Developer Craig Heller builds on downtown's momentum

Downtown developer Craig Heller says, “There is an anti-urban bias among many people who live in this area. That’s too bad, because most people who live in urban areas love the experience.” (Brittanie Williams/P-D) POST-DISPATCH VISUAL ARTS CRITIC In 1998, when developer Craig Heller's firm LoftWorks renovated the Merchandise Mart's old annex into residential lofts, people told him he was crazy. "No one wants to live downtown," he recalls being told by nearly everybody. But when the condos in what's now called 10th Street Lofts quickly sold out, and he moved on to his next project, the skeptics kept at it. "Tenth Street Lofts was a fluke, you'll never sell Louderman Lofts. Nobody wants to live downtown." Well, Heller and other developers engaged in rehabbing old loft and factory buildings proved otherwise: People do want to... [read full story]