St. Louis University said today it plans to demolish the historic Pevely Dairy complex and replace it with an office for its SLUCare physicians' practice.

"A new doctor's office building is critical to meeting the needs of our physicians, our medical students and residents, and, most importantly, our patients," said Clayton Berry, a university spokesman.

The Pevely Dairy complex at Chouteau Avenue and South Grand Boulevard is composed of large brick buildings erected between 1915 and 1945.

"In general, the site's industrial buildings are not suited to developing the kind of state-of-the-art, patient-centered facility needed for SLUCare," Berry said. "That being said, the university is--as part of its planning process--looking at which site features could possibly be preserved, including the tall smokestack and the facade of the building at Grand and Chouteau."

SLU is seeking demolition permits for the Pevely buildings. The applications, filed Oct. 26, will likely be considered at the city Preservation Board's next meeting, scheduled for Nov. 28. Review by the board and the city's Cultural Resouces Office is required because the Pevely complex is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Developer Rick Yacky had planned to put 165 market-rate apartments and commercial space in the complex. But SLU disclosed in August it had purchased the buildings, which sit prominently south of the university's main campus and the city's midtown area.

The university's request to demolish the buildings has caught the attention of preservationists.

"SLU's willingness to preserve both the smokestack and the corner facade is an impressive step in the right direction," said Lindsey Derrington, an archtectural historian with Preservation Research Office, a consulting firm. "Even better would be plans to preserve the corner building itself for incorporation into the new SLUCare facility. Apart from maintaining a solid presence at the intersection, it would set a great example of how institutions can incorporate historic buildings into modern, 21st-century developments rather than razing everything wholesale."

Berry said SLU anticipates spending "millions of dollars to improve" the Pevely site, which is across South Grand from the university's $82 million Doisy Research Center, which opened in 2007.

A new doctor's building at the Pevely site would replace a SLUCare office at 3660 Vista Avenue. Berry said the physicians' practice, which annually sees nearly 500,000 patients at several locations, has outgrown the Vista building. A new facility at the Pevely site "reinforces our continued commitment to midtown and to our patients' health," he said.

The Pevely buildings were designed for production of dairy products and use as the company's headquarters. Production ceased three years ago. On the eight-acre site are three buildings, the smokestack and two parking lots.