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ST. LOUIS — Developer Steve Stogel has relinquished his option to buy the vacant Railway Exchange building downtown.

Twenty years ago, Stogel led a Herculean effort to rehab another enormous historic downtown building, the Old Post Office.

So it was notable in April when he said he was taking a run at the 1.2 million-square-foot Railway building, one of four empty buildings deemed critical to the future of the city core.

But Stogel said last week that he didn’t have a deal. And his negotiation rights with the building owner’s main creditor have expired.

Meanwhile, city officials have been taking steps that could end with the city buying the building from its Florida-based owner through eminent domain, a process in which governments can take private property for public use or to serve public good.

That process could aid future private developers. The building is laden with debt from previous redevelopment attempts, and eminent domain could clear that off the building’s title.