We can easily customize many things in our lives, our phone, our computer home screen, clothing, shoes, and more. Why not our homes? UIC, the visionaries who are developing the Botanical Grove neighborhood, have launched sales of Detonty Close, their newest development, offering buyer customization and an upfront sales process. While historically this is nothing new – think Sears Modern Home catalog, it represents a paradigm shift in the City of St. Louis.
In the suburbs, large tracts of homes are often designed and built, then sold, with little buyer customization. This is also how recent large-scale residential development has been built in the city. Just east of Botanical Grove, several city blocks were clear cut to build the urban-light cul-de-sac Botanical Heights development. A similar, though more urban, process was used to develop Gaslight Square. In the City, single-family residential infill is most often a one-off project.
{Detonty Close site plan}
While there’s never unanimity in home design, UIC has captured a little bit of urban infill magic in a bottle. The formula is right, the location is right, and the market is there. A new community is being built around a free public Montessori school, a french patisserie, a wine bar, and more, and all within shouting distance of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and not much farther from all the rapidly expanding Central Corridor jobs and amenities.
The DeTonty Close project, as it is now known, has been in the works for more than a year. The project will feature 16 new bungalow style homes located on two-pedestrian courtyards, located in the historic Shaw Neighborhood facing Interstate 44. The challenge of development here is the intrusion of the highway, and the location in an historic neighborhood. The solution, to turn homes 90 degrees and onto shared courtyards, hasn’t been universally praised, but we’ll soon know what the market thinks of the design. Courtyard developments of varying similarity can be found in the Shaw Neighborhood and elsewhere in the city, including Hortense Court, Fairfax Court, and others.
{the Detonty site today}
UIC’s success has been a combination of different factors: location, amenities, design, and process. For Detonty Close, buyers can choose from six different home models, each with several form options. Basically, it’s a simplified menu that provides a real, final cost up front. As someone who has purchased two homes in St. Louis, and constantly dreaming of building a new one, this process just makes sense.
With this project, UIC moved south of I-44. They have also recently designed the renovation of apartments adjacent to their custom home in The Grove, several blocks north in The Grove. On the same block, UIC plans to build single family homes, and have set up a survey asking What would you build? Another three single family infill project is underway on Olive in the northeast corner of the Central West End neighborhood.
Gibson infill:
Previous proposals for the Detonty site:
From nextSTL’s “What Should Be“:
