Sweet News: Work Finally Moves Forward on Former Candy Factory Site on Delmar
Date Posted: October 30, 2025
Posted In: Featured, Projects,
A long-delayed plan to breathe new life into the former Mavrakos Candy Co. factory at 4709 Delmar Blvd. is finally moving forward.
Sara Stock, founder of Stock Legal and Legal Back Office, has acquired the 1926 building for $890,000, signaling the start of an $8 million mixed-use redevelopment that will combine her firms’ headquarters with retail, creative office, and wellness space. Construction began Wednesday and is expected to take 18 to 24 months.
In a LinkedIn post on Oct. 29th, Stock wrote: “When I decided to build Stock Legal, LLC (and later Legal Back Office), I made a number of other decisions in terms of how I wanted to live my life and how I wanted to be in the world. One of those other decisions was to align my career with leaving my part of the world a better place than I found it. I took a step in that direction yesterday by closing on 4709 Delmar Blvd. We start working tomorrow to revive this historic St. Louis icon into a hub for legal, retail, restaurant and entertainment.”
Legal Coworking Space
The project will transform the 35,000-square-foot property—vacant for five years and once home to the region’s largest chocolate producer—into a multi-tenant hub that includes Counselor’s Collective, a 6,000-square-foot legal coworking space. Plans also call for leasable storefronts for restaurants and coffee shops and a fitness facility.
Stock’s companies currently operate from separate locations in the Central West End and South County; both will relocate to Fountain Park upon completion.
The project received federal and state historic tax credits and New Markets Tax Credits through the St. Louis Development Corporation. Financing partners include Peoples National Bank (construction and bridge loans), U.S. Bancorp (new-markets and historic-tax-credit equity), and Historic Equity Inc. (state HTC equity). Developer and investor equity totals about $601,000, supplemented by $2.5 million in private investment.
“The Sweetest Things”
The development team features ONYX DCI as consultant, Osnova Architecture as architect, and Kenrick Design/Construction Services of Maplewood as general contractor. Historic-preservation consultant Karen Bode Baxter is also on the project.
The city’s Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority formally designated Stock’s entity, MGA 4709 Delmar LLC, as redeveloper in 2024 after litigation from Kingsway Development over site control was dismissed in May 2025.
For decades, the Mavrakos factory produced chocolates sold through 18 stores and 60 franchises across four states. It’s tag line was “Marakos Candies — They Say The Sweetest Things.” The brand, now owned by the Abel family of Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Co., remains a sweet part of St. Louis history—one that Stock Legal now aims to carry forward as a symbol of reinvestment north of Delmar.