Charles Drury says there is no way his company is going to lose the Union Market property in downtown St. Louis.

Drury's response was to an article which appeared in the Friday St. Louis Post Dispatch, in which city officials demanded Drury pay $189,583 in back lease payments on the Union Market.

Drury has 60 days to respond before the city will start proceedings to take back the city-owned building.

"There will definitely be more negotiations," Drury, president of Drury Land Development, told the Southeast Missourian Friday.

"The time limit set by the city doesn't mean a great deal because we will get everything cleared up before that now that it is on the front burner."

Drury said the company has always paid its bills. "We have a good track record and we won't let something like this mess it up."

He said they have never had any problems with any city officials and don't have any now. Drury called it a "simple matter of understanding a legal document."

Under the original lease reached in January of 1992, Drury's company was to build a 90-room addition to 180-room Drury Inn already atop Union Market. Drury said the project had not been completed because of the city's uncertainly over its plans for a convention hotel.

The lease was to be paid over 23 months.

He signed the lease after the city selected Pittsburgh businessman John E. Connelly and Drury to build an 1,100-room convention hotel at the Union Market site.

That plan got scrapped, partly because the city was unable to supply about $40 million it promised for financing.

The city is now negotiating with Gateway Casino Co. for a convention hotel on the riverfront and gambling lease at Laclede's Landing.