That brings us to last week's announcement of "Albion West End", a $135 Million, 30-story, 350ft (my estimate) tall tower with 293 luxury apartments, 340 parking spaces (some assumed to be public), two retail spaces, and a 10,000sf lobby. While some in the urban development community are debating it for "not being tall enough" or "not having a very good design". Despite it being "short", this is something huge for the neighborhood and for the Koplar Properties family.
Koplar hasn't done too much in recent years. They've done three projects over the past 18 years (Maryland Plaza - 2004, York House - 2012, AC Hotel - 2021). This site was always meant to be the 4th and final "phase" of the Koplar development resurgence in the Central West End. The goals, which are clear now, were to reestablish Koplar Properties as a force in the Central West End development scene by...
- Bringing life back to the formerly vacant Maryland Plaza as a dining, shopping, and workplace environment.
- Introduce new, upscale apartments to support a Euclid/Maryland resurgence and feed continued desirability/demand of the neighborhood (York House & Albion West End).
- Bring hospitality back into the Koplar portfolio (AC Hotel).
- Establish a new legacy icon just south of where the 1st generation Koplar, Sam, built the Park Plaza Hotel (Albion West End).
But the impact the Koplar family has left on St. Louis, and the Lake of the Ozarks is a big one. Previous business ventures include...
- Build bungalow homes throughout the city in the 1920s.
- Build the Powell Symphony Hall (formerly St. Louis Theatre) in Midtown
- Develop the Congress Hotel, Embassy Apartments, and Branscome Apartments north of Forest Park.
- Develop the Forest Park Hotel on Euclid at West Pine.
- Develop the Park Plaza Hotel and then buy the neighboring Chase Hotel to create the Chase-Park Plaza.
- Develop the Lodge of the Four Seasons at the Lake of the Ozarks.
- Build the first satellite uplink television station in the United States (KPLR-TV) and sell it for $150 Million in 1997.
- Create a highly successful children's TV show in the 1980s (Voltron: Defender of the Universe).
When you throw the huge chunk of change from the KPLR sale into the mix of the sales for the other business ventures in their previous portfolio, you get a company with both the money and ambition to see projects of this scale through. And by partnering with someone like Albion Residential, the responsibility no longer falls on just one family/group, it falls on two and could see future investments by Koplar Properties emerge in the future.
For now though, the Albion is a big step for Koplar Properties and truly does reestablish the family-owned company as a force in Central West End development. It's something to celebrate.
