Arcade-Wright Building
800-14 Olive Street and 801-15 Pine Street


Built on the site of the Louis H. Benoist mansion, the Wright Building was designed by Eames &Young of St Louis in 1906.

The discovery of quicksand on the neighboring site selected for the Arcade Building required that that building be redesigned.
Plans for the Arcade Building were drawn and then redrawn by Tom P. Barnett and engineer Fred C. Taxis to accomodate the additional floors required to provide income and offset the costs of the required foundation. Completed in 1918, the Arcade Building (a designated City Landmark determined eligible for National Register listing) includes a Gothic Revival arcade of singular beauty and stunning streetfront shop windows.

Both the basement and sub-basement with columns supported on caissons driven fifty feet into bedrock were designed to provide direct access from the Arcade Building into the Eads Bridge tunnel railroad. Sadly, this forward-looking design was not exploited when plans for the MetroLink were drawn up. Trains pass right on by what could have been a splendid approach to a station.

Meanwhile, the Wright/Arcade Building is condemned for occupancy above the first floor with only a smattering of storefront tenants and the owner's 1989 application for demolition moves glacially through the Court of Appeals. Thus far the City of St. Louis has supported the Heritage & Urban Design Commission's refusal to grant demolition. The Board of Downtown St Louis, Inc. has come out on the opposite side.

Marginal retail in some of the once-handsome shop fronts has provided the only income other than healthy tax write-offs supporting the owner's seemingly endless legal maneuvers. Now in bankruptcy court in New York state, the corporation formed exclusively to rehab the Arcade-Wright Building owes formidable mortgage payments and back taxes. Those debts combined with demolition costs estimated at $1.8 million suggest that the City may end up owning the property.


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