Craig Heller, an early leader of loft development in downtown St. Louis, has filed for bankruptcy, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported today. Heller and his wife, Amy, filed a chapter 7 petition in which they reported assets of between $500,001 and $1 million and liabilities of between $10 million and $50 million. In the petition filed Monday in St. Louis, Heller estimated that after exempt property is excluded and administrative costs are paid, no funds will remain to pay unsecured creditors. In the 1990s, his Loftworks firm began converting old downtown office buildings in St. Louis into lofts. Among creditors listed in the Hellers’ bankruptcy petition are Enterprise Bank & Trust, the city of St. Louis and former partners in FarmWorks, a failed urban agriculture project north of downtown.
