Yeah... welcome to STL, where arsonists and the homeless burn down irreplaceable historic landmarks every other day. Vagrants burned down the Crunden-Martin warehouse complex the day after Thanksgiving, just as it was preparing to undergo rehab into office, retail, and industrial space as part of a billion+ dollar redevelopment of the south riverfront.
Pretty sure vagrants also set fire to the St. Liborius rectory a few months ago (building on the left below) which had previously been used as a women's shelter. The church itself had been repurposed as a fucking incredible indoor skate park that had received national attention (
http://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/op...-liborius.html) but that burned down too, of course.
Between the fires; the parasitic, negligent property owners (many of them out-of-state); the weird, unrelenting suburban hatred toward the city (including from the business community); and the backward-as-fuck state of MO, it's a seemingly never-ending uphill battle.
And speaking of parasitic property owners, the Church of Scientology has owned this beauty in Lafayette Square for decades now, and they just fucking refuse to do anything with it.
Detroit is fortunate to have a business community that is rallying around its downtown, which is where most of Detroit's success has been centered and makes for good PR. Conversely, St. Louis' oblivious business community continues to triple down on suburban office parks like it's 1960 while bitching incessantly about crime even though crime is the lowest it's been in decades.