Update: The house has been demolished and is now a vacant lot.
3113 Arsenal Street in the Tower Grove East neighborhood was gutted by fire on the night of November 12. It’s the usual story: the owner of an abandoned house who’s owned the building for decades deferred maintenance for so long that finally it was in such terrible shape it couldn’t even get the most desperate tenants anymore (I saw the inside one time, and it was bad). It has a water lien against the address filed by the City of St. Louis, as well as a sewer lien filed against the property by the Metropolitan Sewer District. The owner also is behind on his property taxes three years.
Wait a minute–three years?! Isn’t the City supposed to seize and auction off properties delinquent on their taxes after three years? It should have been auctioned off this summer. St. Louis doesn’t have any problem doing that to elderly African Americans in North St. Louis, after all. Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret I’ve been keeping for a while: the City of St. Louis has been failing to seize vacant properties owned by slumlords and absentee owners all over the city for years now, allowing properties with four, five and even six years of back property taxes to accumulate. Allowing, like we see in this example, for houses to sit vacant–and vulnerable to arson. There are properties like this, some big, some very big and some small. The citizens of St. Louis deserve an answer.
This house would have definitely sold at the Sheriff’s tax auction: a property like this would have been easily converted into a $300,000 single family in a “hot” neighborhood like Tower Grove East generating $3,000-$4,000 in real estate taxes a year. In other words, if this property had been seized from its slumlord owner like it should have been this year, it very well might have been on its way to being rehabbed, instead of probably becoming a pile of rubble.
The house just to the west looked like it had been damaged by fire, as well, but there was something weird about it that did not point to collateral damage from its neighbor’s conflagration. Upon further investigation, I determined the house had been abandoned for several years and had been gutted by fire only three weeks ago. It was condemned by the Building Division on October 21. What are the chances of two adjacent abandoned buildings burning three weeks apart?
And in case you’re wondering about one of those properties with extreme back property taxes, take 3117 St. Louis Avenue, with five years of unpaid arrears:
It is that church we’ve looked at many times over the years.
Such a huge loss, and to think it could have been restored…sickening.
Seeing how fast a demo permit was pulled after all those years of no maintenance or tax payments really did me in. I’m with you that I don’t see a coincidence on fires. There was another just across Gravois, also on Arsenal days after these. It’s exhausting.
I keep noticing more and more how many houses aren’t being auctioned off but kept thinking I must be missing something. I’ve even watched one house have a sign in its window promising an auction (or later a demo) and nothing. But then SLDC says they’ll be demolishing half the homes in their portfolio too so I wonder if the city is just letting that happen first.
Yeah, what was it, 4,000 or 5,000 houses are slated to be demolished? Wow, what a solution!
This is sad. Thank you for sharing the story.
You pose many great questions, but what would be the best path for a solution?
Thanks.
Great question. If you’re a City resident, ask your alderman why the laws aren’t being enforced–why are some properties being auctioned for back taxes, and others are not? Demand accountability from the government.
Thank you so much for calling the city out on this. Everyone deserves better!
Demo is underway and not a sprayer in sight.
Why am I not surprised?
Who is gonna pay money to live in those neighborhoods? If I could afford a nice place around there, I’d feel like there was a target on my back. I’m pretty sure that’s why most of the rich folks are west of the city. They fear being rich amongst this level of poor. I don’t blame them, honestly, I blame the poor. A lot of poor people are flat out stupid and annoying. I used to live in Tower Grove neighborhood, and I liked it. I liked the buildings, and the big park, local businesses, and the botanical gardens. What I didn’t like was the crack house across the street with druggies beeping horns and yelling all day and night. I’ll never forget the time a dude drove around the block for 3 days honking his damn horn. I kept wondering WTF is this about? I actually went down and stopped him in the street and told him to get the fuck out the neighborhood. Yerp. That’s the life they got down there.
Um, I live a three minute walk from the house and the average sale price of houses in Tower Grove East, where this house is located, is north of $350,000.
It really hurts to see all that character and craftsmanship lost forever, and to see the story repeat over and over again around the city. I cringe every time I see neglected properties marketed to “investors” on real estate sites because I know many of them will likely end up like this.
I really want to renovate a home like this one, but I can’t find anyone willing to lend; the banks always try to shoehorn me into traditional mortgages and claim renovation loans don’t exist. Likewise, some contractors won’t even touch certain parts of the city, deeming them “too high-risk.” This is probably not the right place to ask, but who finances these types of projects? I’m at wits end trying to figure it out.
Spectacular post…those darned poor people. 🤔🤫😀😃😄