A worker with Bellon Wrecking Co. stands by as a colleague begins demolition on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, of the long-vacant Hubert Wheeler State School on Wilson Avenue in St. Louis' The Hill neighborhood. McBride Homes, who contracted the demolition, plans to build about 80 townhomes on the site.
ST. LOUIS — McBride Homes began demolition Tuesday of a vacant school in The Hill to make way for new townhomes.
The Chesterfield-based homebuilder said it will construct 80 townhomes on the 4-acre site at 5707 Wilson Avenue, just east of Hampton Avenue and Interstate 44, where industrial warehouses and single-family homes meet.
Each home will have two bedrooms, up to two bathrooms and a one-car attached garage, according to a release.
The site was home to the Hubert Wheeler State School, which specialized in educating students with disabilities. The state closed the school after finding a tarlike substance oozing from cracks on the playground in 1994.
It was later determined to be coal-tar byproducts; the site had once been a coke processing facility.
The site was cleaned up, and Harris-Stowe State University utilized the facility before vacating the property around 2014.
McBride closed on its acquisition of the property from the state of Missouri this past May.
“We’re excited to transform this historic site into a thriving residential community that honors the neighborhood’s history while providing additional high-quality homes for local residents,†McBride President Jake Eilermann said in a statement.
The townhomes project marks the second housing development for McBride in The Hill neighborhood. The builder erected dozens of single-family homes off Bischoff Avenue and Hereford Street a few years ago.
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A worker with Bellon Wrecking Co. stands by as a colleague begins demolition on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, of the long-vacant Hubert Wheeler State School on Wilson Avenue in St. Louis' The Hill neighborhood. McBride Homes, who contracted the demolition, plans to build about 80 townhomes on the site.
