The Jefferson County Council decided April 12 to approve a proposal to build a luxury, gated apartment complex at I-55 and Main Street in Imperial.
That decision followed a Feb. 11 recommendation from the Jefferson County Planning and Zoning Commission to deny a pair of rezoning requests and a preliminary plan to build the 13 apartment buildings with 306 units on 19.65 acres on the southeast corner of I-55 and Main.
The P and Z board acts as an advisory body to the County Council, which is charged with rezoning property in unincorporated areas.
One of the requests reclassified four smaller lots, now vacant and heavily wooded, from various single-family residential districts to a single planned mixed residential zoning designation.
The County Council voted 4-3 to approve that request, with council members Renee Reuter (District 2, Imperial) and Jim Terry (District 7, Cedar Hill) casting dissenting votes with Charles Groeteke (District 4, Barnhart), who represents the area.
In a 5-2 vote, the council approved a separate request to zone the northernmost 1.38 acres of the site, between the I-55 northbound exit ramp and Old State Road, from single-family residential to non-planned community commercial.
That small lot, developers have said, will include stores that would likely cater to the apartment dwellers. It also will provide the main entrance to the gated complex off Old State Road.
Groeteke and Reuter voted against that rezoning request.
Before those votes, Groeteke had made a motion to remove both items from the agenda, but it failed.
He said he believed that after the P and Z board recommended denial, both applications should have been referred to the council as resolutions of denial. Instead, they were placed on the council’s March 8 agenda for the council to discuss how it wanted to proceed with them, as has been customary.
The council, in votes similar to the final votes to approve the requests, advanced the applications as ordinances that could be approved.
Although council members made no comments concerning the rezoning requests, at a previous meeting on March 22, Groeteke said he sided with residents of the area who said they were worried about potential traffic congestion the complex might cause, not only on Main Street but also on Old State Road.
Residents, particularly those in the Wolf Hollow Estates subdivision just south of the area, also said they thought an apartment complex would ruin their views. Others had stormwater concerns, and some said apartment dwellers would bring crime into the region.
Rowles Development Co. of Ballwin is seeking to build the complex, to be called Avon on Main, with studio and one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, ranging from 600 square feet to 1,400 square feet, with about 55 percent to be two-bedroom units. Rents would likely be $900 to $1,600 a month, a company spokesman said.
Gene Fribis of Heneghan and Associates of Arnold, who represented the developers at the P and Z meeting, said preliminary engineering work may be ongoing for the next six to nine months.
“It will probably be two years before they’re leasing apartments,” he said.
Council approves changes at Arnold motel
Also on April 12, the County Council voted 5-1 with an abstention to approve a rezoning request and development plan involving the Pleasantview Motel, 4301 Jeffco Blvd., just south of Arnold.
The new owners of the motel asked the council to rezone a portion of the motel’s 7-acre lot and accept a development plan that would allow them to add 15 rooms to the 22-unit motel.
According to the plans, the new owners want to upgrade the hotel, which dates to the 1950s, by renovating existing units as well as adding more, said David Vonarx of VonArx Engineering of Hillsboro, who represented the owner of the motel site, Jeffco Properties of Festus, at a Feb. 25 hearing before the Jefferson County Planning and Zoning Commission.
The plan calls for the demolition of Mac’s Tire and Auto, 4317 Jeffco Blvd., to make way for the new units.
Reuter voted against the rezoning request, and Groeteke abstained, he said, on advice of the County Counselor’s Office.
Vonarx said preliminary work has started at the site, with construction likely to begin in early fall.