New Apartment Building Proposed in Lafayette Square

Rendering of "2000 Missouri" from the Preservation Board agenda.

Lafayette Square’s north end is set to get another new apartment building, continuing a steady flow of development centered around the former Praxair site.

Planned for a crumbling surface parking lot at the northeast corner of Chouteau and Missouri, the project named “2000 Missouri” (strangely, the address isn’t 2000 Missouri but rather 2350 Chouteau) will be a 6-story apartment building with apparent commercial space and integrated parking. The new building will be clad in a mixture of brick, stone, and metal.

It’s the latest component in the mixed-use redevelopment of the old Praxair site area which has so far yielded 10 new single-family homes (with room for 4 or 5 more), the 2200 LaSalle apartment building (128 units), and the Lagosian apartments at 2300 LaSalle (34 units). The construction of 2000 Missouri will leave two undeveloped blocks for future buildings.

2000 Missouri will go before the City’s Preservation Board next week (July 27th) for approval. Cultural Resources Office staff is recommending preliminary approval for the development.

The original master plan for "the Edge District".

“The Edge District” was originally unveiled back in 2019 and commenced construction in November 2020. The master planned development was spearheaded by former HOK executive Bill Odell and backed up by Tom Graddy, Paul and Wendy Hamilton, and Sam Chimento.

Graddy Investments owns the parcel and is presently redeveloping the former Mack truck facility immediately adjacent to the 2000 Missouri project site into a mixture of public storage and a handful of apartments. Under the original “Edge District” vision, that building was to be demolished for an office building with the 2000 Missouri site becoming home to a parking garage. The likely outcome as a result of there development and 2000 Missouri might actually be more beneficial for the overall development than the initial vision would’ve been.

The apparent inclusion of retail/commercial space in this building is the ultimate test for how future components of this larger development go. Lafayette Square already has a solid small business presence along Park Avenue, but creating another node of commercial activity is always welcome, especially if it can provide opportunities for additional small businesses to flourish. In a portion of the neighborhood that’s practically a clean slate and is trending to be the densest portion of Lafayette Square, why not experiment with ground floor commercial space?

Another rendering of the proposed building from the Preservation Board agenda.

2000 Missouri is the largest apartment building proposed in the City of St. Louis since the Boy Scouts site proposal on in the Central West End in September 2025. It’s also the first of a series of new apartment proposals in the pipeline for the City. Since the pandemic, new proposals have slowed significantly and some have even stalled or were canceled entirely. The next wave of proposals appears to have stronger backings and more doable scopes compared to previous proposals.

A timeline for 2000 Missouri will be announced in due time.

The photo below shows the site as it currently stands.