Bulldozers knocked down the first of more than 200 problem properties planned for demolition throughout north St. Louis County on Tuesday.
The demolition of the building at 10215 Count Drive in the Castlepoint area kicked off an $11 million project to tear down properties identified by St. Louis County officials.
Linda Vaughn, a member of the Castlepoint Community Group that pushed for the demolitions, said she sees the project as a second chance for a neighborhood that needs investment.
“We're just trying to improve the community — build it up again where people can stop saying, ‘I don't live there anymore’ or ‘I'm moving out,’ “ Vaughn said. “We just want to build a community back up and make it look pleasant and nice and inviting.”
Vaughn’s community group met with St. Louis County Council member Shalonda Webb frequently about the neighborhood’s problem properties. The District 4 Democrat urged the council to allocate the original rescue plan money for the project.
Over the next year, contracted demolition crews are expected to bring down some 230 homes on problem properties — most of which are in Webb’s district.
“There are beautiful families in this community and they deserve a thriving community — but in order to do that — we must take away these safety hazards,” Webb said.
Webb said the lots in the neighborhood often attracted illegal activity as well as persistent illegal dumping. Many of the homes in the nearby streets read “NO DUMPING.”
“We're working together to ensure that this community is not left behind, that it has an opportunity to thrive again, that it has an opportunity to be vibrant and have real properties brought back to the market,” Webb said.
The county plans to tear down several more properties in the Castlepoint neighborhood, Spanish Lake and Glasgow Village, all neighborhoods located in unincorporated north county.
County officials originally allocated the $11 million from its $193 million pool of American Rescue Plan Act funds in 2022 but recently shifted the funds to its general fund reserve.
County Executive Sam Page said requirements and restrictions tacked on to federal rescue plan funds slowed the project. He said shifting the funds to the reserve allowed the county to expedite the nearly three-year-old plans.
“[That] made it very difficult for us to deploy those funds and get them working,” Page said. “By shifting them to our general fund reserve, we're able to now put them to work without restrictions and without a constricted timeline.”
Page said developers are “waiting in the wings” to put up new houses where homes the county plans to knock down currently stand.
“We'll work with them to get these houses built,” Page said. “We know that the market will come in here on an empty lot and build houses — and we'll work as much as we can to make sure that that happens.”
Once the lots are clear and no longer a liability, Page said he expects the value of the lots will increase.
“Derelict home on a lot is a liability because it costs more to take that home down than it would than the value of the lot underneath it,” he said. “So we've got to have these lots clear and clean and then get them back on the tax rolls and get a house put on them.”
