Today, just as it did in 1931, the unmistakable edifice of the Chase Park Plaza overlooks Forest Park as an entire city’s monument to refined living. The eight decades of history forever linked with the Chase now serve as prologue to yet another historic moment: the opportunity for the most prestigious address in St. Louis to become your permanent address.
This is the text in a slick hardcover book pitching “The Private Residences” at the Chase Park Plaza to prospective buyers a decade ago. In 2006, the owners of the property — a historic but shopworn apartment building that had come to symbolize the long decline of the city of St. Louis — embarked on a four-year, $80 million renovation to convert the upper floors into luxury condominiums. Few knew it at the time, but this was the height of the property bubble across the U.S. Asking prices for the new condos at the Park Plaza reflected this, ranging from $500,000 to well past the $4 million mark.
To the sales team’s credit, the marketing copy wasn’t complete hyperbole. The 28-floor Park Plaza is indeed a superb example of Art Deco design; it would look right at home on Manhattan’s Central Park West. With the attached 1920s-era Chase Hotel and its restaurants, ballrooms, and cinema, the tower anchors St. Louis’s Central West End.
Today, two years after the Park Plaza’s developers sold the last condo for $2.5 million, the building contributes to a cosmopolitan vibe that’s missing from most of the city’s other neighborhoods. It’s home base for hundreds of residents and visitors who patronize restaurants and recently opened storefronts operated by the likes of Bonobos, Warby Parker, Shake Shack and Whole Foods.
But last year, quietly — no splashy marketing push this time around — the Central West End neighborhood witnessed another historic moment. After 35 years of either full or partial tax abatement, the Park Plaza returned to the city’s property tax rolls as a fully paid-up member. The private owners of the tower’s 77 condo units and the commercial owners of a mix of hotel rooms and corporate apartments on the lower floors paid real estate taxes for 2017 totaling more than $1.6 million, according to the city assessor’s website. The Chase Hotel contributed an additional $1.4 million.
There’s something else about the Park Plaza which may not be historic, but is certainly noteworthy. With its full value now reflected in public records for the first time since the condos were built, it turns out that this single tower was worth more in 2017 than the individual values of some entire neighborhoods in St. Louis.
How many, exactly? Based on the latest available data, around one-third of the 79 official neighborhoods designated by the city.
“It’s pretty extreme,” says Todd Swanstrom, a professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who focuses on urban policy and community collaboration. “It’s striking evidence of the extraordinary inequality across neighborhoods in St. Louis.”
Editor’s Note: McPherson teamed with The Atlantic’s CityLab on this story. It was published on April 3, 2018. The full text appears here on the CityLab website.
© Copyright 2018 by Jack Grone, McPherson Publishing LLC, as first published in The Atlantic.
