West End Town Houses Inc. is currently negotiating for substantial increases in capital, both in the form of additional investments and new mortgage money, according to John Roach, secretary of the corporation. If the additional money is forthcoming the company’s situation will be “golden,” Roach said, and it will be in a position to purchase virtually all remaining problem buildings west of the railroad tracks.
Assuming the additional capital, the firm plans to do $100,000 worth of remodeling on its buildings this spring. West End currently owns about 100 units of housing in 24 buildings and aims eventually for about 150 units. according to Roach.
West End Town Houses is interested in 26 additional buildings in the area, which will be purchased if money is available, Roach said.
The corporation has been highly successful in renting apartments to desirable tenants, but less so in renting or selling single-family homes. “Our best impact for the time being may be in apartments,” he added.
The company has confined its activities to the area west of the tracks in accordance with a policy laid down by its founder, the late Philip Lucier. Tentative plans by the city of St. Louis to declare blighted some of the area east of the tracks will help alleviate problems there, Roach feels, and West End is concerned with preventing the spread of blight farther west. Eventually, however, the company may play a role in the area to the east also.
At a board meeting Jan. 14, John Fox was chosen president of the company and Steven Saller treasurer. Fox is retired board chairman of Mercantile Trust Co., and Saller is assistant director of the Municipal Business Development Commission. Both are Parkview residents.
Elected to the board was Virgil Wright, a Washington Heights resident. Membership has also been offered to Cal Stuart, newly appointed executive director of the Skinker-DeBaliviere Association. Other board members besides Roach are Wayne Grancolas, a realtor, and Gerald Deppe, president of a public relations firm and also a Parkview resident.
The company hopes to cooperate more closely with the Skinker-DeBaliviere Association in the future, Roach said, and the invitation to Stuart to join the board is a step to that end.
West End Town Houses was established last spring by Lucier, a Parkview resident who was president of Continental Telephone Co. It was initially capitalized with funds from Continental. However, after Lucier was killed by a bomb blast in his car last July, Continental Telephone severed all connections with the housing corporation. Its stock was given to St. Roch’s Church.
Originally published in The Paper, February 1971.
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Original source: SD_Times1971_02.pdf, printed page 7.
