ST. LOUIS — When Robbie Montgomery passes the intersection of West Florissant Avenue and Goodfellow Boulevard, memories of singing backup for Ike and Tina Turner at Club Imperial resurface.
But there’s been no music performed in the stately brick building at the southwest corner of the intersection for decades. Even the tattoo parlor and hair salons that rented space in it more recently have closed. Window panes are missing, and it has needed a new roof for over five years. Water has flooded the basement. No one wanted it when it was auctioned off for back taxes in 2018.
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It’s a far cry from how Montgomery, a former Ikette who is better known these days as the proprietor of Sweetie Pie’s restaurant, remembered Club Imperial back when it was a frequent stop for Ike and Tina Turner in the 1960s and ’70s.
The album cover of Ike & Tina Turner Revue "Live", recorded at The Club Imperial which was opened by George Edick in 1952 on West Florissant Avenue. It was one of the area's most hopping joints and became the incubator for one of rock's seminal acts -- Ike and Tina Turner -- who made early recordings at the club.
“It was a real upscale venue back in those days,†Montgomery said this week. “It was a wonderful club. ... To go by and see it all raggedy, sitting there idle, nothing happening with it, it’s kind of disappointing because that is a historic building.â€
Some help, however, is finally on the way. Club Imperial, along with three other north ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ historic sites that have seen better days, will get some long overdue care and investment from their owner: the city of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½â€™ land bank.
In addition to Club Imperial, the Chuck Berry House on Whittier Street and the Sara-Lou Cafe at the corner of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Avenue and North Sarah Street, both in the Greater Ville, will get stabilization money. The funds will also go toward repairs on the old Wellston Loop streetcar station on Martin Luther King Drive.
The Wellston Loop Station, one of last remaining streetcar stations from the city's old network, is seen Tuesday, June 27, 2023, in the 6000 block of Martin Luther King Drive on the western border of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ city.
Chuck Berry poses in August 2008 in front of his old home at 3137 Whittier Street. Upon arriving at the house where Berry lived in the 1950s, he commented that he paid about $4,000 for the home.
The board of the Land Reutilization Authority last month set aside $4.5 million in federal pandemic aid for the effort. That money, plus another $1 million from the city’s economic development sales tax fund, will go toward emergency repairs — such as new roofs — for the LRA-owned structures to protect them from the elements and prevent them from deteriorating further.
“This is really about being good stewards of assets this community has valued, and we’re doing our best to bring them back online,†Lance Knuckles, the LRA’s chief, said in an interview Monday. “These sites have consistently come up as, what are we going to do about these community gems?â€
The LRA serves as the owner of last resort for thousands of abandoned buildings and vacant lots across the city, most of them in the hollowed-out north side. It’s usually just barely able to make ends meet and keep up with mowing and board-ups on its existing inventory. Except for the occasional grant, it almost never has extra money to put toward major building renovations.
Officials believe the limited pool of commercial building stabilization funds could have the greatest impact by being invested in the historic sites in its inventory, Knuckles said. Hopefully, the initial city investment will make it easier for redevelopers and nonprofits to finish rehabbing the structures and find new uses for them. And it will prevent the elements from rendering them beyond saving, a state they are perilously near.
It’s a welcome investment by the city, said Andrew Weil, executive director of the Landmarks Association of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½. But finding uses and new owners for the properties will be “the big question†after they’re stabilized. In 2017, for instance, the city issued a request for proposals for Chuck Berry’s home, where the rock ’n’ roll pioneer wrote “Roll Over Beethoven†and “Maybellene.†There were no takers.
“Sometimes the best you can do is buy time,†Weil said. “And that seems like what they’re doing is buying time to protect these important parts of our collective history.â€
The former Sara-Lou Cafe, right, a culturally significant business in the historic Ville neighborhood, is seen Tuesday, June 27, 2023, in the 4000 block of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Avenue in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½.
Two of the sites do have some interest. had an option to purchase the Sara-Lou Cafe building, which served as a longtime neighborhood gathering spot.
Northside Community Housing, a community development corporation focused on the Ville, has been working with Rise Community Development to build new homes in the area. A 65-unit affordable housing development they are currently working on recently won low income housing tax credits, and the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Development Corp. is providing a $700,000 grant for the project.
The corner of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Avenue and North Sarah Street is an important component of any neighborhood redevelopment plan, said Weil, who has worked with the two groups on securing a historic designation for the neighborhood.
“That’s one of the few completely intact commercial intersections left in the Ville,†Weil said.
The Wellston Station is part of a larger redevelopment plan for the Martin Luther King Drive corridor from from , Friendly Temple Church and subsidized housing developer McCormack Baron Salazar. The church had an option to purchase the Wellston Loop pavilion site, where
The Wellston Loop Station, one of the last remaining streetcar stations from the city's old network, is seen Tuesday, June 27, 2023, in the 6000 block of Martin Luther King Drive on the western edge of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½.
Passengers board a streetcar at the Wellston Loop station on its final day of operation -- May 21, 1966, the last day of streetcar rumblings in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ -- ending an unbroken run of 107 years of public transportation on rails. Busses contributed to the decline, but automobiles delivered the fatal blow.
“It will make a big difference,†Eric Marquardt, a volunteer at Audubon Associates who has been working on the project said of LRA’s investment in the building. “Fundraising is always a challenge in these types of projects.â€
Friendly Temple and its partners have also applied to the city for a from a separate, $20 million pot of money. The Wellston Station building would be an “important cornerstone†of the larger housing and rehab plans for the area, Marquardt said.
“I am hopeful that a significant investment will be made along the Martin Luther King strip,†said the Rev. Michael Jones, Friendly Temple’s pastor. “We are waiting on the city to see what the city is willing and able to do.â€
Knuckles, at LRA, said the agency hopes to issue RFPs for stabilization work this summer and secure the buildings before the coldest part of winter hits. By the spring, another RFP for redevelopers should be issued so organizations like Friendly Temple can apply. Neighborhood meetings will solicit community input for the sites’ end uses.
Club Imperial, where R&B artists Ike and Tina Turner played, is seen Tuesday, Jun. 27, 2023, in the 6300 block of West Florissant Avenue near Goodfellow Boulevard in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½.
Back in the Walnut Park West neighborhood, the city’s planned investment in Club Imperial makes Montgomery hopeful someone might finally buy it. Greg Edick, son of the club’s longtime owner, George Edick, once asked her if she was interested in buying it. George Edick, did, however, sell her the club’s tables and chairs when she was opening her first Sweetie Pie’s restaurant in the mid ’90s.
“To see it just sitting there, it’s really disappointing,†she said. “I’d like to see somebody take it and make it a club again.â€
See some of the spots the Landmarks Association has included on its 2023 list of most-enhanced buildings in the region.
