DeSales Community Development: Half a Century of Service to the Saint Louis Community

By Sophia Black, Washington University Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement 2025 St. Louis Fellow

DeSales Community Development – a place-based community development nonprofit, has been working in the Saint Louis City area for almost 50 years. Founded with the mission to “promote investment and revitalization in the Fox Park and Tower Grove East neighborhoods.” 

Through the years, they’ve respectfully gained a reputation of leadership and innovation for community development. Founded in 1976 with the goal of the revitalization of the Fox Park and Tower Groves East neighborhoods, one of the first community-based neighborhood revitalization organizations in St. Louis. Residents in these neighborhoods were concerned about overall neighborhood decline that was happening all across the City of Saint Louis, so they banded together to take back control of their neighborhood's destiny. Soon after DeSales founding, they realized that to meet their original mission, they needed to become actively involved in housing development. 

With funding from the Community Development Administration (CDA) and the creation of the historic Compton Hill District, DeSales began to acquire vacant buildings within the district. From there, DeSales started to rehab and sell a mix of market-rate, and low-income tax credit residential apartments and homes for the community. 

As DeSales realized that housing development alone wasn’t enough to ensure long-term affordability, they established Fox Grove Management (FGM) in 2004 to provide high-quality property management services. With a large share of multi-family housing in their portfolio, DeSales leaders and neighborhood partners recognized the need for a professional, mission-aligned management approach to support the stability and growth of their properties.

Today, DeSales has grown outside of the historic neighborhoods of Fox Park and Tower Grove East to serve as a model for neighborhood revitalization across the city. Through the years, they have completed 600 tax credit funded units, 250 historic revitalization units, and acquired an additional 300 units with partner organizations to continue their revitalization efforts – showing their commitment to their mission to create healthy neighborhoods throughout the City.

“We are lucky to be in neighborhoods with such active community members,” Becky Reinhart, Executive Director of DeSales Community Development, said. “We work to preserve the character of neighborhoods at DeSales, and community involvement is a part of that character.”

Renovated building across from DeSales Headquarters building in Fox Park.

Current Projects

DeSales Preservation II
Currently, DeSales is working on their DeSales Preservation II initiative that will modernize 71 existing units across 28 historic buildings in the Tower Groves East, Fox Park, and Benton West neighborhoods. The goal of this project is to continue to support these neighborhoods while also providing affordable, modernized housing for residents of the area– ensuring affordability for years to come.

DeSales Preservation II comes after their successful completion of DeSales Preservation I, as this low-income tax credit initiative provided 65 affordable housing units, with a majority of the renovations existing in the Fox Park neighborhood. This project reaffirmed these units' affordability for another 30 years, and acts as an example that allows for high and low cost development to be done together, which allows for entire development projects to be successful, keeping costs low for residents.

As far as their timeline for DeSales Preservation II, they received a low incoming housing credit (LIHTC) from the Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC) in late 2024, with renovations slated to begin in late 2025 and project completion in late 2026.

DeSales Preservation I historic renovation.

Benton Park Place
Benton Park Place is a 49-unit housing development intended to be an affordable, yet high-quality living space for seniors. The development will be mixed-income, creating affordable housing units for seniors who often live on a fixed income. This three-story development will hold a wide variety of amenities, including commercial retail space, community gathering spaces, and a community garden.

Benton Park Place was developed with community in mind, with the goal of providing affordable housing for seniors in the community and providing them with permanent supportive housing assistance. This development will also activate a vacant lot located in the Benton Park West neighborhood, ensuring safety and prosperity for the neighborhood. 

Timeline wise, DeSales was awarded a LIHTC from MHDC back in 2023, and their predevelopment work was funded in 2024. This year, construction is slated to begin and completion in 2026. 

Image of rendering for Benton Park Place.

Virginia Plaza
Virginia Plaza is an example of DeSales’ eye for envisioning a thriving space despite potential barriers that might deter others from doing so. Located on Virginia Avenue, Virginia Plaza serves as the epicenter of the concerted effort to revitalize the surrounding area. 

Originally owning six buildings on Compton Avenue, DeSales looked across the street at a vacant lot, and envisioned a complete transformation for the community. This plaza will include 78 mixed-income units, new mixed-use buildings including commercial space and residential apartments, a nonprofit owned grocery store, and various other community amenities.

DeSales was awarded a LIHTC from MHDC in 2023, and this year they are working to close on financing with construction on phase one slated for the end of the year. Completion of the project is scheduled for 2026.

“Virginia Plaza is a great representation of DeSales commitment to community revitalization," Reinhart said. “It will be a long process and will take patience, teamwork, and a little imagination, but it will be the heart of Virginia Avenue, creating a better vision of the future.”

One of the six buildings on Compton Avenue slated for redevelopment with Virginia Plaza.

 

Image of rendering of Virginia Plaza.

Future
Looking towards the future, DeSales wants to continue their work in the Saint Louis community. Their dedication to the revitalization of the neighborhoods of Fox Park, Tower Grove East, and Benton Park West show not only their dedication to those communities but also to the many community revitalization efforts in the City of St. Louis. They show that community development is a team effort and that change can be made only through the willingness of others to dream bigger than what may be put in front of them. 

“CDA is a proud partner of DeSales Community Development,” Nahuel Fefer, Executive Director of CDA said. “As a long time supporter of their housing development, we will continue to proudly support them in their future endeavors.”