Senior Housing: McKee’s Clemens House project gets $10M in bonds
by Kelsey Volkmann for St. Louis Business Journal
Developer Paul McKee’s $14.3 million project to renovate the historic Clemens House in north St. Louis into senior housing received approval for up to $10 million tax-exempt bonds from the state.
At its meeting last week, the Missouri Housing Development Commission approved the bonds, which will be sold in late October or early November so construction can start by the end of the year, said Bill Ulm, the commission’s director of rental production.
Another set of permanent 30-year bonds for up to $100 million will be sold after the project’s completion, he said.
The 24-month project will create 30 construction jobs and turn the decaying 140-year-old mansion on Cass Avenue into 49 units for seniors as well as a museum.
The Clemens House project is part of McKee’s larger $8.1 billion planned redevelopment of north St. Louis.
A judge’s ruling last month striking down a St. Louis ordinance that authorized the city’s $390 million financial package for the Northside project has no impact on the bonds approved Friday, Ulm said.
“Clemens House is an important project for the city of St. Louis,” he said. “We believe the way it’s structured, it will be financially feasible.”
McKee wants to partner with homebuilders and other developers on the 1,500-acre proposal to build up to 4.5 million square feet of office space, 1 million square feet of retail space, 2,200 new single-family homes and 7,800 apartments over the next two decades in north St. Louis. McKee has said he isn’t walking away from the project and is seeking a retrial, but the development’s future is clouded without a financial package from the city.
Also at last week’s Missouri Housing Development Commission meeting, State Treasurer Clint Zweifel’s proposal to devote $127 million — or a third of the state and federal funding — on housing for the homeless and mentally ill was rejected. But the commission signed off on a modified version of the plan that calls for two housing developments within fiscal 2011 for the mentally ill and homeless, as well as the physically disabled and foster children.
