Developers promised to buy out U City homes, but didn’t

Seneca Commercial Real Estate was to acquire the rest of the homes on Mayflower Court for its Market at Olive development. But the company pulled out within days of when it was supposed to close this summer. And then Seneca began boarding up the homes it did own, and homeowners said the company has done little maintenance since.

Now, six months later, one of the vacant homes has a broken doorknob. Another has overgrown brush and raccoons living in its chimney. Residents say they’ve seen trespassers looking into windows.

“It has been just a nightmare,” said homeowner Mary Gaines. “It’s just wrong.”

Larry Chapman, president and CEO of Seneca, said his company intended to buy all 16 homes on Mayflower, off McKnight Road and Olive Boulevard, to make way for a new apartment complex. But then potential retailers pulled out, and interest rates and rising costs took their toll. It no longer made sense to buy the remaining homes, he said.

“We are disappointed, just like the homeowners are, that we were unable to close,” Chapman said in an email.

The residents of Mayflower have faced years of disruption due to the development, which is home to Costco, Chick-fil-A and other chains. The project has courted widespread controversy since a previous company, Novus Development, first pitched it around 2018.

That was when Novus began acquiring homes on Mayflower — it bought five in 2018 and 2019 and told those whose properties it hadn’t acquired not to make improvements, residents said. But in 2021, Novus sold the entire development to Seneca and its partners. Seneca later bought two more homes in early 2023, and now owns seven on the block, according to real estate records.

A similar situation unfolded nearly 20 years ago in Sunset Hills in which Novus wanted to redevelop 250 homes there for a new shopping center, only to lose financing, which killed the project. That spurred lawsuits and left vacant homes, homes in disrepair, and some residents with two mortgages.