One of the cool, up and coming parts of St Louis City is the Grove in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood. This neighborhood is located south of the massive BJC main campus, Central West End, and Interstate 64, east of Kingshighway, and north of Vandeventer. The Grove started out as a few popular nightclubs and grew into a diverse commercial district with great restaurants, shops and other amenities like the Language Immersion Charter School. Commerce is not all that is happening in the Grove. After finding a few buyers some awesome renovated homes in the Grove, I sat down with Austin Barzantny of Grove Properties and talked about the great strides going on in FPSE.
The folks at Grove Properties LLC do a great job of finding “shell” homes in the area and stripping them down, and restoring the homes with a high quality, modern finish while maintaining the historic charm of the home. Currently, the home on the market through Grove Properties is listed below at 4342 Hunt St. St Louis, MO. 63110 –a 3 bedroom 1.5 bath listed for $129,900.
Interestingly, in the late 90’s, a client of mine in a prior business was buying a home on Gibson in
Forest Park Southeast. She gushed about the potential of the area due to its proximity to Barnes Hospital and Interstate 64. If I was smart, I would have started buying up homes then. The latest massive growth of both CORTEX and BJC are fueling more growth in the surrounding neighborhoods like Forest Park Southeast.
One of the problems that seemed to stifle development in the past was poor access to the neighborhood. Limited highway access; there was a Boyle Avenue exit from westbound I-64 (Highway 40 for the locals), but access was blocked from Kingshighway. The bridges over the highway that allowed traffic in from the Central West End were narrow and lacked modern functionality.
Now, the MODOT project to increase traffic flow and add highway access from both directions to not only Boyle but also Tower Grove Avenue is in process. That major project, along with the ‘suburban-esque’ apartment complex being built along the highway are adding to the density and housing options available for the growing area.
With the improvements to the roads and infrastructure surrounding the Grove, along with the commercial and entertainment improvements along Manchester Avenue and throughout the northern Neighbor, the BJC Complex will leave the small neighborhood known as the the Grove in a PERFECT position to thrive into the future.
STL CITY LIVING 