ST. LOUIS — The city’s building safety chief says two historic vacant buildings north of downtown need to be demolished in the wake of a damaging fire over the weekend.

Building Commissioner Ed Ware said Wednesday that the buildings, owned by controversial developer Paul McKee’s NorthSide Regeneration, sustained considerable damage in the blaze, and may be starting to collapse. He said the city couldn’t abide that with people living in apartments just across the street.

“We want to get it down,” he said. “We want to get it safe. We want to get it cleaned up.”

The demolition would be a dreary end for the buildings, which sit off O’Fallon Street between North Sixth and Seventh streets and were built by the Sligo Iron Store Co., thought to be the first metal supply company west of the Mississippi River. NorthSide Regeneration is already scorned by preservationists who have accused the developer of “demolition by neglect.”

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Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, whose 14th Ward covers the condemned buildings, said too many NorthSide properties have gone up in smoke — from a house tied to Mark Twain to another warehouse on the near north side to another building in the Sligo complex that burned in 2023. “What he’s doing is criminal,” Aldridge said.

Joe Dulle, an attorney for NorthSide, rejected the criticism, but wouldn’t further comment on the record.

The buildings, at 1301 North Sixth Street and 1308 North Seventh Street, were built in the early 1900s as Sligo was growing from its roots as a local retailer into a national supplier. The new complex allowed the company to stock over 40,000 items ranging from iron and steel plates to tires, paint brushes and auto parts.

NorthSide Regeneration acquired the buildings, which sit just north of the Vess soda bottle replica visible from Interstate 70, in 2012. They were both empty.

A Sligo Iron building at 1301 North Sixth Street is seen on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, after a weekend fire. The building, located near downtown St. Louis in the Columbus Square neighborhood, was constructed in 1906.

There was hope that the site could become a linchpin in McKee’s larger redevelopment effort, covering hundreds of other properties across the near north side, and the acquisition helped NorthSide tap state tax credits . But no development occurred there.

The only signs of life now are prominent graffiti and reports of vagrants getting inside.

That inaction has triggered accusations that McKee has intentionally allowed the Sligo complex to deteriorate to short-circuit rules that generally protect historic properties from demolition.

NorthSide applied for a permit to demolish the five-story warehouse at 1308 North Seventh Street in 2023. It had sustained some damage in another fire that claimed an adjacent Sligo building, and McKee’s team argued that the warehouse could fall within six months.

But staffers in the city’s Cultural Resources Office said they had seen buildings in worse shape get redeveloped, and the city’s preservation board rejected the plan.

Then this past weekend, fire raged throughout the complex, leaving the buildings blackened and flanked by piles of broken brick.

And on Wednesday, Ware, the building official, told aldermen that the city would soon be soliciting bids from contractors to take down the buildings. He estimated it could cost $1.5 million, which the city could cover and bill NorthSide to recoup if NorthSide does not handle the work itself.

Aldridge, the budget committee chair, said the whole episode supported the city’s ongoing push, enabled by legislation he carried, to seize many NorthSide-owned properties through eminent domain .

There has been some question about whether the effort, which began under Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, will continue under newly elected Mayor Cara Spencer. Spencer has historically been one of McKee’s loudest critics .

But in a March interview, she stopped short of saying she would continue the eminent domain proceedings, saying she would have to review the specifics.