The Sheraton St. Louis City Center Hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Edison Brothers Warehouse building has passed residence onto the 288 – room Sheraton St. Louis City Center Hotel & Suites, opened in July 2001.

This landmark was originally built in 1928 as a distribution center for J.C. Penney Company. At the time James Cash Penney (1875-1971), a native of Hamilton Missouri, was the 26-year-old manager and one-third owner of this new retail outlet which, by the end of 1927, had grown to 892 stores in 45 states. Penney closed the St. Louis warehouse in 1954 where it remained vacant until 1962 when, at Mr. Penney’s urging the well-maintained building was donated to the University of Missouri. Plans to develop the building as a university education center were never realized, and in 1967, the University leased it to Edison Brothers Stores, a St. Louis-based footwear chain, which converted it into a distribution center.

The prominence of the building at the busy intersection abutting I-40/64, near the entry to downtown, inspired the Edison Brothers to undertake a major project to enhance the structure. In 1983, the company commissioned New York muralist Richard Has (1936- ) to design his largest work to date: a mural covering nearly three acres of surface on three elevations of building. Known for his regard for historic buildings, Has respected the overall integrity of the warehouse design by employing architectural imagery that highlighted the building’s simple line and dominant fenestration.

The themes of the mural, executed in paint colors imitating natural building materials (terra cotta, grey-white, ochre and brown) borrowed imagery from a more monumental American past with specific allusions to St. Louis landmarks and the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, which Has called the greatest architectural moment in the history of St. Louis. Painted obelisks, rising twelve stories at the corners of the building, evoked architectural forms of the Palace of Mines & Metallurgy erected for the Fair. An equestrian figure painted in the center of the south elevation recalled Charles Niehaus sculpture, Apotheosis of St. Louis, also created for the fair. References to architect Louis Sullivan’s work in St. Louis appeared in the trompe l’oeil arcading, accented with angels, on the north, south and west sides. The west side also features a classical-style personification of PEACE – seated in front of a column carrying a Unisphere, the symbol of the 1964 New York World’s fair.