When you talk urban real estate with Mr. Don Lipton of Lipton Realty Company, especially real estate in the Skinker-DeBaliviere area, you are apt to wind up on a guided tour. You start out in a comfortable office at Kingshighway and Washington, but soon are driving up and down the blocks of this neighborhood for a first hand look at the strange mixture of well-maintained buildings with poorly-maintained buildings, with bombed out, boarded up buildings, and some piles of rubble where buildings used to be.
“So and so owns this building, but only about half the units are occupied.” “This building is filled with responsible tenants and is in good shape.” — “Look at the building across the street from the apartment building on Clara where the Pruitt-Igoe families are living. Nobody raised any rumpus about that and you’ll have to look hard to find one in worse shape than it is.”
Asked about the future of cities in general, Mr. Lipton commented that people can live with anything but crime. In some cities, notably New York and Chicago, people are living with rising crime rates by investing heavily in security. Closed circuit television, controlled access lobbies with doormen and watchmen make city living possible.
In Skinker-DeBaliviere as in core-city areas across the country a big problem is the lack of money for financing maintenance and repairs, and the difficulty in obtaining insurance on commercial and multiple— family properties. Most insurance is through Fair, an insurance pool organized to cover city properties.
A native of the St. Louis area, a graduate of Clayton High School and Tulane University, Mr. Lipton joined in his father’s real estate business. His interest in the Skinker-DeBaliviere area in particular began when Lipton Realty took over the management of properties acquired by West End Townhouses.
“When you take over the management of other people’s property, you are sometimes open to criticism,” he remarked. “If the owner is unfamiliar with the property or unable to maintain it on his own resources and buildings need repairs, it is hard to get financing to make them. There is very little private capital being invested in cities today and most of that is in the form of loans guaranteed by some branch of the federal government.”
He mentioned the proposed 353 program for the blighting and redevelopment of the triangle area and the DeBaliviere business section as one means of getting private capital to work in an urban neighborhood. Any project planned to improve the area sooner or later comes down to the question of where — does the money come from?
Another problem of the Skinker-DeBaliviere area from the standpoint of real estate management was pointed out by Mr. Lipton on the guided tour. He indicated a number of handsome buildings, only partially occupied, because the owners were trying to find responsible tenants. No other comment was necessary since often in adjacent buildings dirty windows and littered yards indicated what irresponsible tenants could do to the appearance of a block. “There are landlords walking away from some of these properties. Owners deed them to fictitious owners, anything, to get out from under them. They can’t borrow money to fix them up, aren’t sure they could get good tenants if they got the money, and can’t get insurance, so they are disclaiming them.”
“Crime enters the picture again when you try and rent. or sell properties. The cities and suburban communities are going to have to find a way to stop crime. As it is, when we report a crime, someone spends three or four hours downtown, and the accused usually walks out at the same time. We are wasting efforts and we can’t afford to waste that kind of time.”
On the way back to the office, Mr. Lipton spoke particularly of the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council and Women for City Living as two groups he thought could have real influence on city neighborhoods. Back at his desk, near a wall decorated with pictures of his wife and three sons, he settled down to what looked like a day of relaxed hurrying.
Originally published in The Paper, April 1971.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1971_04.pdf, printed page 4.
