Locust Street, west of Jefferson, has been booming but the stretch between Jefferson and Beaumont has been quite quiet but as we all learned in October 2017, this stretch will be activated and become substantially more urban. Parking lots will be replaced by a hotel, shipping container shopping center (known as the box yard) and a parking garage with retail at the base. There will also be two renovation projects of existing structures, one of the Beaumont Telephone Building (which we now know will be named as Midtown Malone) and the building at 2647 Locust (which was given the name Midtown Eliot in Leasing documents). It now appears that Midtown Eliot is going to start on the redevelopment process first to kick off this area’s revitalization.
In an application to the LCRA, Eliot’s Neighbor LLC (developer) which is spearheaded by Jimmy Powell, has requested a tax abatement on the building at 2647 Locust. The tax abatement requested is for 10 years at 90% which will help cover the nearly $5 Million redevelopment cost of the building. The 5 Floor structure will be home to 7 large apartments, 5 live-work spaces, 2 retail units and 20,000SF of office space. In order to qualify for the abatement, the property will have to be blighted, which it was at the December 18th LCRA meeting.
With all of the plan in place, Midtown Eliot will be the first project to kick off the larger development known as “Midtown Village”. The name itself is disputed between “Midtown Village” and “Jefferson Connector” but the fact is that the Jefferson Connector is just part of the larger Midtown Village Project. Midtown Village links Downtown West to Midtown Alley, which has become a popular place for businesses along Locust. The whole stretch of Locust from Theresa Avenue (near SLU) to Jefferson will be activates by 2021 if all goes as planned. Even though Midtown Eliot is a small project, it is a mighty one as the visual effect will be immediate on the area.
Midtown Eliot is being redeveloped by a different entity than the rest of Midtown Village and the Jefferson Connector. The other developer is Renaissance Development Associates.
Below is a map of the full Midtown Village development which will greatly improve this part of Downtown.
When I stopped by to take a photo of the building, a crew wasn’t already on site replacing windows and cutting a new door into the place. Once all new windows are installed, this building will look nice.
