Frontenac Residents Oppose Any Commercial Development on the Old Wright School Property

On January 8, the City of Frontenac had a public hearing concerning the future status of the 15-acre tract of land just west of Lindbergh Boulevard on Clayton Road. This was most recently the home of the Ladue Early Childhood Center (LEEC) before moving to Creve Coeur, and before that, the long-time location for Wright School of the Ladue School District.

Some 200 residents crowded into the Frontenac Hilton Hotel to express their views that this land should remain residential and not fall into hands of developers. Frontenac residents only want single-family homes developed on this piece of property which backs up to Highway 64-40.

The land is currently owned by the Ladue School District and under a contract to the Sansone Group of Clayton. Sansone does some home development, but their core of business is commercial development.

"We are most interested in doing what the city fathers want," said Jim Sansone of the Sansone Group. That is a valuable piece of property. We will just wait until the final determination of their long-range planning to make our proposals," said Sansone.

"Our moratorium on any kind of development in the City of Frontenac still runs until February 22,” said the city’s administrator Bob Shelton. “We are not taking any development proposals from anyone at this time.”

Shelton explained this piece of property is zoned for residential development, one dwelling per acre. However, there are provisions that possibly, 2 attached villas could be built with no more than 3 1/2 units per acre of land.

Steve Bahn, owner of Bahn Commerical Real Estate originally had the contract to find a buyer for the property for the school district and was able to piece together parcels of property adjacent to the LEEC property, bringing the acreage from nine to 15 altogether.

Reliance Bank Plans

Meanwhile Reliance Bank still shows an interest in the long-vacant property on the northeast corner of Clayton and Lindbergh. Plans call for a new branch bank to be be built on that abandoned corner, though no formal construction plans have been submitted yet according to Shelton. That too falls under the moratorium lasting at least until February 22.

Reliance has placed large signs in the windows of that property previewing future plans.