Railway Exchange Owner, City End Flooding Lawsuit
Date Posted: May 30, 2024
Posted In: News,
From St. Louis Business Journal: The lawsuit filed by the city of St. Louis and the owner of one of downtown’s largest buildings against electric utility Ameren and a subcontractor was dropped last month after nearly six years, clearing one of the obstacles in the way of the long-vacant structure’s eventual redevelopment.
The lawsuit, originally filed in 2018, was dismissed April 1 at the request of City Counselor Sheena Hamilton and the entity that owns the Railway Exchange building at 615 Olive St., HH St. Louis Railway LP. The city and building ownership had accused Intren Co., a subcontractor hired by electric utility Ameren Missouri, of negligence that led to flooding at the historic building and a massive sinkhole that opened on a downtown street next to it, which the city paid to fix at the time.
The 1.2 million-square-foot, 22-story Railway Exchange has been one of the city’s biggest redevelopment priorities for years, but efforts to bring new life to the building have been delayed in part due to a series of legal entanglements. The case against Ameren and Intren had been the building owner’s largest remaining lawsuit yet to come to a conclusion.
In the past, people knowledgeable about the building and efforts to develop it have said its complicated legal entanglements were holding up redevelopment efforts. It has been vacant since 2016.
In the Ameren case, the two parties pursuing the lawsuit — the city and the Railway Exchange owner — asked for and were granted a dismissal without prejudice, which means the lawsuit could be refiled at a later date, according to the submitted request.