Innovation Hub

Restored and Re-Imagined

By Drew Gieseke Photos courtesy of Harris-Stowe State University

In late 2021, Harris-Stowe State University kicked off a $3 million renovation of the historic Vashon Community Center in St. Louis. The center originally operated as the only public recreational facility open to the metro area’s African American community in the segregation era. The re-imagined center will soon serve a vital role in chronicling the metro area’s Black history and culture. The restoration is years in the making, but leaders of the project say it will be well worth the wait.

“The project’s primary goals have always been to restore the building to its original state,” says LaTonia Collins Smith, interim president at HSSU, a historically black college and university institution. She adds that the university plans to honor the historic nature of the facility while making modifications “to meet the physical and operational needs of the proposed programs to be housed within the building.”

Nestled in the Mill Creek Valley area of St. Louis, Vashon opened in 1937 as one of the many public works projects implemented under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program. Yet unlike many well-known New Deal constructions – including the Hoover Dam and the Lincoln Tunnel – Vashon was constructed because of racial segregation policies that were legal in St. Louis at the time.

“African American youth were not allowed to swim or participate in other recreational activities at community centers within the city designated for use by white youth,” Smith says.

Soon after its debut, the building became home to cultural events and gatherings for the Black community. Many decades later, in 1999, HSSU purchased Vashon and its land from the city. After years of planning, the university is now renovating the 15,421-square-foot site thanks to a combination of state funding, donations from the National Park Service and institutional dollars.

Vashon’s renovation will also include the relocation of the Don and Heide Wolff Jazz Institute and the National Black Radio Hall of Fame. In addition, the renovated facility will house civil rights collections to serve as a reminder of the city and the country’s segregationist past and to directly link the civil rights movement to this history.

Smith says the university anticipates the project to be finished by this fall. Once open, Vashon will be a facility re-imagined – a place that teaches Black history while standing as a new gathering spot for the metro area community. ln Harris-Stowe State University, 3026 Laclede Ave, St. Louis, 314-340-3366, hssu.edu