Another Pyramid property hits the auction block
Written on May 31, 2009
St. Louis — Another piece of Pyramid Construction is set to be dismantled next week.
The Beaux Arts Building, on Grand Boulevard in midtown, is scheduled for a foreclosure auction at noon Thursday, according to public notices and documents filed with the city. People’s National Bank is foreclosing on a $4.6 million loan it made on the building in 2006 to a company held by John Steffen, president of the now-defunct Pyramid.
Steffen’s company, which had planned to redevelop a number of high-profile buildings in downtown and midtown St. Louis, shut down in April 2008 and has been working out deals with its banks and partners to take over its projects ever since. Most have been transferred, but little work has been done on them.
Pyramid offered People’s a deed in lieu of foreclosure for the Beaux Arts Building, said Steven Goldstein, an attorney who has been working with Steffen to unwind his holdings, but the bank chose to begin legal foreclosure proceedings instead payday loan online.
"We’ve been working with People’s from the beginning," Goldstein said. "This really isn’t a big surprise,"
People’s did not return a call seeking comment.
The 42,000-square-foot Beaux Arts is a landmark at the northern end of Grand Center, across the street from Powell Hall. For many years, it held the headquarters of Carter Carburetor. When it bought the building in 2006, Pyramid planned to convert it to condominiums with street-level retail.
Filed in: management.