CDA 2020-2024 Impact Report: Choice Neighborhood Plan Implementation

This article first appeared in the CDA 202-2024 Impact Report (April 2025), a comprehensive look at five years of housing, community development, and neighborhood revitalization efforts in St. Louis. To learn more about CDA’s programs, investments, and impact citywide, read the full report here.

---

Choice Neighborhoods Grant

Back in 2016, under President Obama’s administration, the City of St. Louis, McCormack Baron Salazar, and Urban Strategies partnered to secure a highly competitive $30 million Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The program was designed to make comprehensive, place-based investments—not just in housing, but also in neighborhood improvements and services for residents.

The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative encompasses five neighborhoods: Carr Square, Columbus Square, Downtown West, Old North St. Louis, and St. Louis Place.

The resulting plan, shaped by more than 200 community meetings, focuses on transforming the Preservation Square community, located just north of downtown. The area includes the highest concentration of public and affordable housing in the city, as well as some of the lowest life expectancy and household income levels. Today, Phases I and II, totaling 353 units, are complete and fully occupied. Phases III and IV, with 230 additional units, are now under construction.

Preservation Square has been completely rehabbed or rebuilt with new high quality housing and many amenities.

The Choice grant goes beyond bricks and mortar. It’s helped fund major improvements to neighborhood parks—including basketball courts, playgrounds, pickleball courts, a skating rink, chess tables, and tree plantings—as well as free public Wi-Fi, free internet-enabled tablets for residents, early childhood education support, the demolition of a long-vacant warehouse, and a range of public art projects such as murals, neighborhood banners, and historic markers.

CDA staff and Mayor Jones on the new basketball court mural in Loretta Hall Park. 

The new basketball court St. Louis Place Park funded by Choice.

Columbus Square Park's new pickleball court.

"Enduring Currents" by artist Olalekan Jeyifous makes a parallel between the flowing of the nearby Mississippi River and the unyielding resilience of the Near North Side's inhabitants.

St. Louis artist Fatou Kane designed the crosswalks near Murphy Park, Jefferson Elementary School, Elmer Hammond Development Center, and Flance Learning Center to provide children and families a colorful path between 3 parks: Murphy, DeSoto and Loretta Hall Parks.

---

Choice Supplemental Grant

To close a financing gap on the Brewery Apartments in Phase III, CDA and MHB pursued a rare supplemental Choice award. Though the City was initially ineligible due to the age of the original 2016 grant, Mayor Jones successfully advocated for a technical correction to the HUD NOFA. As a result, St. Louis became eligible for, and was awarded, an additional $5 million—securing the funding needed to keep this transformative project on track. Learn more about Choice Neighorhood components and progress at www.stlouis-mo.gov/cda/choice/.

Up next—the historic Brewery Apartments are being revitalized to bring more high-quality affordable housing to Near North St. Louis.

 

About the Community Development Administration (CDA): The CDA serves as the City of St. Louis' hub for federal, state, and local funds, implementing the Mayor's economic justice agenda. By funding public and nonprofit entities, the CDA supports a wide range of initiatives, including public services, affordable housing development, blight eradication, and other community development activities.