3719 Bamberger Brought Back To Life in Tower Grove South

While we’ve taken a more active role in developing property over the last five years, development facilitation is in our genes. In the proceeding decades, the origins of our CDC was a one person operation with limited funding. Our neighborhood stabilization work relied heavily on marketing vacant and abandoned properties to reputable developers by highlighting market strengths, attractive housing stock, people/community and location. We also educated developers on the cost to construct, sales prices/comps, tax abatement opportunities, and the State and Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credit programs. While our assets, income, and staff has grown significantly in the past 5 years, "we don't need to own every building on the block," our Board President, Janice Drake, often says. 3719 Bamberger was long vacant and owned by an out of state ‘investor.’ We offered our traditional assistance but the owner didn't do anything over several years. After being discouraged by the lack of progress, TGNCDC bought the property. By that time, the building was in disrepair and our board was tasked with deciding between demo of the property over safety concerns or investing in the building to stabilize it. They choose to invest. We rebuilt 60% of the front facade and added a TPO roof with a cost of over $20,000.

Once we completed the improvements, TGNCDC marketed the property to investors who have successful developments in the immediate area. Jeff Sutton, from Bloomsdale Investments, LLC, took on the project and promised a beautiful renovation. While the project took longer than he expected, he delivered! The building is two 2 bedroom units with beautiful finishes. He invested over $165,000 in the renovation, after the 35,000 we invested (purchase and improvements), and his son did some of the work himself.

Historic buildings are expensive to renovate, require skilled labor and experienced developers then take months to complete. 3719 Bamberger is a successful, in part, because of our initial investment and the real estate market in the area justifying the additional investment to complete the rehab. No tax abatement was used and no historic preservation tax credits were available in this part of the neighborhood. Rents will be in the $800-900 range per unit. Below are some photos of the property before and after. Thanks for reading.

TGNCDC Board President, Janice Drake and Developer Jeff Sutton