ST. LOUIS • The owner of the 500 North Broadway building no longer controls the structure as part of PNC Bank's effort to collect $13.8 million it provided to finance the office tower's purchase.

Occupancy and income plunged early this year at the building when the Lewis, Rice & Fingerish law firm moved two blocks to the One City Centre building, which is undergoing a $29 million renovation with the help of tax credits and loans.

Now handling day-to-day operation of 500 North Broadway is McKinley Inc., a commercial and residential property manager based in Ann Arbor, Mich. On June 24, St. Louis Circuit Judge Mark Neill appointed McKinley the building's receiver as part of PNC's suit, filed in May, to collect two loans.

Sharon Sklarov, a real estate investor from Lake Forest, Ill., bought 500 North Broadway in 2003. PNC declared its two loans in default last year and sought repayment from Sklarov and her husband, Val Sklarov, a guarantor of the loans.

The Sklarovs' lawyer, Steven Hamburg of Clayton, said Wednesday that PNC hampered the building's operation in November when it moved to seize $1 million in rents paid by tenants.

Public subsidies — $14.6 million in tax credits and other loans — awarded to One City Centre are hurting 500 North Broadway, a 22-story building completed in 1970, Hamburg said. "Why do you decimate one building just to build up another building?"

A PNC representatives declined to comment.

Renovating One City Centre, built in the 1980s and now called 600 Washington, is part of the publicly assisted effort to revive a critical area of downtown that has languished in recent years. The effort includes conversion to parking in much of the failed St. Louis Centre shopping mall beneath the office tower.

In November, Sharon Sklarov challenged the One City Centre loans and tax breaks by suing the St. Louis Development Corp. and the Missouri Development Finance Board. A Cole County Circuit Court judge dismissed the suit on Feb. 10.