"Virginia Plaza" Aims to be a Dutchtown & Carondelet Anchor

A preliminary rendering of the future building at Virginia and Eiler.

Community-centered wins continue to stack up in, and around, South City's Dutchtown and Carondelet neighborhoods.

DeSales Community Development is setting sail on a mixed-use development that'll renovate multiple older structures and construct other new ones near Virginia and Eiler. The plan calls for 78 new homes (apartments and townhouses) that are a mixture of affordable (30% and 60% of the area's median income) and market rate. The new buildings will also include some new commercial space which should allow for new businesses to open up in the neighborhood.

Last week, construction activity began on the site that was once home to a Family Dollar store at 5300 Virginia. The Family Dollar store closed in 2022 and the site quickly became a neighborhood blight. Coupled with surrounding older structures crumbling and overgrown lots, the site, that'll eventually become "Virginia Plaza", was making the surrounding area feel much worse than it actually was and is.

This site plan shows the extent of the "Virginia Plaza" plan.

With Virginia Plaza, a new anchor to hopefully induce additional nearby investment, the blight would be removed. 78 new and renovated homes will open up opportunities to families and individual with different incomes to live in one of the City's densest areas. The project also helps tie in with the efforts several blocks to the north by Lutheran Development Group. LDG, as you may recall from earlier posts on CityScene STL, is redeveloping, rebuilding and renovating multiple buildings as part of their Marquette Homes project in the Dutchtown and Gravois Park neighborhoods That project, like Virginia Plaza, received low income housing tax credits and additional financial assistance from the City of St. Louis Community Development Administration (CDA) and ARPA funds.

As for the City of St. Louis itself, the City's Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) is issuing bid requests to clean out and secure the Virignia Theater at 5101 Virginia. Cleveland High School's own stabilization is also advancing thanks to the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (LCRA) and Trivers. Trivers will oversee selective demolition and stabilization of the former high school with estimated repair costs of around $2.28 Million. Both structures could eventually see redevelopment thanks to the City's efforts with Cleveland being the biggest potential prize.

Roanoke Construction will serve as the general contractor for Virginia Plaza. Naismith-Allen is serving as the project architect. While initial progress will be slow throughout the rest of the summer, DeSales intends to ramp up construction in the fall with an intended completion some time in 2028.

The gallery below features a Google Maps aerial view of the project site and an image from DeSales's Facebook page showing a sign on a fence with rubble from the demolished Family Dollar behind it.

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