Built St. Louis: Crumbling Landmarks
The Syndicate Trust Building

Perhaps the grandest member of the historic downtown group is the Syndicate Trust tower, dating from 1907. This Chicago School tower is covered with lavish terra cotta ornament, from its store-fronted ground floor to its handsome cornice. In 1912, the tower was joined with its 10-story neighbor, the now-demolished Century Building. The pair, collectively known as the Syndicate Trust, comprised one of the city's largest buildings. Only the Railway Exchange can match the Syndicate for sheer levels of detailing and ornament.

The building, like the rest of the city, declined in the 1960s, particularly when its original major tenant, department store Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney, closed in 1967. A series of owners worked to no avail to fill the building to capacity. A new owner bought the building in 1986, but defaulted on a loan used for the purchase two years later. The legal shenanigans which followed for the next fifteen years could fill a voluminous book; they left the complex empty and, ultimately, half-demolished.

Today, in the wake of the Century's demolition, the Syndicate tower stands alone and empty, with concrete block to wall up the openings where it once adjoined its elder neighbor, even as plans move ahead to redevelop it.

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