Grass grew knee-high along four streets in Benton Park this summer, until neighbors got tired of waiting and cut it themselves. The overgrowth sat outside Senate Square, the neighborhood's biggest single-owner apartment complex, where boarded-up doors, condemnation notices and unlocked crawlspaces have become part of the streetscape near Sidney, Senate, Congress and Salena streets.
The roughly 30 buildings that make up Senate Square, spread across four streets within a single block, once anchored a wave of revitalization in the historic south St. Louis neighborhood. Now, as reported by St. Louis Magazine, many of its roughly 100 units sit vacant, the city has barred entry to some units altogether, and the property has drawn squatters through doors left ajar and crawlspaces left open.
Volunteers cut the grass and weeds along the four streets on July 18, according to the same report. Benton Park Neighborhood Association member Kendah El-Ali described the cleanup effort itself as controversial, while fellow resident Sergio Reinert said the eyesore has motivated people to actually address the problem rather than look away from it.
From Rehabbed Rowhouses to Ghost Town
Senate Square's rowhouses date to the 19th century and became part of Benton Park in 1979, created from properties rehabilitated after years under absentee landlords. Benton Park itself was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 30, 1985, formally recognizing the architectural significance of its brick rowhouses across roughly 100 city blocks, according to Missouri State Parks.
Neighborhood businesses grew up around the complex over the following decades: Venice Cafe opened in 1988, Frasers followed in the early 1990s, Sidney Street Cafe arrived in the early 2000s, and Peacemaker Lobster and Crab opened in 2014. But longtime resident Kelly Eldridge said Senate Square has become a ghost town, per the St. Louis Magazine report. Window damage and water damage now mark several buildings, and a former tenant told the magazine the air conditioning was out for months while trash piled up outside for weeks on end.
Rents Doubled Under New York Ownership
An Ellisville real estate firm sold Senate Square along with four other apartment complexes to New York-based David Stern Management, which acquired the property in 2022. Rents at Senate Square have increased to around $2,000 for a unit previously costing about $800, according to multiple sources cited in the St. Louis Magazine article. The company's own website currently lists the largest unit at $1,650 a month and the cheapest one-bedroom at $1,000 — still well above Benton Park's average one-bedroom rent of $912 and its $1,254 average for two bedrooms, according to Apartments.com data, and above the citywide St. Louis average of $1,156.
David Shemano serves as CEO of David Stern Management, and the properties are held through a series of shell companies, the magazine reported. One of those entities, St Louis 5 2022, was registered to Shemano before he transferred ownership to David L. Shores in 2024. Aurox Equities, owned by Isaac Perlmutter, also manages some Senate Square properties and reportedly oversees $1 billion worth of property elsewhere, according to the company's LinkedIn page. Official records from multi-jurisdictional housing authority proceedings in June and July 2026 document Shemano and Perlmutter jointly representing affiliated residential properties, according to the Health, Educational and Housing Facility Board. Aurox Equities also manages other multi-family complexes across the region, including Ambassador Studios on Delmar Boulevard, Cypress Village in Saint Ann, and Norwood Court Apartments in St. Louis County, per Realtor.com listings.
A Tenant's Fight Over a Leaking Ceiling
One tenant, Jessica Cartier, posted a TikTok warning about the Senate Square apartments in September 2025. She reported that her ceiling had leaked since October 2024, even after she renewed her lease in May 2025. The owners filed an eviction petition against her in February 2026; a St. Louis Magazine review found the petition was dismissed in early March 2026 after the owners settled on a payment plan with her. Cartier ultimately left Senate Square in May 2026. The city, separately, shut off water to one of the Senate Square buildings, per the same report.
City Piles Up Court Cases and Warrants
The city of St. Louis has filed more than 30 municipal court cases against the property-holding firms behind Senate Square, alleging minimum housing standard violations, the magazine reported. St Louis 5 2022 LLC was ordered to appear in St. Louis Municipal Court on September 10 but failed to show, and the municipal court has issued warrants for the company in more than a dozen cases. Under city ordinance, the Building Division can levy fines of up to $500 per violation against owners who ignore inspector notices, according to the City of St. Louis. All rental properties citywide fall within a designated Housing Conservation District requiring occupancy certificates and inspections every three years or whenever a unit changes hands.
Ward 8 Alderwoman Jami Cox Antwi, who took office in July 2025 and represents Benton Park, Soulard, Lafayette Square and surrounding neighborhoods, said in July 2026 that the city had initiated active legal action against half of Senate Square's units. She has also said the city is pursuing a broader lawsuit against out-of-state landlords, and that the city may still impose additional citations, a special tax bill or a lien on the owners, with fines possible for unresolved violations. The status of any court-ordered receivership for the properties remains unclear, according to St. Louis Magazine's reporting.
Missouri law offers the city a potentially powerful tool here: under state statutes RSMo 441.570 and 441.590, a circuit court that finds a residential property constitutes a public nuisance can appoint a receiver to collect tenant rents and redirect that money toward fixing code violations, according to Justia Law. Separately, Missouri common law dating to 1984 establishes an implied warranty of habitability, letting tenants withhold rent or terminate leases when landlords fail to fix dangerous conditions after being notified, per The Missouri Bar.
Neighbors Push Back, Board by Board
Antwi met with the Benton Park Neighborhood Association on September 1, the same day two people were seen removing boards from condemned Senate Square properties — and, later, replacing them, according to the St. Louis Magazine account. The association maintains an active Building Review Committee and Safety Committee dedicated to monitoring property maintenance and development in the neighborhood, per the Benton Park Neighborhood Association.
Resident Katie Taylor has advocated for selling the Senate Square buildings to responsible owners outright. Fellow neighbor Lori White countered that rental housing like Senate Square remains critical to Benton Park's identity, underscoring the tension between wanting the complex fixed and wanting it gone. For now, the buildings sit between those two futures — mowed lawns and patched boards standing in for the repairs residents say still haven't come.
