The Berlin Wall Of Downtown St. Louis

"Calling St. Louis Centre a 'struggling mall' doesn't quite capture the perennial air of failure that the downtown albatross has carried throughout most of its twenty-year existence...'It remains the one big black eye for downtown the way it is right now, particularly from the standpoint of conventioneers,' seconds Jim Cloar, executive director of the Downtown St. Louis Partnership..."

"But a low-key, California-based investor named Barry Cohen...who in 1993 purchased the historic Jefferson Arms apartment complex on Tucker Boulevard, snapped up the entire moribund mall at a courthouse auction for $5.4 million -- or one-nineteenth of its 1985 price tag of $95 million -- in August 2004. In fact, Cohen, who is in the process of rehabbing a similarly downtrodden shopping center in Harrison, Arkansas, was the only person to submit a bid."

The investor's timeline, however, is irritating more than a few interested parties.