Ground breaks on Rollick, a $24 million mixed-use project in Downtown West

Originally reported by First Alert 4. By Amanda Roley. July 31, 2026. Read the story.

AHM Group and Broadmoor Group broke ground Friday, July 31, 2026, on Rollick, a $24 million mixed-use apartment project in Downtown West, Amanda Roley reported for First Alert 4. Roley placed the vacant lot on a 12-acre site one block from Energizer Park and wrote that Friday’s groundbreaking was for the Rollick building, with first residents expected within two years.

Greater St. Louis, Inc.’s unsigned newsroom recap the same day — the headline says “ribbon cutting”; the body is a groundbreaking — put the six-story building at 2125 Locust Street: 74 apartments, more than 3,000 square feet of commercial space, and structured parking at Locust and N. 22nd. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Steph Kukuljan, Aug. 1, 2026; paywalled beyond the visible lede) lists The Rollick at 2151 Locust Street. Both figures describe the same corner of Locust and N. 22nd in Downtown West / City Commons — not on Washington Avenue.

Greater St. Louis, Inc., citing a press release, called the development “the first ground-up mixed-use project in Downtown West in more than a century.” The chamber recap also placed Rollick in the next phase of AHM’s broader City Commons plan: nearly 12 acres, more than 1,000 planned residences, 216,000 square feet of commercial space, and upwards of $400 million in planned public and private investment, mixing restoration of historic buildings with ground-up work.

Speakers named at the Friday event, per Greater St. Louis, Inc., included Ron Kitchens (Greater St. Louis, Inc.); John Morrissey, president, Broadmoor Group; Congressman Wesley Bell; Stephen Westbrooks, president and CEO, St. Louis Development Corporation; Dustin Allison, CEO, Arch to Park Equity Fund; and Brian Pratt, Managing Partner, AHM Group. Roley’s First Alert 4 piece also quoted Mayor Cara Spencer and resident Josyah Taylor.

“Great downtowns are built neighborhood by neighborhood. City Commons demonstrates how thoughtful public-private partnerships can transform underutilized property into places where people want to live, work and spend time.”

— Mayor Cara Spencer, quoted by Amanda Roley, First Alert 4, July 31, 2026

“To Rollick means to move with energy, optimism, and enthusiasm. It reflects what we see happening here: a neighborhood entering an exciting new chapter. Eventually, momentum becomes something even greater, it becomes an identity.”

— Brian Pratt, AHM Group, quoted by Amanda Roley, First Alert 4

“This isn’t — here’s some pretty drawings and we could do something. This is — everything is in place and we got to move the bulldozers in place.”

— Ron Kitchens, Greater St. Louis, Inc., quoted by Amanda Roley, First Alert 4

From the press release, Greater St. Louis, Inc. also carried Kitchens on why the project matters regionally:

“Regional competitiveness begins with vibrant neighborhoods. Investments like City Commons make St. Louis more attractive to employers, entrepreneurs, residents, and visitors by creating the kind of walkable, mixed-use urban environments that today’s workforce increasingly seeks. This is exactly the type of catalytic private investment that helps move our region forward.”

— Ron Kitchens, from the release, Greater St. Louis, Inc., July 31, 2026

At the event itself, Kitchens added: “The greatest force for change is a job, and by creating more jobs in construction, more jobs for residents that are going to live in these units, more jobs for the retailers that are going to surround this development, we’re reminded that success is contagious.”

“Transformational projects don’t happen by accident. They happen when committed private developers work alongside public partners with a shared vision for long-term neighborhood growth.”

— Stephen Westbrooks, president and CEO, St. Louis Development Corporation, from the release via Greater St. Louis, Inc.

Also citable: Greater St. Louis, Inc. newsroom, July 31, 2026 (unsigned; civic coverage, not a newspaper). Spectrum News published a short recap on Aug. 2, 2026.

Rollick is the newest tile in Wash Ave • New. For the project profile — address notes, the City Commons context, and a path to the developers — see our Rollick listing.