J. C. Penney Co. Warehouse Building (St. Louis, Missouri)

The J. C. Penney Co. Warehouse Building, formerly also known as Edison Brothers Warehouse Building, and now Edison Condominiums, is a historic warehouse building in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The building now serves as a condo-hotel.

History

The building was constructed in 1929 as a warehouse for the J.C. Penney retail chain. It occupied the building until 1954, after which it was donated to the University of Missouri as a location for an education center, which never materialized. In 1967, the university leased the warehouse to Edison Brothers Stores, which used it as a warehouse for its retail operations until 1994.[2] In 1983, the company commissioned muralist Richard Haas to paint a trompe-l'œil mural on three sides of the building that mimicked architectural stonework, using themes derived from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.[3]

The building reopened in 2001 after a $54 million renovation as a combination of condominiums and the Sheraton St. Louis City Center hotel. The hotel left Sheraton in 2014 and was unbranded until 2018, when it became a Red Lion Hotel.[4] It closed in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and reopened in 2022 as an OYO Hotel. It is set to be renovated, at a cost of $46 million, and will regain its Sheraton flag.[5]

References

  1. {{NRISref|version=2010a}}^
  2. 400 S. 14th Street (J.C Penney/Edison Brothers Warehouse) What That Was, 2014-01-27, retrieved 2019-06-13^
  3. Edison Brothers Building, Trompe L'Oeil Mural, 400 Fourteenth Street, Saint Louis, Independent City, MO Library of Congress, retrieved 2019-06-13^
  4. Jacob Barker. St. Louis City Center Hotel to become Hotel RL St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2018-03-02, retrieved 2019-06-13^
  5. Downtown St. Louis hotel with World's Fair mural is set for renovation and rebranding 22 August 2023^