and childcare
- Housing (Affordable, Shelters or Transitional)
- Job/Business Training and Support
- Healthy Food (Gardens, Groceries)
- Social Service Hub
- Healthcare, Drug Rehab & Mental Health Services
- Legal Services or Restorative Justice Facilities
The committee also wants to focus resources on “addressing underlying reasons behind crime and incarceration.”
“Instead of just addressing the surface-level symptoms, fixing the causes allows us to tackle the problem at its core, aiming for more effective and sustainable solutions,” according to the website.
That’s why the committee also says it will not consider the following uses for the facility, either: carceral facility, public safety, emergency dispatch center.
"We'll also be having a series of public facing events, town halls, community meetings, neighborhood meetings, board meetings, so watch out at your ward meetings, we're coming to a ward meeting near you," Bordeaux said.
The second survey is posted online or you can call or text your thoughts to 314-266-8620.