In December of last year when we learned a new $500K home would be built in the city’s Forest Park Southeast (The Grove) neighborhood, it was a new high-water mark that seemed sure to last years if not longer. Yet, before that project begins, we’ve learned that a past UIC home has sold for $750K without hitting the market.
The custom home at 4224 Gibson Avenue was designed and constructed by UIC and completed in 2012. Total cost at that time once fully outfitted, neared the half-million dollar mark. The most optimistic of observers saw the project as a custom private homestead, a place that didn’t have to make sense with dollars and cents. Now, the home has sold for a price that better fits Clayton.
In fact, one can buy a 2,900sf-4bd-3ba home in Clayton for $724,900 today, or a 2,600sf-3bd-2.5ba home for $599,000. The home on Gibson Avenue may not be for everyone, but in a region of micro-markets, The Grove has clearly become hot. Its success is partly due to location, adjacent to a burgeoning medical center with more than 15,000 employees already, and the adjacent Cortex district, which is truly just getting started. The big blue box a half mile away will lead another level of change in the near future.
The big trends may be leading the way, but The Grove is also succeeding due to the many smaller long term investments, including the Atomic Cowboy, Urban Chestnut Brewery, St. Louis Language Immersion School, Kaldi’s Coffee, SPACE Architects, Sweetie Pie’s, and numerous projects by Guy Slay (Mangrove Development), Amy and Amrit Gill (Restoration St. Louis), and Austin Barzantny (Grove Properties), and many, many other businesses and individuals. The $85M Chouteau’s Grove project is set to introduce an eight-story, 300-unit apartment building, as well as 78K sf of retail, including a full size grocer. UIC recently introduced its Avant Grove contemporary single family infill project across Gibson from is earlier custom home. And four developers just received support from the neighborhood to build a mix of contemporary and faux historic homes on city-owned vacant lots.
A large portion of the neighborhood is designated as a National Register of Historic Places district, but that designation carries no building restrictions, such as can be found in Local Historic Preservation Districts. The designation does mean that select projects are eligible for historic tax credits. The lack of restrictions has produced some terrible looking infill, but may allow for more forward design as well.
{aerial renderings of project – 4224-4230 Gibson Avenue}
{the City-owned LRA lots prior to construction – 4224-4230 Gibson Avenue}
{first level floor plan – 4224-4230 Gibson Avenue}
{second level floor plan – 4224-4230 Gibson Avenue}
{this $500K Hunt Avenue custom home by UIC will be a first south of Manchester in The Grove}
In old McRee Town across Vandeventer Avenue to the south of The Grove, UIC has been playing city-builder. Anyone familiar with this area less than a decade ago would have bet, and lost heavily, against its resurgence. Now titled Botanical Grove, this is where one finds a public Montessori school with a waitlist double its capacity, a french patisserie, a wine bar and restaurant with white linen, gourmet fried chicken, and other shops. New homes here, by UIC, have sold for upwards of $300K. The Grove south of Manchester may well be primed for a similar transformation.
{the Hunt Avenue home today}
$750K on Gibson Avenue? $500K South of Manchester? Maybe if one wants to build or own a contemporary custom home in the City of St. Louis near all the best things the city has to offer – think Forest Park, Central West End, Missouri Botanical Gardens, Grand Center, etc. – maybe this is the place. Anyone familiar with the area now may be smart to bet on its future success.
