Located adjacent to the campus of Saint Louis University, it was built between 1964 and 1968 as a public housing development primarily for the elderly.

Before Grand Center rose to become an entertainment district in St. Louis, the area was a residential neighborhood located just west of the original core of the city.

In the years after World War II, civic leaders regarded decaying neighborhoods to be the city's biggest postwar problem.

During this time in 1954, Mayor Raymond R. Tucker announced plans for the demolition of the Mill Creek Valley, which was destroyed in 1959 into what locals called the Hiroshima Flats.

[2] The Council Plaza housing development, built with financing and support from Teamsters Local 688 and its leader, Harold J. Gibbons, transformed the Grand Center area in the 1950s and 60s.