ST. LOUIS – Center for Community Progress (CFCP) holds a conference every other year to discuss how to address vacant and abandoned structures. This year, hundreds of attendees are in St. Louis for this year's “Reclaiming Vacant Properties” conference.

What You Need To Know

  • Center for Community Progress(CFCP) holds a conference every other year to discuss how to address vacant and abandoned structures
  • Conference attendees got a glimpse of change in St. Louis by helping PocketPark turn a vacant lot by the river front into a park
  • One of the key things is really looking at data driven strategies and so St. Louis has actually been a leader
  • "What we’re trying to address has happened over decades, but there’s no question as an outsider who has been looking in and observing St. Louis. They’re actually making some really great progress" 

“The conference is one of our flagship educational events where we bring the entire national field of practice together so folks can really learn about the best-practice strategies, innovative work happening in communities all across this country to address vacancy and abandonment,” said Tarik Abdelazim, Vice President Technical Assistance with Center for Community Progress.

Conference attendees got a glimpse of change in St. Louis by helping PocketPark turn a vacant lot by the riverfront into a park.

“The people that are in this field are very passionate about this work…We started this about four conferences ago where we offer all the attendees a service project with the host organization before we actually lock ourselves into hotel room and learn. And it’s amazing the transformative effect you can have, just a positive energy, and it’s something that we like to just get back to the community to thank them for hosting us.”

Among the attendees are government officials and community partners who are part of the neighborhood transformation work. Previous conferences were held in Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee.

CFCP has been working with community leaders for many years. 

“It’s slow. What we’re trying to address has happened over decades, but there’s no question as an outsider who has been looking in and observing St. Louis, they’re actually making some really great progress. One of the key things is really looking at data driven strategies and so St. Louis has actually been a leader.”

St. Louis has been pulling together via the St. Louis vacancy collaborative, a cross-sector of local government and community groups.

Abdelazim explains St. Louis is “really identifying where vacant properties are all over the city. Which ones are tax delinquent, which ones can be addressed through code enforcement and then devising strategies that are based in a block by block approach because underlying all of this… it’s not just policy and practice which we work with communities to address but it’s economic conditions.”

Abedlazim says there’s no “silver bullet” to address market failures, meaning cities need to be strategic in their approach. St. Louis has been doing that incrementally turning block by block more vibrant.