Apartments, offices for startup firms and a 250-room hotel are planned for the long-vacant and decrepit Jefferson Arms in downtown St. Louis.

Alterra International, a company founded in Istanbul but now based in Dallas, has the building under contract. Mike Sarimsakci, president of Alterra, said he hopes to buy the building this summer, followed in early 2017 by the start of two years of construction.

Sarimsakci said the result will be a new hub of downtown activity on Tucker Boulevard.

“It’s not just a slogan — live, work and play,” he said.

Alterra plans to renovate as 250 market-rate apartments the historic building that opened as the Hotel Jefferson in time for the 1904 World’s Fair. Also planned is a 250-room hotel in the addition opened in 1928 on the Locust Street side of the original building at 415 North Tucker.

Pyramid Construction paid $19 million for the building in 2006 and had planned to redo it as condos. Pyramid collapsed in 2008 without beginning the project although it cleared the building of tenants. Real estate investor David Jump bought building out of foreclosure in 2010.