The empty lots at 7440 and 7442 Zephyr Place in Maplewood are for sale through the city, City Manager Marty Corcoran said in the council meeting on Tuesday — zoned single family residence. The properties are where Maplewood firefighter Ryan Hummert was killed by a sniper on his first call in July 2008.
Corcoran said after the meeting that one of the houses burned to the ground in the incident and the other sustained too much fire damage for insurance to cover. They were both removed.
The city is offering the properties through sealed offers.
Offers to buy 7740 and 7442 Zephyr Place will be accepted through 5 p.m. July 8. Sealed offers must be delivered to the Maplewood City Hall, 7601 Manchester Road, Maplewood, MO 63143, Attention: City Manager.
Bids must be submitted in a sealed envelope marked ‘Zephyr.’ Bid packets containing information on the properties and the bidding process are available for pickup at Maplewood City Hall.
Thank you for the pricing insights. I wish we could purchase both & combine into a single story home with 2 car garage and main floor master, laundry, etc. I walk with a cane and may someday be in a wheelchair, and I love our 1920s 1.5 story brick bungalow but it is getting harder to manage the stairs. I do not WANT to move away from MRH area, but I’m not finding much in the area that would meet our future needs.
I love the conversation starter and find myself daydreaming about similar proposals. what I’ve discovered is that the current lending environment isn’t set up to facilitate new modern home construction in most neighborhoods of St. Louis.
here’s why: average new construction costs $150/sf so for that 3br, 2.5ba hypothetical you mentioned we could assume an efficient 1,800sf floor plan and cost of $270k. add in lot and lending costs…
That RH home cost about $200/sf (which we’ve found to be typical of all our med-high end, custom designs) so now the cost of building is $360k. easily assume $400k hard costs, plus architecture/consulting fees, and you’re in around $420k.
admittedly I don’t know the real estate market where you’re proposing these two houses be built but it’s a pretty safe bet that wherever there’s land available for any less than $100k/lot the new homes aren’t selling for more than $400k. so the problem comes back to the lenders and their ‘comparables’ and only being able to loan 80% of market value. this means the potential buyer has to pay cash-on-hand for that difference. in our case that’s 20% of $400k ($80), plus soft costs ($20), plus that appraised difference ($20) totaling maybe $120k for that house….more like 30% down. that’s a lot of cash for most of us to have sitting around.
there are ways to change this but we’re finding a similar breakdown in many stl neighborhoods. one reason you see so much development in the central corridor is because even the lot costs are higher so are the sales and since construction costs are nearly the same no matter where you are building, a developer stands to make more on his time if it’s spent on those $500k+ homes in kirkwood, Webster, Clayton, ladue…
what id LOVE to see and talk about is a shift in real life value, making it more attractive (easy) to build quality affordable 2br, 1.5ba homes all over the city. but I’ll stop on today’s lecture and save that for some other time!
Eight years after the destruction and murder, I’m glad to see something happen with these lots. Although the young firefighter’s life cannot be restored, to have something built on those two lots will represent a form of healing to the neighborhood. It’s still sad for me to drive by there and remember that horrible day. I probably won’t ever forget it.
7440 and 7442 Zephyr Pl are both listed on zillow as about 8,400 sqft lots. However the 7440 lot seems bigger than 7442 given the placement of the driveway entrance from the street. I would be curious to see what the packets say in regards to lot size. These are ample sized lots to build a nice 3 bed 2 bath home and sell it for $275,000. So it is not unreasonable to expect the city to get $30,000 apiece for the lots. The question is where does this money go once the city gets it?
It would be great see two custom homes go in here. But Im not sure if the rules in place encourage it at all. For whatever reason, MW seems really stuck on the same four house designs. I can just see the design and review board not even entertaining a plan similar to 7344 Arlington Dr (the new skinny build in RH). If it was somewhat controversial in RH, where the housing diversity really makes it a much more interesting place to walk around, then I am skeptical MW will allow it. Hopefully someone tries it though.