St. Louis to host national vacant property conference, city working on fixing the issue

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - Thousands of vacant and abandoned properties are left crumbling across St. Louis and now leaders are working to turn things around by hosting a national convention next week addressing vacant and abandoned properties.

The Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference (RVP) is October 9-11 at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch. It comes as St. Louis City is looking to find more innovative ways to bring new life in some uninvested areas.

“I see a crumbling building that is deteriorating that could collapse at any time,” said Carr Square resident Nathan Cromwell. “It can be a hub for homeless, crime and maybe catch fire. I wanna know why we got all these vacant buildings in our area?”

Cromwell says it doesn’t take long to find blight and battered buildings in his neighborhood. STL’s Vacancy Collaborative’s website shows there are 24,000 vacant properties across the city, one of the highest vacancy rates in the country.

“Vacancy touches every resident, business, and member of local government,” said Torrey Park, the Executive Director for the St. Louis Vacancy Collaborative(STLVC). “It negatively affects people’s mental health and well-being, attracts crime, reduces property values and puts a significant strain on limited city resources.”

“Vacant buildings affect everyone,” said Tom Nagel with the Community Development istration (CDA) of the City of St. Louis. “We’ve been learning a lot, but we’ve also been sharing a lot and St. Louis is being innovative in the way we tackle this problem.”

CDA is a clearinghouse for federal, state and local funds to help fight blight.

The RVP conference is set to bring more than 1,000 city and community leaders together to gain national context on how to build strong and more equitable neighborhoods.

Nagle says CDA and the city are making decisions and prioritizing resources to tackle vacant and abandoned properties. Nagle says they’re working on holding private owners able and says the Prop NS program allows the city to stabilize crumbling buildings by boarding them up and securing the interiors.

Cromwell hopes the conference is one the city can give and gain knowledge in hopes of making his neighborhood safe and secure.

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