Demolition Denied for Club Imperial
Date Posted: January 23, 2018
Posted In: News, Projects,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The building that once housed the Club Imperial, where St. Louis music royalty such as Ike and Tina Turner and Chuck Berry played some of their early gigs, will stay standing. For now.
In a 5-0 vote Monday, the St. Louis Preservation Board upheld a St. Louis Cultural Resources Office decision to deny a demolition permit for the building at the corner of West Florissant Avenue and Goodfellow Boulevard.
Robert Vroman, the new owner of the structure built in the 1920s, had sought to demolish it after submitting the only bid to buy it at a delinquent city tax sale over the summer. Vroman specializes in buying and selling real estate up for grabs because of unpaid taxes and argued the market has shown no interest in rehabbing the property.
The only proposal he has received is from a nearby business owner to tear it down and build a strip mall.
Even after media attention from several outlets in the last week, “the only people who have contacted me are four small business owners interested in renting space in the hypothetical strip mall,” Vroman said.
While acknowledging the building has “challenges” — it was structurally condemned late last year — Cultural Resources Director Dan Krasnoff said losing it “would be a real loss for our cultural history.”
“I feel like there hasn’t been a strong enough effort here to reuse this building,” he told the board.