$40M North City Project Aims to Spark More. ‘We Want That Continuity’
Date Posted: May 22, 2023
Posted In: News, Organizations,
From St. Louis Business Journal: The Sears, Roebuck & Co. was more than a department store for north St. Louis residents. It was a place where people met their future spouse. Neighbors can recall the names of the first Black store managers. Children at St. Roch School got their uniforms there.
After Sears started opening stores in the suburbs in the late 1950s, the Sears building suffered a slow death, closing in 1976. It was renamed the Victor Roberts Building six years later and became the home of the Roberts brothers’ real estate and development, construction, broadcasting and other businesses.
When the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis outgrew its headquarters, it didn’t take long for its board of directors to decide to restore the building as the area’s “crown jewel,” said Michael McMillan, president and CEO of the organization, which is the largest Urban League affiliate in the country.
“There is no other building that has this much significance in north St. Louis and in the African-American community,” he said.
The Urban League is in the midst of a $40 million renovation of the three-story building, including its basement and a former shopping plaza behind the structure. Visitors from the surrounding neighborhoods often drop by the building to share their memories, from the smell of caramel popcorn they enjoyed as children to getting their first driver’s license from the state Highway Patrol office that was once housed there.
The importance of the building, however, goes well beyond nostalgia. The Urban League wants its new regional headquarters to serve as an anchor to spur development along Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, Kingshighway, Page Boulevard and throughout north St. Louis.