WHAT OTHER NEWSPAPERS ARE SAYING: THREE CHEERS FOR FUR, ZINC AND DRURY

Three cheers for Charles and Shirley Drury, who do well doing while doing good.

The Drurys, who are successful hoteliers, are architectural preservationists as well. They do more than give lip-service to preservationist sentiments: They build upon them.

Some years back, they invested where their beliefs were by buying up the old Railroad YMCA by Union Station and making a hotel out of it.

After a half-baked gentrification plan almost asphyxiated Union Market downtown, the Drurys breathed new life into the market building by installing one of their hotels inside and on top of it.

Now come the Drurys to save a trio of buildings in a prime downtown location, by making a hotel-parking complex out of it.

Two of the buildings are of special merit.

The Fur Exchange, built in 1919, has visual ownership of the corner of Market and Fourth streets. It is important not only because of its dignified facade but also because, with bricks and stone, it links St. Louis to its fur-trading past. The Fur Exchange deserves its prominent place in the shadow of our soaring monument to the westward expansion across the way.

Skip one building as you walk south, and you'll be in front of the not-so-old American Zinc building at Fourth and Walnut. Designed by Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum in 1965, this stylish building is one of St. Louis' few successful modern post-war buildings. It puts you in mind of buildings from the golden age of mid-century design when buildings in Chicago's Loop and on Park Avenue in New York elevated America to the top of the world's architectural heap.

Zinc and Fur sandwich the poor Thomas Jefferson building, which puts you in mind of the all-too-many buildings that make you hate "modern." Awful as it is, without it, downtown St. Louis would have one more cavity in its smile. The Drurys' plans call for putting a new face on this building. Can't hurt.

Their plan is contingent on their receiving tax abatements. Such tax breaks have been given out promiscuously in this city, often unwifely, often to the detriment of St. Louis' fiscal health and physical well-being.

However, given the prominence of these buildings, give their architectural and historic importance and their role in the maintenance of urban architectural density, abatements are worthwhile. Historic tax credits are another contingency: If even a project fit the bill for such credits, this one is it.

Charles Drury said, "We don't want to see those buildings shoved into the river." Nor do we.

"This is a project that makes sense," said the Landmarks Association's Carolyn Toft. Yes, it does.

In fact, we encourage others to look at this project as an example of leadership. This leadership is grounded in an understanding that building for the future is strengthened consequentially by its role in preserving the past.