Arcade Building's rehab going full speed

Once declared the worlds tallest reinforced concrete building, the century-old Arcade is under rehab as downtown St. Louis largest apartment development in decades.

When reopened late next year, the Arcade Building will have 282 apartments, plus classrooms, offices, a street-level art gallery and an auditorium for Webster University, which is expanding its downtown campus.

The $118 million project represents a turnaround for the historic building, which had been vacant for years and targeted for demolition by some previous owners whose redevelopment plans fizzled. At a groundbreaking event Tuesday, Mayor Francis Slay and other officials said they hope the Arcades revival will lead to more downtown redevelopment.

Dominium Development, of Minneapolis, bought the building in August from the citys Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority for about $9.5 million. Almost immediately, heavy work began to renovate and restore the 500,000-square-foot building at Eighth and Olive streets.

The Arcade is really two buildings the 18-story Wright completed in 1906 and the Arcade, built around the Wright more than a decade later then joined to the older structure. Combined as the Arcade, the complex is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Architect Paul Hohmann, whose ebersoldt + associates architecture has a piece of the rehab project, noted that the Arcade was designed during World War I, when much of the nations steel production was diverted to military use.

As a result, engineers and architect Tom P. Barnett turned to reinforced concrete. Contemporary press accounts said the 16-story Arcade was the worlds tallest for such structures.

After years of neglect, the Arcades interior is a mess, but the reinforced concrete frame remains solid, Hohmann said.

Structurally, its very sound, he added.

Dominiums plan calls for 202 affordable artist lofts and 80 market-rate apartments. Marble hallways and other original flourishes will be refurbished. Surviving shop windows on the eight floors of former retail space will be retained.

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Arcade Building's rehab going full speed