With spring upon us, people are coming out of their houses. Parks are getting crowded with baseball practices and dog walkers. It's the season to work in the yard and in the neighborhood. St. Louis is a neighborhood city, and one of things that makes neighborhood life worthwhile are the interactions with good neighbors.
This year, we plan to rent a core aerator for the block and share it with all the neighbors. I'm the volunteer who thought this up, and there was enough interest from other neighbors, so we're going to give it a try sometime this spring.
We've got a block wide email list, so word about neighborhood stuff is quick and easy to circulate. Planning the aeration project was simple enough. To make better neighborhoods, we need to do more good neighbor projects. We need to do more little stuff that adds up to a better sense of community and more people knowing their neighbors.
What a difference St. Louis is from the commute-dependent place where I grew up. There, neighbors hardly knew each other, and never shared a meal or a ladder. Living in a place where neighbors know each other and work together is a blessing that isn't measured in dollars but peace of mind.
Block parties are great, and they take a lot of work and volunteers, but it's a one day thing. We need more little stuff going on the rest of the year. A beautiful block requires well maintained houses and yards. Working together as neighbors can make a so-so block better and raise property values. People want to live on blocks with good curb appeal and friendly neighbors.
There's lots of time spent complaining about things we don't like. What would the neighborhood be like if people instead spent that time doing positive things? They would be happier and the neighborhood would improve.
One good thing about the neighborhoods here is that the yards are small enough that it doesn't take all day or half a day to finish the yard work. That leaves more time to lounge on the front stoop, play some catch, play with the dog, or introduce the neighbors.
Given how much good neighbor work there is to do, maybe we should start looking for a place with even a smaller yard. Small yards, close together, with beautiful decorated brick, stone and painted wood trim houses look great all lined up on a traditional block.
Alleys? I could go on all day about alleys. That's a whole 'nother post. When an elderly lady neighbor lectures a bunch of teenagers about keeping the alley clean, that's a good sign you're in a solid neighborhood.
There is a critical mass to a good neighborhood, and it's about a lot more than property value. It's more about the distance between houses and people and how much good neighbor stuff is happening.
The amount of shared food and drink is a better indicator than just about anything else. It's a good thing that the fences between our houses are low enough that it's easy to share a cold beverage across them.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Metro's Top Ten List for March 30, 2009
With the calendar showing March 30, the day Metro debuts its drastically reduced schedule, what better way to usher in the new era of Metro service cutbacks than a top ten list of the benefits to the St. Louis region for having reduced public transit services?
Number Ten: No comfy train waiting at the platform
Number Nine: A banner day for cab drivers
Number Eight: Cheery station agents have way more people waiting to greet them
Number Seven: Fewer times riding in a car getting stuck behind a bus stopped to pick up passengers
Number Six: Fewer "bus people" coming to the neighborhood
Number Five: At the end of the year, I have about $60 bucks more in my wallet
Number Four: No further Metrolink expansion for at least another 20 years
Number Three: Transit riders have increased waiting times to ride longer and more circuitous routes to their destinations.
Number Two: Speeds up our personal timeframe to buy a second car
and, The Number One reason to celebrate the region's reduction in public transportation services: Lots of free plastic bags all over town being used to cover up bus stop signs on closed routes
All joking aside, this situation sucks on a variety of levels. People depending on public transportation have fewer options. Neighborhoods looking to position themselves with the benefits of improved public transportation have to put their plans on hold. St. Louis is less connected.
A Metro staff person handing out the new reduced service schedule at the station this morning said they hoped these cut backs would be short lived. Without a replacement source of revenue, the question is, how?
Number Ten: No comfy train waiting at the platform
Number Nine: A banner day for cab drivers
Number Eight: Cheery station agents have way more people waiting to greet them
Number Seven: Fewer times riding in a car getting stuck behind a bus stopped to pick up passengers
Number Six: Fewer "bus people" coming to the neighborhood
Number Five: At the end of the year, I have about $60 bucks more in my wallet
Number Four: No further Metrolink expansion for at least another 20 years
Number Three: Transit riders have increased waiting times to ride longer and more circuitous routes to their destinations.
Number Two: Speeds up our personal timeframe to buy a second car
and, The Number One reason to celebrate the region's reduction in public transportation services: Lots of free plastic bags all over town being used to cover up bus stop signs on closed routes
All joking aside, this situation sucks on a variety of levels. People depending on public transportation have fewer options. Neighborhoods looking to position themselves with the benefits of improved public transportation have to put their plans on hold. St. Louis is less connected.
A Metro staff person handing out the new reduced service schedule at the station this morning said they hoped these cut backs would be short lived. Without a replacement source of revenue, the question is, how?
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Congress for the New Urbanism Federal Testimony on Reforming National Transporation Priorities
John Norquist is the President and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism and former Mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Last week he testifed before the House Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Urban Development. The following is a transcript of Mr. Norquist's congressional testimony. It is reprinted here with permission.
Chairman Olver and distinguished members of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, thank you for the privilege of appearing before you. I deeply appreciate your efforts to join the issues of transportation and neighborhood development. In government it is easy to get overly focused on narrow specialties. It's important to break out of silos and look for synergies that can benefit the people as you are doing on this committee.
One of these specialties is traffic engineering. Current road policy has focused on highways, arterials, and collectors as individual road segments with the goal of reducing congestion by adding lane capacity and separating the street from the built environment. In other words, getting everything out of the way of the traffic. The system depends on large road types that attract traffic and ultimately grow congested, particularly at rush hour when you need the roads most.
For thousands of years of human history, urban thoroughfares have served three purposes – movement, commerce and social interaction. This is the street that engineers were trained to build in the first half of the twentieth century — 50 feet of pavement and 8 foot sidewalks. This street, Kinnickinnic Avenue in Milwaukee, clearly fulfills the three traditional functions of an urban thoroughfare. Here are three of these streets coming together in Wicker Park in Chicago. And in this economy, places like this are holding their value.
Most streets today, however, are built for only one purpose, moving traffic. There are huge setbacks so the road can be widened later. There is no money left over for sidewalks, so people can walk in the dirt, or as an alternative walk in the gutter.
When you have lots of streets on small blocks as in Northampton, Massachusetts the streets don't need to be big. Many streets share the burden, giving travelers lots of choices, including walking. And networks like Northampton are a great setting for jobs, good living and hold high value/square mile. Yet Federal and state road policies put over half the money spent on pavement into grade separated highways- the top end of the functional classification system.
We now understand that freeways don't last forever. In 1973, New York City's elevated West Side Highway collapsed and was eventually replaced by a street. With views of the Hudson restored, Manhattan's lower West Side gained residents, jobs and vitality. In 1989 an earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had replaced a boulevard in 1950. The boulevard is now restored, the freeway is gone and jobs and residents are back. Even the traffic has improved since the boulevard helps distribute cars more evenly across the grid. In Milwaukee, without an earthquake, we removed a freeway segment, replacing empty lots and surface parking with the beginnings of good redevelopment. But by far the most dramatic change can be seen in Seoul, South Korea where an elevated roadway built on top of a river at the end of the Korean War was replaced in 2005 with two surface streets on each side of the restored river.
This is the man responsible, Lee Meoung-Bak, elected mayor in 2001. See how happy he is. He had the courage to do the right thing and now he's President. He was successful because he embraced the complexity of the city, rising above the narrow concerns of the traffic specialists. He saw the whole, the combination of river, neighborhood and infrastructure as greater than the sum of its parts.
CNU and our allies at the Institute of Transportation Engineers have collaborated on exciting reforms to make transportation work for people and communities, not just their cars. In cooperation with FHWA and EPA we have developed a manual that provides design guidelines to resurrect the street, avenue and boulevard. These are road types that Federal and State departments of transportation should allow and encourage.
Let’s start to plan urban and suburban transportation movements around highly connected networks of streets and transit rather than just individual road segments. We need to better appreciate the value of networks like this one, the Plan of Washington DC. The street network absorbs and distributes traffic just as wetlands absorb and cleanse water. And the grid serves as a setting for valuable economic and social activity just as the wetlands providing rich habitats for diverse plant and animal life. We’ve learned that paving steam beds isn’t always the best answer.
Street networks, especially when connected with transit, make life convenient and strengthen the bonds of community. They also dramatically reduce household driving and lower household greenhouse gas emissions. Residents of Atlantic Station, a new neighborhood with a walkable street network on the site of an abandoned can plant in Atlanta, drive an average of eight miles per day compared to a regional average of 34 miles per day.
Through its partnership with the United States Green Building Council and the Natural Resources Defense Council, CNU helped create the nation's first certification system for green development at the neighborhood scale. And to qualify, these green neighborhoods must have highly connected networks of walkable streets, with at least 150 intersections per square mile (including alleys). The oversized highways, and arterials that the federal government typically funds lead to not only higher infrastructure costs and carbon emissions, but less valuable neighborhoods. These road designs should no longer be promoted as the preferred option by federal policy.
Research by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and the Brookings Institution confirms that neighborhoods with connected street networks and transit service give families real relief from high transportation costs.
Consumer preferences show that people are eager to live in complete, convenient, walkable neighborhoods. Future transportation policy should support this preference. Transportation investments should be at a compatible scale with the neighborhood. They should build on rather than undermine the efficiency and environmental performance of walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods.
I urge you to take advantage of opportunities to realign federal transportation policies around sustainable transportation networks.
• Thanks to Senators Carper and Specter and Representatives La Tourette and Blumenauer, the CLEAN TEA legislation now promotes investment in new, local street and transit construction that enhances network connectivity and performance. That provision deserves your support.
• Likewise, T4 Reauthorization is an opportunity to further direct investment towards infrastructure that adds value to communities. Key CLEAN TEA provisions could be incorporated in T4 to help move it beyond the predictable highways vs. transit modal split debate. States and regions that receive T4 funds would benefit from plans that take into account the carbon impact of their transportation investments. Such planning will lead communities to high-performance street and transit networks that achieve transportation and economic development goals through cost-effective use of federal dollars.
• Transportation engineers at CNU and ITE realize that the federal highway program must evolve into a federal networks program. Congress can help speed that transition by asking the FHWA to extend its successful context-sensitive thoroughfares project to provide research and guidelines for the sustainable networks formed by those streets.
Our new President has declared his commitment to reforming and improving transportation. We need only look to the Internet, employed to so effectively by his election campaign, for a telling example of how 21st century transportation systems should work. Internet traffic makes use of a network of linkages, breaking up large volumes of data into small packets and distributing them through a web of available nodes. It's fast and it's reliable. The same model applied to transportation networks will allow all modes of traffic to flow over multiple routes, reducing travel times, making driving, walking and bicycling easier, and making transit service and emergency response more effective.
CNU, the Institute for Transportation Engineers, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and The T4 America Coalition( of which CNU is a proud member) are ready to help you get transportation moving in the right direction, adding real value to America’s communities.
By John Norquist, President and CEO, Congress for the New Urbanism, March 19,2007
Chairman Olver and distinguished members of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, thank you for the privilege of appearing before you. I deeply appreciate your efforts to join the issues of transportation and neighborhood development. In government it is easy to get overly focused on narrow specialties. It's important to break out of silos and look for synergies that can benefit the people as you are doing on this committee.
One of these specialties is traffic engineering. Current road policy has focused on highways, arterials, and collectors as individual road segments with the goal of reducing congestion by adding lane capacity and separating the street from the built environment. In other words, getting everything out of the way of the traffic. The system depends on large road types that attract traffic and ultimately grow congested, particularly at rush hour when you need the roads most.
For thousands of years of human history, urban thoroughfares have served three purposes – movement, commerce and social interaction. This is the street that engineers were trained to build in the first half of the twentieth century — 50 feet of pavement and 8 foot sidewalks. This street, Kinnickinnic Avenue in Milwaukee, clearly fulfills the three traditional functions of an urban thoroughfare. Here are three of these streets coming together in Wicker Park in Chicago. And in this economy, places like this are holding their value.
Most streets today, however, are built for only one purpose, moving traffic. There are huge setbacks so the road can be widened later. There is no money left over for sidewalks, so people can walk in the dirt, or as an alternative walk in the gutter.
When you have lots of streets on small blocks as in Northampton, Massachusetts the streets don't need to be big. Many streets share the burden, giving travelers lots of choices, including walking. And networks like Northampton are a great setting for jobs, good living and hold high value/square mile. Yet Federal and state road policies put over half the money spent on pavement into grade separated highways- the top end of the functional classification system.
We now understand that freeways don't last forever. In 1973, New York City's elevated West Side Highway collapsed and was eventually replaced by a street. With views of the Hudson restored, Manhattan's lower West Side gained residents, jobs and vitality. In 1989 an earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had replaced a boulevard in 1950. The boulevard is now restored, the freeway is gone and jobs and residents are back. Even the traffic has improved since the boulevard helps distribute cars more evenly across the grid. In Milwaukee, without an earthquake, we removed a freeway segment, replacing empty lots and surface parking with the beginnings of good redevelopment. But by far the most dramatic change can be seen in Seoul, South Korea where an elevated roadway built on top of a river at the end of the Korean War was replaced in 2005 with two surface streets on each side of the restored river.
This is the man responsible, Lee Meoung-Bak, elected mayor in 2001. See how happy he is. He had the courage to do the right thing and now he's President. He was successful because he embraced the complexity of the city, rising above the narrow concerns of the traffic specialists. He saw the whole, the combination of river, neighborhood and infrastructure as greater than the sum of its parts.
CNU and our allies at the Institute of Transportation Engineers have collaborated on exciting reforms to make transportation work for people and communities, not just their cars. In cooperation with FHWA and EPA we have developed a manual that provides design guidelines to resurrect the street, avenue and boulevard. These are road types that Federal and State departments of transportation should allow and encourage.
Let’s start to plan urban and suburban transportation movements around highly connected networks of streets and transit rather than just individual road segments. We need to better appreciate the value of networks like this one, the Plan of Washington DC. The street network absorbs and distributes traffic just as wetlands absorb and cleanse water. And the grid serves as a setting for valuable economic and social activity just as the wetlands providing rich habitats for diverse plant and animal life. We’ve learned that paving steam beds isn’t always the best answer.
Street networks, especially when connected with transit, make life convenient and strengthen the bonds of community. They also dramatically reduce household driving and lower household greenhouse gas emissions. Residents of Atlantic Station, a new neighborhood with a walkable street network on the site of an abandoned can plant in Atlanta, drive an average of eight miles per day compared to a regional average of 34 miles per day.
Through its partnership with the United States Green Building Council and the Natural Resources Defense Council, CNU helped create the nation's first certification system for green development at the neighborhood scale. And to qualify, these green neighborhoods must have highly connected networks of walkable streets, with at least 150 intersections per square mile (including alleys). The oversized highways, and arterials that the federal government typically funds lead to not only higher infrastructure costs and carbon emissions, but less valuable neighborhoods. These road designs should no longer be promoted as the preferred option by federal policy.
Research by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and the Brookings Institution confirms that neighborhoods with connected street networks and transit service give families real relief from high transportation costs.
Consumer preferences show that people are eager to live in complete, convenient, walkable neighborhoods. Future transportation policy should support this preference. Transportation investments should be at a compatible scale with the neighborhood. They should build on rather than undermine the efficiency and environmental performance of walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods.
I urge you to take advantage of opportunities to realign federal transportation policies around sustainable transportation networks.
• Thanks to Senators Carper and Specter and Representatives La Tourette and Blumenauer, the CLEAN TEA legislation now promotes investment in new, local street and transit construction that enhances network connectivity and performance. That provision deserves your support.
• Likewise, T4 Reauthorization is an opportunity to further direct investment towards infrastructure that adds value to communities. Key CLEAN TEA provisions could be incorporated in T4 to help move it beyond the predictable highways vs. transit modal split debate. States and regions that receive T4 funds would benefit from plans that take into account the carbon impact of their transportation investments. Such planning will lead communities to high-performance street and transit networks that achieve transportation and economic development goals through cost-effective use of federal dollars.
• Transportation engineers at CNU and ITE realize that the federal highway program must evolve into a federal networks program. Congress can help speed that transition by asking the FHWA to extend its successful context-sensitive thoroughfares project to provide research and guidelines for the sustainable networks formed by those streets.
Our new President has declared his commitment to reforming and improving transportation. We need only look to the Internet, employed to so effectively by his election campaign, for a telling example of how 21st century transportation systems should work. Internet traffic makes use of a network of linkages, breaking up large volumes of data into small packets and distributing them through a web of available nodes. It's fast and it's reliable. The same model applied to transportation networks will allow all modes of traffic to flow over multiple routes, reducing travel times, making driving, walking and bicycling easier, and making transit service and emergency response more effective.
CNU, the Institute for Transportation Engineers, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and The T4 America Coalition( of which CNU is a proud member) are ready to help you get transportation moving in the right direction, adding real value to America’s communities.
By John Norquist, President and CEO, Congress for the New Urbanism, March 19,2007
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Park East Freeway to McKinley Boulevard
A Milwaukee case study in freeway removal....
Freeway razing sets stage for $250 million in development
Former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist editorial re. cost savings and benefits of replacing downtown interstate with new boulevard
Congress for New Urbanism summary
Man, this looks familiar...
Freeway razing sets stage for $250 million in development
Former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist editorial re. cost savings and benefits of replacing downtown interstate with new boulevard
Congress for New Urbanism summary
Man, this looks familiar...
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Fountain Square
The plaza across from the Old Post Office is nearly complete. The project spans the south side of the block between 8th and 9th Streets. The plaza shares the block with the Roberts' Orpheum and Tower projects. The plaza has a sleek design, with modern lighting and an impressive water feature.
At the east end of a giant flat metal projection screen is a 4-story fountain. Well, it's more like a 4-story waterfall. Water pours down the side of a round metal surface and then drops four floors straight down into a stone pool.
The falling water makes the loud, continuous crashing sound you'd expect from a sizable waterfall. I'm guessing here, but this is probably the tallest waterfall in the midwest.
Both the sight and sound are impressive. I wonder if it will be lit up with colorful lighting at night? Passersby were stopping on the sidewalk to take it all in.
At the east end of a giant flat metal projection screen is a 4-story fountain. Well, it's more like a 4-story waterfall. Water pours down the side of a round metal surface and then drops four floors straight down into a stone pool.
The falling water makes the loud, continuous crashing sound you'd expect from a sizable waterfall. I'm guessing here, but this is probably the tallest waterfall in the midwest.
Both the sight and sound are impressive. I wonder if it will be lit up with colorful lighting at night? Passersby were stopping on the sidewalk to take it all in.
Monday, March 23, 2009
STL to star in Hollywood movie
The news is reporting that Sutton Avenue in Maplewood is closed to traffic today for the filming of George Clooney's "Up in the Air" movie. For the next few months, film crews will be working in St. Louis on Clooney's next big screen production. I don't know anything about the movie, except with George Clooney in it, it's sure to get a lot of attention. And that's good for St. Louis.
Over the past few weeks, film crews have been downtown. They were lined up along Memorial Drive near the Arch, and also by the Bowling Hall of Fame/St. Louis Cardinals Museum. With the great renaissance happening in Maplewood, it's no wonder location scouts have landed upon Sutton Avenue.
St. Louis makes some sense for film makers. We have four seasons. We have a wide variety of scenery. And we're an affordable place to do business. In the 70s, our run down buildings were chosen to serve as the backdrop for a post-civilized New York City in "Escape from New York". Today, STL is being chosen as an authentic American landscape.
It will be interesting to learn the impressions from movie people about their experiences working in St. Louis. With good word and a successful project, St. Louis can raise it's standing as a viable option for more Hollywood movie making.
Over the past few weeks, film crews have been downtown. They were lined up along Memorial Drive near the Arch, and also by the Bowling Hall of Fame/St. Louis Cardinals Museum. With the great renaissance happening in Maplewood, it's no wonder location scouts have landed upon Sutton Avenue.
St. Louis makes some sense for film makers. We have four seasons. We have a wide variety of scenery. And we're an affordable place to do business. In the 70s, our run down buildings were chosen to serve as the backdrop for a post-civilized New York City in "Escape from New York". Today, STL is being chosen as an authentic American landscape.
It will be interesting to learn the impressions from movie people about their experiences working in St. Louis. With good word and a successful project, St. Louis can raise it's standing as a viable option for more Hollywood movie making.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Older North
This weekend we are enjoying a milestone celebration in our house, so we were looking for some nice ways to commemorate the event. We visited a place we haven't been in over ten years, and are happy to report, the place is as authentic and enjoyable as ever. I'm referring to one of the oldest homes and entertainment venues in the region, the Bissell Mansion.
Built in 1823, the Bissell Mansion is one of the oldest homes in St. Louis. Much of the original building is intact, with the main interior bearing wall around two feet thick. The building's original owners have important history dating back to the founding of the United States, with General Bissell a veteran of the War of 1812. Back in the 1820s, St. Louis was barely a dot on a map, so it's fun to walk the grounds, see the view of the Mississippi, and think about what St. Louis was like, forty years before the Civil War. The Bissell Mansion is a dinner theater, so a visit there is an interactive and entertaining evening. Staff serves the meals and acts in the show. The artists both perform and write the shows. The place has a lot of heart; the performers give their all; and the food is good too. Guests are given scripts and are invited to participate in the show. But no worries - you're given the option of a small or larger part when you make your reservation.
Attendance was good, with a large party upstairs, and our group downstairs. Nonetheless, in tight economic times like these, competiton for discretionary restaurant dollars is tough. For an authentic St. Louis night out, to experience a special occasion with family or friends, and to help preserve an important piece of St. Louis history and tradition, STL Rising recommends the Bissell Mansion dinner theater.
Shows change four times a year. This year we will make an effort to visit again for their fall or winter performances.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Bevo Mill - For Sale or Rent?
Bevo Mill has closed its doors. The property was recently donated to the City by Anheuser Busch, and so, it really belongs to you and me - the city taxpayer.
The building is one of the city's destination landmarks for tourists. Approaching it from Delor on the west is the ultimate in a Scrubby Dutch St. Louis view. So what should happen with it?
Rent for a $1 and offer it to the operators of the Boat House in Forest Park? Convert to an urban Bed and Breakfast? Sell to the highest bidder?
Offer rent free to Schlafly for a southside microbrewery with live music, splitting proceeds with the Bevo community organization to help fund neighborhood improvements?
Something needs to be done to ensure the building lasts another 100 years. How do we make sure it's something good?
The building is one of the city's destination landmarks for tourists. Approaching it from Delor on the west is the ultimate in a Scrubby Dutch St. Louis view. So what should happen with it?
Rent for a $1 and offer it to the operators of the Boat House in Forest Park? Convert to an urban Bed and Breakfast? Sell to the highest bidder?
Offer rent free to Schlafly for a southside microbrewery with live music, splitting proceeds with the Bevo community organization to help fund neighborhood improvements?
Something needs to be done to ensure the building lasts another 100 years. How do we make sure it's something good?
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Grounds For Action
Yesterday closed the public comment period for the draft General Management Plan for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Sometime over the next few months, the National Park Service will finalize and adopt the new General Management Plan. The GMP will guide the future of the park for the next 15-20 years. That's a generation of urbanists to you and me.
The GMP lays the ground work for action. Action to fix the connectivity problems plaguing the Arch. Connectivity is the common thread identified for improvemenet in all three action alternatives of the draft General Management Plan. What those action measures include will become the outcomes of the current planning process.
The Danforth Foundation and the National Park Service have gotten the momentum going. It is time for the rest of the community to build on that momentum. Investors in Chouteau's Landing, casino interests, MODoT, the Army Corps or Engineers, Laclede's Landing merchants, the City of St. Louis, and the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis - as well as average citizens like you and me - all have vital roles to play in bringing about improvements to our downtown and riverfront area.
Success is built on partnership and collaboration. Leveraging the resources of the multiple stakeholders involved will bring about the best outcomes for future generations of St. Louisans, and help draw more people to our region. Our challenge is to switch from planning mode to action on solutions. It will be interesting and fun - and let's hope rewarding - to see how well we do.
What do you think? How would you proceed? What would you do?
The GMP lays the ground work for action. Action to fix the connectivity problems plaguing the Arch. Connectivity is the common thread identified for improvemenet in all three action alternatives of the draft General Management Plan. What those action measures include will become the outcomes of the current planning process.
The Danforth Foundation and the National Park Service have gotten the momentum going. It is time for the rest of the community to build on that momentum. Investors in Chouteau's Landing, casino interests, MODoT, the Army Corps or Engineers, Laclede's Landing merchants, the City of St. Louis, and the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis - as well as average citizens like you and me - all have vital roles to play in bringing about improvements to our downtown and riverfront area.
Success is built on partnership and collaboration. Leveraging the resources of the multiple stakeholders involved will bring about the best outcomes for future generations of St. Louisans, and help draw more people to our region. Our challenge is to switch from planning mode to action on solutions. It will be interesting and fun - and let's hope rewarding - to see how well we do.
What do you think? How would you proceed? What would you do?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Deadline Approaching to Submit Comments on Future of Arch
The deadline for the public to submit comments on the Draft General Management Plan for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is Monday, March 16.
More information can be found here:
NPS Update on Arch Planning Process
The link opens with a good video and provides all the information you need to offer public comment.
More information can be found here:
NPS Update on Arch Planning Process
The link opens with a good video and provides all the information you need to offer public comment.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Arch Connections Group Gets New Name
The ad hoc riverfront connections group that's been meeting for a few months has a new name: "City to River Group".
The group has been looking at ways better connections might be made between downtown, the communities of the central riverfront, the Mississippi River, and the Arch grounds. The link on the right side of this page will take you to the group's Google page.
For years, it has been said that St. Louis has turned its back on the river. With better connections reestablished between the City and the riverfront, St. Louis will start to feel like a riverfront city again.
So, in an effort to rebuild the idea that St. Louis is a river city, and that its rightful front door should face the river and not turn its back to it, the riverfront connections group has given itself a name that's all about reorienting the city's relationship with the Mississippi River.
If you would like more information or to get involved, please visit the Google page linked on the right side of this page.
The group has been looking at ways better connections might be made between downtown, the communities of the central riverfront, the Mississippi River, and the Arch grounds. The link on the right side of this page will take you to the group's Google page.
For years, it has been said that St. Louis has turned its back on the river. With better connections reestablished between the City and the riverfront, St. Louis will start to feel like a riverfront city again.
So, in an effort to rebuild the idea that St. Louis is a river city, and that its rightful front door should face the river and not turn its back to it, the riverfront connections group has given itself a name that's all about reorienting the city's relationship with the Mississippi River.
If you would like more information or to get involved, please visit the Google page linked on the right side of this page.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Vernal Equinox at Cahokia's Woodhenge
March 20 is the date of this year's Vernal Equinox. That's one of two days in the year when day and night are of equal length and the path of the sun splits the heavens.
It's also a day when people gather over at Cahokia Mounds to witness the event from inside Cahokia's Woodhenge.
At least that's what one of the regulars gathered at Iron Barley told me last night...
Cahokia is on the UN list of World Heritage sites. Now there's talk of adding the Gateway Arch to the same list.
There's all sorts of cool and creative stuff going on around St. Louis.
It's also a day when people gather over at Cahokia Mounds to witness the event from inside Cahokia's Woodhenge.
At least that's what one of the regulars gathered at Iron Barley told me last night...
Cahokia is on the UN list of World Heritage sites. Now there's talk of adding the Gateway Arch to the same list.
There's all sorts of cool and creative stuff going on around St. Louis.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
They Heard Us!
Walking outside in search of a cup of coffee, I looked over with an empty feeling to the corner of 6th and Olive where workers were scheduled to box things up and close the one downtown STL storefront Starbucks location.
Jaywalking to Met Square, things didn't look right at the Starbucks. It looked like employees were wearing their green service aprons and white oxford shirts. And there weren't just employees in the store, it looked like a short line of customers. What was going on?
I walked up to the front door and found an impromptu sign taped up. It said they were staying open! Management decided to renew the lease and keep the store. People in St. Louis voiced their concerns, and the corporate decision to close the store was reversed! Today they are restocking everything and coffee and pastries are being given away free all day!
Us customers stood together smiling and half stunned. The employees were joyful. One man said it was like showing up to class to take a test you hadn't studied for, only to hear the teacher say the test had been postponed. Another man said it was like finding money in a pair of pants you hadn't worn in months. I'm going back for another free cup of coffee!
Jaywalking to Met Square, things didn't look right at the Starbucks. It looked like employees were wearing their green service aprons and white oxford shirts. And there weren't just employees in the store, it looked like a short line of customers. What was going on?
I walked up to the front door and found an impromptu sign taped up. It said they were staying open! Management decided to renew the lease and keep the store. People in St. Louis voiced their concerns, and the corporate decision to close the store was reversed! Today they are restocking everything and coffee and pastries are being given away free all day!
Us customers stood together smiling and half stunned. The employees were joyful. One man said it was like showing up to class to take a test you hadn't studied for, only to hear the teacher say the test had been postponed. Another man said it was like finding money in a pair of pants you hadn't worn in months. I'm going back for another free cup of coffee!
"Park Into the City" - an approach for Chouteau's Landing?
Improving connectivity is the one common theme throughout most of the discussions about how to enliven the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. In the draft General Management PLan, there are multiple alternatives and one preferred alternative. The preferred alternative is called "Program Expansion". Another alternative is called, "Park Into the City" and the last action option is called "Portals".
Through the design competition, combinations of the various alternatives may emerge. During the student design charette, one proposal showed the park growing across Memorial Drive, into the heart of downtown. That may be among the interesting but undoable ideas, but what about considering this approach for the connection with Chouteau's Landing?
Yesterday we described the no-mans land under the Poplar Street Bridge between Chouteau's Landing and the Arch grounds. At Chouteau's Landing, there's good potential for historic rehab, artists lofts, and new investment. Could a "Park Into the City" approach breath life into the Chouteau's Landing neighborhood?
Thinking of improving connectivity in an incremental way is one approach to making progress in manageable stages, that over time add up to a better connected downtown and riverfront.
Through the design competition, combinations of the various alternatives may emerge. During the student design charette, one proposal showed the park growing across Memorial Drive, into the heart of downtown. That may be among the interesting but undoable ideas, but what about considering this approach for the connection with Chouteau's Landing?
Yesterday we described the no-mans land under the Poplar Street Bridge between Chouteau's Landing and the Arch grounds. At Chouteau's Landing, there's good potential for historic rehab, artists lofts, and new investment. Could a "Park Into the City" approach breath life into the Chouteau's Landing neighborhood?
Thinking of improving connectivity in an incremental way is one approach to making progress in manageable stages, that over time add up to a better connected downtown and riverfront.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Richard Florida on the Economic Crisis, National Reset
Interesting take by writer and academician Richard Florida on our current economic problems. Florida is best known for his work promoting the important role of the "creative class". He was a guest yesterday on NPR.
Florida is not a fan of the term "depression". He thinks it's too, well, depressing. Instead, he prefers the term "reset", and that's what he thinks our nation is going through now.
According to Florida, the days of long commutes, unsustainable sprawl, and homeownership based economies are fading. Instead, he sees an era of emerging mega-regions, increased emphasis on affordable rental housing, and a concentration of creative talent in fewer select areas.
Florida sees tough times ahead for second tier, rustbelt cities, with most Americans being drawn to mega regions. On the other hand, he offers Pittsburgh as an example of how smaller cities can remain competitive. From a current piece in the Atlantic magazine, Florida writes:
"Finally, we need to be clear that ultimately, we can’t stop the decline of some places, and that we would be foolish to try. Places like Pittsburgh have shown that a city can stay vibrant as it shrinks, by redeveloping its core to attract young professionals and creative types, and by cultivating high-growth services and industries."
One of the points Florida made about the revitalization of Pittsburgh during the NPR interview was the important role of "CDCs - Community Development Corporations". He described the way CDCs work at the neighborhood level to rebuild community.
I wish someone would made it on the air to ask a question about St. Louis. St. Louis also has a major CDC presence. I wonder where Florida would rank a sense of community in the heirarchy of things attracting the creative class? Given his support of CDCs, probably pretty high.
You can read the entire Florida article from The Atlantic here.
Florida is not a fan of the term "depression". He thinks it's too, well, depressing. Instead, he prefers the term "reset", and that's what he thinks our nation is going through now.
According to Florida, the days of long commutes, unsustainable sprawl, and homeownership based economies are fading. Instead, he sees an era of emerging mega-regions, increased emphasis on affordable rental housing, and a concentration of creative talent in fewer select areas.
Florida sees tough times ahead for second tier, rustbelt cities, with most Americans being drawn to mega regions. On the other hand, he offers Pittsburgh as an example of how smaller cities can remain competitive. From a current piece in the Atlantic magazine, Florida writes:
"Finally, we need to be clear that ultimately, we can’t stop the decline of some places, and that we would be foolish to try. Places like Pittsburgh have shown that a city can stay vibrant as it shrinks, by redeveloping its core to attract young professionals and creative types, and by cultivating high-growth services and industries."
One of the points Florida made about the revitalization of Pittsburgh during the NPR interview was the important role of "CDCs - Community Development Corporations". He described the way CDCs work at the neighborhood level to rebuild community.
I wish someone would made it on the air to ask a question about St. Louis. St. Louis also has a major CDC presence. I wonder where Florida would rank a sense of community in the heirarchy of things attracting the creative class? Given his support of CDCs, probably pretty high.
You can read the entire Florida article from The Atlantic here.
Chouteau's Landing - Connections Waiting to Happen
When you exit northbound 55 onto Memorial Drive, you have two options, continue north on Memorial Drive past the Old Cathedral, or make an immediate right turn to the east, heading down the levee toward the riverfront.
Making the right turn, you're driving along the southern edge of the Arch grounds, the Mississippi River flood wall is a couple of blocks ahead, and on your right side is the sea of concrete support columns for the Poplar Street bridge. It's a sort of no-man's land now. But is there potential for something better?
Chouteau's Landing lies across the divide created by the Poplar Street bridge. You can see it from the Arch side, but you're looking through the eerie landscape of a mostly abandoned area with dozens of cylindrical concrete columns holding up the PSB. The original city street grid under the bridge is intact. The space between the columns is paved with asphalt, striped for surface parking, and is mostly empty and fenced off with 6' cyclone fencing.
It's sort of a haunting feeling, driving the original riverfront street grid, under the PSB, between the support columns holding up the bridge, seeing mostly vacant or underutilized warehouse buildings in the Chouteau's Landing area, and being directly adjacent the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
With so much dead space, existing road network, and underutlized building stock, redevelopment of the area and connection with the Arch and the rest of downtown doesn't seem so much a question of if but how and when?
Planners like to talk about buildings or neighborhoods having "good bones" for redevelopment. In this case of the southern edge of the Arch grounds and its connections to Chouteau's Landing, driving through the support columns of the PSB feels like you're in the middle of big, dry, urban bones. Is there life in those bones? Can the planning for the future of the Arch help bring back the area and improve the vitality of the Arch and downtown in the process?
Making the right turn, you're driving along the southern edge of the Arch grounds, the Mississippi River flood wall is a couple of blocks ahead, and on your right side is the sea of concrete support columns for the Poplar Street bridge. It's a sort of no-man's land now. But is there potential for something better?
Chouteau's Landing lies across the divide created by the Poplar Street bridge. You can see it from the Arch side, but you're looking through the eerie landscape of a mostly abandoned area with dozens of cylindrical concrete columns holding up the PSB. The original city street grid under the bridge is intact. The space between the columns is paved with asphalt, striped for surface parking, and is mostly empty and fenced off with 6' cyclone fencing.
It's sort of a haunting feeling, driving the original riverfront street grid, under the PSB, between the support columns holding up the bridge, seeing mostly vacant or underutilized warehouse buildings in the Chouteau's Landing area, and being directly adjacent the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
With so much dead space, existing road network, and underutlized building stock, redevelopment of the area and connection with the Arch and the rest of downtown doesn't seem so much a question of if but how and when?
Planners like to talk about buildings or neighborhoods having "good bones" for redevelopment. In this case of the southern edge of the Arch grounds and its connections to Chouteau's Landing, driving through the support columns of the PSB feels like you're in the middle of big, dry, urban bones. Is there life in those bones? Can the planning for the future of the Arch help bring back the area and improve the vitality of the Arch and downtown in the process?
Monday, February 23, 2009
Misery and Flexibility
Way back in the 1980s, when I first started work in the field of community development, an architect friend and mentor passed along to me two principles of his practice that he always tried to factor into his work: the concentration of misery principle and the flexibility principle.
When it came to concentrating misery, he always tried to combine the negative aspects of things spatially and chronologically. He wanted lousy experiences to be minimized, so he worked to put them close together, and get them out of the way. If he had a bunch of unpleasant things to do, he tried to get them all done together. That way, the rest of his time would spent on more positive work.
On the other hand, when it came to making choices or finalizing alternatives, he took an opposite approach. He always worked to preserve as much flexibility into the planning and development process as possible. Rather than painting oneself into a corner by making firm decisions too soon in a planning or development process, he would create room for new ideas and options to emerge in a forward moving, collaborative process.
This week, the planning process for the future of the Arch moves forward. There will be two public meetings regarding the Draft General Management Plan for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. When the General Management Plan is adopted, it will establish the direction for future management of the Arch site. This is a key process for defining the future of our riverfront and downtown.
Thinking back to my old architect friend's advice, he would recommend that the final product promote flexibility. With the top issue of agreement being a lack of connectivity, are there flexible approaches about how to improve connectivity?
Regarding the concentration of misery, I think he would like the way the Arch site concentrates its new service area all on the southern part of the site. But what about the parking area on the north end of the site? What ways might it be repositioned to increase flexibility at the site?
In terms of difficult connections, they are found all around the Arch grounds. Poor connectivity is a problem surrounding the entire park. Is there a way to minimize the bad connectivity experience at the Arch and maximize the better connections? Where are the key connection points?
As Laclede's Landing and Washington Avenue as well as the Chouteau's Landing areas continue to draw more downtown businesses, visitors and residents, how can we best connect those activity generators to the Arch site?
Information about tonight's public meeting for the future of the Arch can be found here.
When it came to concentrating misery, he always tried to combine the negative aspects of things spatially and chronologically. He wanted lousy experiences to be minimized, so he worked to put them close together, and get them out of the way. If he had a bunch of unpleasant things to do, he tried to get them all done together. That way, the rest of his time would spent on more positive work.
On the other hand, when it came to making choices or finalizing alternatives, he took an opposite approach. He always worked to preserve as much flexibility into the planning and development process as possible. Rather than painting oneself into a corner by making firm decisions too soon in a planning or development process, he would create room for new ideas and options to emerge in a forward moving, collaborative process.
This week, the planning process for the future of the Arch moves forward. There will be two public meetings regarding the Draft General Management Plan for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. When the General Management Plan is adopted, it will establish the direction for future management of the Arch site. This is a key process for defining the future of our riverfront and downtown.
Thinking back to my old architect friend's advice, he would recommend that the final product promote flexibility. With the top issue of agreement being a lack of connectivity, are there flexible approaches about how to improve connectivity?
Regarding the concentration of misery, I think he would like the way the Arch site concentrates its new service area all on the southern part of the site. But what about the parking area on the north end of the site? What ways might it be repositioned to increase flexibility at the site?
In terms of difficult connections, they are found all around the Arch grounds. Poor connectivity is a problem surrounding the entire park. Is there a way to minimize the bad connectivity experience at the Arch and maximize the better connections? Where are the key connection points?
As Laclede's Landing and Washington Avenue as well as the Chouteau's Landing areas continue to draw more downtown businesses, visitors and residents, how can we best connect those activity generators to the Arch site?
Information about tonight's public meeting for the future of the Arch can be found here.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
St. Louis Stimulus
Today President Obama signs the $787 billion dollar economic stimulus package. The plan calls for a wide range of interventions aimed at reviving our nation's struggling economy.
The plan calls for major infrastucture investments, aid to state governments, and tax breaks for working Americans and corporations. At $787 billion, the amount works out to about $2,600 for US citizen. That doesn't sound like much. So government leaders have been working to decide how best to target the resource.
A major priority for the stimulus plan is jobs. Whether job creation or job preservation. President Obama states the plan will generate approximately 3.5 million jobs. Second on the priority list is housing. The third leg is infrastructure.
The nation's housing market is in trouble, with millions of foreclosures and declining property values. St. Louis is one of the nation's major centers for automobile manufacturing. The future of the US auto industry looms large in determing the direction of our region's economy. For years' we've had a national call to rebuild our nation's aging infrastructure, and contained in the stimulus plan is billions for new light rails, road construction, and education projects. So what about St. Louis?
At about 3,000,000 (give or take), the St. Louis region has about 1% of the US population. If we receive a prorata share of the stimulus plan, our region would realize $7.87 billion in stimulus help.
With the City of St. Louis having about 1/10 of the region's population, the city would see about $787 million in help (thanks to a reader for correcting this amount). However, knowing that things won't be doled out on a prorata basis, there's likely going to be a substantially larger amount of funding coming to St. Louis for local stimulus efforts.
The National League of Cities has made the case for projects to managed at the local, not state level. They are working to get the help to the project locations more quickly. St. Louis submitted a proposal for local priorities as part of the League of Cities request. The package included light rail and multiple public infrastructure investments.
A website, "Stimulus Watch", details proposed economic stimulus spending. St. Louis has a request in the amount of $2.45 billion pending. The breakdown is available here. The site is interactive and allows visitors to vote on individual projects.
Knowing that stabilizing housing markets, building new infrastructure, and providing for job creation and preservation are the nation's top goals of the stimulus plan, what projects would you like to see prioritized in St. Louis?
The plan calls for major infrastucture investments, aid to state governments, and tax breaks for working Americans and corporations. At $787 billion, the amount works out to about $2,600 for US citizen. That doesn't sound like much. So government leaders have been working to decide how best to target the resource.
A major priority for the stimulus plan is jobs. Whether job creation or job preservation. President Obama states the plan will generate approximately 3.5 million jobs. Second on the priority list is housing. The third leg is infrastructure.
The nation's housing market is in trouble, with millions of foreclosures and declining property values. St. Louis is one of the nation's major centers for automobile manufacturing. The future of the US auto industry looms large in determing the direction of our region's economy. For years' we've had a national call to rebuild our nation's aging infrastructure, and contained in the stimulus plan is billions for new light rails, road construction, and education projects. So what about St. Louis?
At about 3,000,000 (give or take), the St. Louis region has about 1% of the US population. If we receive a prorata share of the stimulus plan, our region would realize $7.87 billion in stimulus help.
With the City of St. Louis having about 1/10 of the region's population, the city would see about $787 million in help (thanks to a reader for correcting this amount). However, knowing that things won't be doled out on a prorata basis, there's likely going to be a substantially larger amount of funding coming to St. Louis for local stimulus efforts.
The National League of Cities has made the case for projects to managed at the local, not state level. They are working to get the help to the project locations more quickly. St. Louis submitted a proposal for local priorities as part of the League of Cities request. The package included light rail and multiple public infrastructure investments.
A website, "Stimulus Watch", details proposed economic stimulus spending. St. Louis has a request in the amount of $2.45 billion pending. The breakdown is available here. The site is interactive and allows visitors to vote on individual projects.
Knowing that stabilizing housing markets, building new infrastructure, and providing for job creation and preservation are the nation's top goals of the stimulus plan, what projects would you like to see prioritized in St. Louis?
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Straggler Lounge
Last night we were scheduled for a meeting of one of the working groups of our Arch connections committee. We planned to hold the meeting at the swanky and historic lounge of the Roberts Mayfair hotel. However, at the last minute, the meeting was rescheduled.
Never knowing how many people read their email on any given day, I went to the Mayfair just in case we had any stragglers show up. Sure enough, promptly at 6 PM, one member of our committee, Paul, arrived. So the two of us worked on the name thing for about a half hour. More on that in a minute. First some appreciation for the Mayfair Hotel.
The lobby and lounge at the Mayfair are right out of the old mob days of 1930s St. Louis. They drip with historic charm. The lounge is dark with a smokey feel, and lots of stained glass. If you're looking for a quaint, private, historic setting for dinner or a drink after work, this place is a good choice. When the adjoining condo tower opens, it will be a great combination of historic and new in the heart of downtown.
Back to the name of our connections group. Paul and I passed ideas back and forth until we came up with "Riverfront Connections Task Force". We liked "riverfront connections" because our group is about improving connections between downtown, the adjoining neighborhoods, the riverfront, and Arch grounds, and we like "task force" because the group is about working toward solutions. Incremental solutions, big ideas, altogether any good ideas that move St. Louis in the direction of reestablising its identity and lifestyle as a riverfront city.
With the two of us in agreement on a possible name, Paul got up to leave. While I was waiting for my ride to arrive, I decided to test market the name with the bartender. By this time, it was just the two of us left in the bar. I made the acquaintance of "Tom", bartender of the Mayfair hotel.
I introduced myself and told him about our group and its efforts to improve connections between downtown and the riverfront. I mentioned the one idea of removing the I-70 depressed lanes between the Arch grounds and the Old Court House and replacing them with a new urban boulevard. His face immediately lit up, and he compared the idea to the Embarcadero in San Francisco. Amazing coincidence, Tom and I were both living in the Bay Area during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake which led to the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway along the San Francisco waterfront.
Tom and I shared stories about life in the Bay Area. The two of us had similar experiences. We both lived in St. Louis once before, moved to California, and then returned to St. Louis. Back in the 1960s, Tom was a bartender in the Gaslight Square district of St. Louis. After getting held up at gunpoint 4 times in one day, Tom had enough of St. Louis and moved to California. It was the mid-1960s.
Back then, the Bay Area was a great place. Rock and roll was coming to life, and the place was affordable. Up through the late 80s, apartments could be found for under $1000 per month. But by the early 90s, things had gone crazy. Tom described situations in the upscale communities of Mill Valley and Sausalito, with rents reaching upwards of $4000 per month, forcing three and four families to live together in the same house, just to afford the rent.
With overcrowding of housing, traffic problems ensued. Tom described bumper to bumper traffic at 11:00 o'clock at night through some parts of Marin County. With people struggling to get by, but still "enjoying" life in the Golden State, I suggested the notion of living with a "false sense of prosperity".
So at about the same time, Tom and my wife and I all came to the same decision. Time to move out of California and somewhere more reasonable. We chose St. Louis. Tom lives in the Central West End. When his friends visit from California, they're jealous of the hip and comparably affordable CWE neighborhood.
So I ran the name "Riverfront Connections Task Force" by Tom and he liked it. He had some other suggestions for improving the visitor experience there. For starters, get rid of the cobblestones. He noted how in the CWE, when they removed the cobblestones from the north side of the Chase Park Plaza, along Maryland Plaza, lots of new businesses opened up. There's no doubt that little stretch of the CWE is much more pleasant now, not to mention easier on the undercarriage of your car and high heeled shoes.
Maybe something as basic an improvement as removing the cobblestones from areas around the riverfront would improve connectivity? Maybe so.
Never knowing how many people read their email on any given day, I went to the Mayfair just in case we had any stragglers show up. Sure enough, promptly at 6 PM, one member of our committee, Paul, arrived. So the two of us worked on the name thing for about a half hour. More on that in a minute. First some appreciation for the Mayfair Hotel.
The lobby and lounge at the Mayfair are right out of the old mob days of 1930s St. Louis. They drip with historic charm. The lounge is dark with a smokey feel, and lots of stained glass. If you're looking for a quaint, private, historic setting for dinner or a drink after work, this place is a good choice. When the adjoining condo tower opens, it will be a great combination of historic and new in the heart of downtown.
Back to the name of our connections group. Paul and I passed ideas back and forth until we came up with "Riverfront Connections Task Force". We liked "riverfront connections" because our group is about improving connections between downtown, the adjoining neighborhoods, the riverfront, and Arch grounds, and we like "task force" because the group is about working toward solutions. Incremental solutions, big ideas, altogether any good ideas that move St. Louis in the direction of reestablising its identity and lifestyle as a riverfront city.
With the two of us in agreement on a possible name, Paul got up to leave. While I was waiting for my ride to arrive, I decided to test market the name with the bartender. By this time, it was just the two of us left in the bar. I made the acquaintance of "Tom", bartender of the Mayfair hotel.
I introduced myself and told him about our group and its efforts to improve connections between downtown and the riverfront. I mentioned the one idea of removing the I-70 depressed lanes between the Arch grounds and the Old Court House and replacing them with a new urban boulevard. His face immediately lit up, and he compared the idea to the Embarcadero in San Francisco. Amazing coincidence, Tom and I were both living in the Bay Area during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake which led to the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway along the San Francisco waterfront.
Tom and I shared stories about life in the Bay Area. The two of us had similar experiences. We both lived in St. Louis once before, moved to California, and then returned to St. Louis. Back in the 1960s, Tom was a bartender in the Gaslight Square district of St. Louis. After getting held up at gunpoint 4 times in one day, Tom had enough of St. Louis and moved to California. It was the mid-1960s.
Back then, the Bay Area was a great place. Rock and roll was coming to life, and the place was affordable. Up through the late 80s, apartments could be found for under $1000 per month. But by the early 90s, things had gone crazy. Tom described situations in the upscale communities of Mill Valley and Sausalito, with rents reaching upwards of $4000 per month, forcing three and four families to live together in the same house, just to afford the rent.
With overcrowding of housing, traffic problems ensued. Tom described bumper to bumper traffic at 11:00 o'clock at night through some parts of Marin County. With people struggling to get by, but still "enjoying" life in the Golden State, I suggested the notion of living with a "false sense of prosperity".
So at about the same time, Tom and my wife and I all came to the same decision. Time to move out of California and somewhere more reasonable. We chose St. Louis. Tom lives in the Central West End. When his friends visit from California, they're jealous of the hip and comparably affordable CWE neighborhood.
So I ran the name "Riverfront Connections Task Force" by Tom and he liked it. He had some other suggestions for improving the visitor experience there. For starters, get rid of the cobblestones. He noted how in the CWE, when they removed the cobblestones from the north side of the Chase Park Plaza, along Maryland Plaza, lots of new businesses opened up. There's no doubt that little stretch of the CWE is much more pleasant now, not to mention easier on the undercarriage of your car and high heeled shoes.
Maybe something as basic an improvement as removing the cobblestones from areas around the riverfront would improve connectivity? Maybe so.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Point of View
Closing out a week featuring some downtown dining options, we recently visited Patty Long's Point of View restaurant.
Point of View is one of the few St. Louis area restaurants located on a top floor of a high rise building. They are way up on the 30th floor of the Laclede Gas building. On a clear day, the view extends at least 15 miles. It's cool looking that far down river. Three words: try this place.
This is an easy choice. Outstanding views. Excellent service. If you know Patty Long (think 9th Street Abbey), you already know about her great menus. Beautiful decor. The restaurant fills the same space once occupied by an exclusive private dining room open only to lawyers and their clients. This place is a gem.
With so much to recommend it, I was amazed by the reasonable prices. Most items were $10 or less. White tablecloths. Classy service. Great food. Breathtaking views. And prices comparable or below most other downtown sit down restaurants.
Lunches Tuesday - Friday, 11-2. Reservations being accepted for a special set menu Valentines Day dinner.
Point of View is one of the few St. Louis area restaurants located on a top floor of a high rise building. They are way up on the 30th floor of the Laclede Gas building. On a clear day, the view extends at least 15 miles. It's cool looking that far down river. Three words: try this place.
This is an easy choice. Outstanding views. Excellent service. If you know Patty Long (think 9th Street Abbey), you already know about her great menus. Beautiful decor. The restaurant fills the same space once occupied by an exclusive private dining room open only to lawyers and their clients. This place is a gem.
With so much to recommend it, I was amazed by the reasonable prices. Most items were $10 or less. White tablecloths. Classy service. Great food. Breathtaking views. And prices comparable or below most other downtown sit down restaurants.
Lunches Tuesday - Friday, 11-2. Reservations being accepted for a special set menu Valentines Day dinner.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Soup Man?
There was a commercial on the radio yesterday advertising a new downtown restaurant that's based on the "Soup Man" character from the Seinfeld show. It's in the historic Bee Hat building on Washington Avenue.
"The Original Soup Man" website
It sounds good. Any recommendations?
"The Original Soup Man" website
It sounds good. Any recommendations?
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Newcomer Perspectives
A new blog is up dedicated to the experiences of someone recently relocated to St. Louis from Chicago.
Given the inferiority complex many St. Louisans have toward Chicago, it will be interesting to read what our new neighbor thinks about St. Louis.
Check out Arch Observer for a newcomer's perspective on the Gateway City.
Given the inferiority complex many St. Louisans have toward Chicago, it will be interesting to read what our new neighbor thinks about St. Louis.
Check out Arch Observer for a newcomer's perspective on the Gateway City.
Local Leaders to Discuss Arch, Riverfront
February 12, 2009
Kemper Art Museum and Steinberg Auditorium at Washington University
Saarinen Exhibit Tours: 5:00 - 8:00 PM
Panel Discussion 6:30 - 8:00 PM
Confirmed panelists:
Barbara Geisman, Executive Director for Development, City of St. Louis
Hon. Phyllis Young, Alderman, 7th Ward, City of St. Louis
John Hoal, PhD, Architect, Washington University Associate Professor
Tom Bradley, Superintendent, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
Peter Sortino, Executive Director, Danforth Foundation
Bill Burke III, RLA, Principle, Arcturis
Moderator: Bruce Lindsey, Dean of Architecture School, Washington University
Given the top leadership and decision making roles of the panelists, this meeting is important for anyone interested in the planning process relative to the future of the riverfront, downtown, and the Arch grounds. Free and open to the public.
Link to official website
Kemper Art Museum and Steinberg Auditorium at Washington University
Saarinen Exhibit Tours: 5:00 - 8:00 PM
Panel Discussion 6:30 - 8:00 PM
Confirmed panelists:
Barbara Geisman, Executive Director for Development, City of St. Louis
Hon. Phyllis Young, Alderman, 7th Ward, City of St. Louis
John Hoal, PhD, Architect, Washington University Associate Professor
Tom Bradley, Superintendent, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
Peter Sortino, Executive Director, Danforth Foundation
Bill Burke III, RLA, Principle, Arcturis
Moderator: Bruce Lindsey, Dean of Architecture School, Washington University
Given the top leadership and decision making roles of the panelists, this meeting is important for anyone interested in the planning process relative to the future of the riverfront, downtown, and the Arch grounds. Free and open to the public.
Link to official website
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Links Updated
Links have been updated on the right side of the page. The newest addition is Brian Spellecy's Downtown St. Louis Business Blog.
If you have a suggestion for blogs promoting the St. Louis area, please let us know about them and we will add them to the blog roll. Thanks.
If you have a suggestion for blogs promoting the St. Louis area, please let us know about them and we will add them to the blog roll. Thanks.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Starbucks to Close 6th and Olive Store
Noting a falloff in business, mostly unnoticeable to customers used to standing in lines, Starbucks Inc is planning to close its 6th and Olive store in downtown St. Louis, at least according to workers in the store. The planned closing date is February 24.
This store is across the street from the tallest building in the St. Louis metropolitan area, Met Square, and is a frequent morning stop for downtown workers, politicians, business people and travelers.
According to workers, no other downtown stores are affected by the closing. If you want to voice your concerns over the 6th and Olive store closing, contact Stabuck's corporate HQ here.
This store is across the street from the tallest building in the St. Louis metropolitan area, Met Square, and is a frequent morning stop for downtown workers, politicians, business people and travelers.
According to workers, no other downtown stores are affected by the closing. If you want to voice your concerns over the 6th and Olive store closing, contact Stabuck's corporate HQ here.
Designing Around The Arch
With two days being too little for the amount of activities going on this weekend, I wasn't able to attend this weekend's meetings at Washington University focused on the Arch as a community design opportunity.
Artists and designers from around the country convened in St. Louis to discuss the Arch as an important asset from a community design standpoint. Did you go? Are there any news stories out there? Did ideas about restoring connectivity between downtown, the riverfront, and the Arch grounds come up? Any feedback, links would be appreciated. Thanks.
UPDATE: the Post-Dispatch has a feature story on the new Wash U Saarinen exhibit, linked here.
Artists and designers from around the country convened in St. Louis to discuss the Arch as an important asset from a community design standpoint. Did you go? Are there any news stories out there? Did ideas about restoring connectivity between downtown, the riverfront, and the Arch grounds come up? Any feedback, links would be appreciated. Thanks.
UPDATE: the Post-Dispatch has a feature story on the new Wash U Saarinen exhibit, linked here.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Transforming Communities
When it comes to revitalizing neighborhoods or whole cities, a catch word in the lexicon is "transformative". We are looking for transformative change. Something big and permanent. More and more you hear people talking about transformative projects. I think of something as transformative if it does two things.
First is whether there is change beyond the scope of the project itself. Things may be great within the four corners of a project. But how is the project driving transformation of the community around it?
Second, and in a way related to the first item, is what has changed when it comes to us? Without a change in the quality of life and the thinking among the people in the community, there's no transformation. We may have spent a lot of money. We may have spent a lot of time in meetings. But if there hasn't been a change in the lives of community residents, we really haven't succeeded in reaching our goals of transformation.
The next thing is that plans are not transformational; zoning is not transformational; and, rules are not transformational. These are resources and tools, but not solutions. Here's an example.
I ride Metrolink. This week we had a lot of snow. At the station where I get dropped off to catch the train, workers have cleared the driveways and sidewalks of snow. Workers removed alot of snow; there's a financial cost to snow removal; and, 99% of the area is clear.
Somewhere on the shelves of the Metro administrative offices, there's probably a safety manual with procedures for snow removal. Plus, with this sort of activity, there's a certain amount of common sense applied. So good people operating plows and shovels cleared the roads and sidewalks. Yet there's a tiny defect in the results that has a big impact on the lives of Metrolink riders.
No one cleared a walkway from the area where people are dropped off from cars to get across to the sidewalk. Instead, people have to scale a two foot ridge of snow and ice to get to the sidewalk. That's got to be a bummer for someone in dress shoes. And totally unnecessary. A supervisor knows it isn't right. If there's a procedure for snow removal, it certainly doesn't call for leaving a condition like that. Hours of work done, but an important detail missed.
Now the snow is hard as rock. Done at the right time, it would have taken about ten seconds to clear a little walkway for people to get through. The point is that with a little additional snow clearing effort the situation would have tranformed for a lot people using Metrolink. It would have made a positive difference for people.
Okay, so enough about Metrolink and parking lot snow banks. Let's get back to the idea of transforming communities, and focus our attention on the planning process unfolding at the Arch. It seems that most people want the same thing.
We want something "transformative" to happen at the Arch, the riverfront, and downtown. We sense the opportunity. But how do we do it? How do we get there? There are a lot of different ideas.
The one issue that seems to be in agreement is the idea of connectivity. Improving connectivity might transform the Arch area and downtown. It's a key topic in the possible design competition for the future of the Arch.
Going back to the start of this post, what about the part about changing people? What is it about the way we do things in St. Louis that we might do differently as people trying to create powerful change? Are there things we can learn from outside St. Louis? Are there different ways of looking at the connectivity issues related to downtown and the Arch area which might result in transformative change?
A new acquaintenance has drawn my attention to a design competition involving a National Park site from the New York area. It's a case study we might be able to draw from to inform our St. Louis efforts.
Another challenge is how we define scope and time horizons. The jurisdiction of the National Park Service in downtown St. Louis is much smaller in area than the overall connectivity challenges facing the effort to reconnect downtown to the riverfront and the Arch. How can we effect transformative change without establishing the proper scale for solutions to the challenges? We can't. So we have to do things differently as people.
Individuals and agencies with overlapping interests need to work together to find common ground. Organizations like MoDOT, the Army Corps of Engineers and the City of St. Louis as well as the numerous private, public interest, and community groups all have a role. We need to work together as people and organizations, respecting our differences, yet driven by a shared vision of how to build a better community. A community that changes the quality of the lives of the people living in it for the better.
That won't be easy. Whoever thought transforming things would be? It is going to take a lot of work. For us working to transform the area connecting the riverfront, the Arch and downtown, we have to start with changing who we are and how we do things.
First is whether there is change beyond the scope of the project itself. Things may be great within the four corners of a project. But how is the project driving transformation of the community around it?
Second, and in a way related to the first item, is what has changed when it comes to us? Without a change in the quality of life and the thinking among the people in the community, there's no transformation. We may have spent a lot of money. We may have spent a lot of time in meetings. But if there hasn't been a change in the lives of community residents, we really haven't succeeded in reaching our goals of transformation.
The next thing is that plans are not transformational; zoning is not transformational; and, rules are not transformational. These are resources and tools, but not solutions. Here's an example.
I ride Metrolink. This week we had a lot of snow. At the station where I get dropped off to catch the train, workers have cleared the driveways and sidewalks of snow. Workers removed alot of snow; there's a financial cost to snow removal; and, 99% of the area is clear.
Somewhere on the shelves of the Metro administrative offices, there's probably a safety manual with procedures for snow removal. Plus, with this sort of activity, there's a certain amount of common sense applied. So good people operating plows and shovels cleared the roads and sidewalks. Yet there's a tiny defect in the results that has a big impact on the lives of Metrolink riders.
No one cleared a walkway from the area where people are dropped off from cars to get across to the sidewalk. Instead, people have to scale a two foot ridge of snow and ice to get to the sidewalk. That's got to be a bummer for someone in dress shoes. And totally unnecessary. A supervisor knows it isn't right. If there's a procedure for snow removal, it certainly doesn't call for leaving a condition like that. Hours of work done, but an important detail missed.
Now the snow is hard as rock. Done at the right time, it would have taken about ten seconds to clear a little walkway for people to get through. The point is that with a little additional snow clearing effort the situation would have tranformed for a lot people using Metrolink. It would have made a positive difference for people.
Okay, so enough about Metrolink and parking lot snow banks. Let's get back to the idea of transforming communities, and focus our attention on the planning process unfolding at the Arch. It seems that most people want the same thing.
We want something "transformative" to happen at the Arch, the riverfront, and downtown. We sense the opportunity. But how do we do it? How do we get there? There are a lot of different ideas.
The one issue that seems to be in agreement is the idea of connectivity. Improving connectivity might transform the Arch area and downtown. It's a key topic in the possible design competition for the future of the Arch.
Going back to the start of this post, what about the part about changing people? What is it about the way we do things in St. Louis that we might do differently as people trying to create powerful change? Are there things we can learn from outside St. Louis? Are there different ways of looking at the connectivity issues related to downtown and the Arch area which might result in transformative change?
A new acquaintenance has drawn my attention to a design competition involving a National Park site from the New York area. It's a case study we might be able to draw from to inform our St. Louis efforts.
Another challenge is how we define scope and time horizons. The jurisdiction of the National Park Service in downtown St. Louis is much smaller in area than the overall connectivity challenges facing the effort to reconnect downtown to the riverfront and the Arch. How can we effect transformative change without establishing the proper scale for solutions to the challenges? We can't. So we have to do things differently as people.
Individuals and agencies with overlapping interests need to work together to find common ground. Organizations like MoDOT, the Army Corps of Engineers and the City of St. Louis as well as the numerous private, public interest, and community groups all have a role. We need to work together as people and organizations, respecting our differences, yet driven by a shared vision of how to build a better community. A community that changes the quality of the lives of the people living in it for the better.
That won't be easy. Whoever thought transforming things would be? It is going to take a lot of work. For us working to transform the area connecting the riverfront, the Arch and downtown, we have to start with changing who we are and how we do things.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Heine Meine Baseball Registration Info
The Lemay Baseball Assocation, organization responsible for the care and operation of Heine Meine Field, has sent out its registration information for 2009 youth baseball.
For information about registration, open now through early March, contact Matt Boyer, league official, at tel. 314-846-7086 or email 34matt@sbcglobal.net.
Heine Meine Field is a St. Louis area treasure. It's a great place for kids and parents, family and friends, and baseball with heart.
For information about registration, open now through early March, contact Matt Boyer, league official, at tel. 314-846-7086 or email 34matt@sbcglobal.net.
Heine Meine Field is a St. Louis area treasure. It's a great place for kids and parents, family and friends, and baseball with heart.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Shop Downtown
For the past few months I've been shopping for a winter coat. I never found the right one, so the search continued. Then last weekend, I found a great deal on a beautiful black topcoat. It's perfect. I found it at the downtown Macy's.
The service and selection at Macy's were outstanding; the price was right; and, there were special financing terms. The entire consumer experience was excellent. And to top things off, yesterday, I received a survey in the mail, thanking me for shopping at the downtown Macy's, and asking me about my experience.
Today I'll return the survey, describing how wonderful the store and its people are. STL Rising encourages all readers to support downtown St. Louis and give downtown retail a try.
Left Bank Books is now open. The downtown Macy's competes with all the regional stores in terms of price and selection. The Mayor's office is encouraging people to linger downtown by proposing free parking at meters after 5:00 PM. That's a good idea, and something to support too.
The service and selection at Macy's were outstanding; the price was right; and, there were special financing terms. The entire consumer experience was excellent. And to top things off, yesterday, I received a survey in the mail, thanking me for shopping at the downtown Macy's, and asking me about my experience.
Today I'll return the survey, describing how wonderful the store and its people are. STL Rising encourages all readers to support downtown St. Louis and give downtown retail a try.
Left Bank Books is now open. The downtown Macy's competes with all the regional stores in terms of price and selection. The Mayor's office is encouraging people to linger downtown by proposing free parking at meters after 5:00 PM. That's a good idea, and something to support too.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Heartland Move?
The nation's economic troubles are hitting hard in the Sunbelt states. California is facing its greatest out migration since the early 90s.
Would it be a good idea for states like Missouri and Illinois to team up on an ad campaign targeting those middle class households looking for a more modest lifestyle? What would those ads look like?
Check out this article describing some of the reasons people are leaving the Golden State in droves.
Would it be a good idea for states like Missouri and Illinois to team up on an ad campaign targeting those middle class households looking for a more modest lifestyle? What would those ads look like?
Check out this article describing some of the reasons people are leaving the Golden State in droves.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
New Mississippi River Bridge Project
ABOVE: MoDOT's map of the Ultimate Project Concept for the new Mississippi River Bridge project.
The project website is located here.
On the Ultimate Project Concept page, note the proposed roadway changes at the Missouri and Illinois connections to I-70, at Cass Avenue in St. Louis, and at I-64/55/44 near the Old Cathedral.
Due to a lack of funding, the new MRB project has been significantly scaled back. The current phase is to build a 4-lane bridge. The ultimate concept is to build an eight lane bridge.
Is there a way to leverage the bridge project into plans for reconnecting the downtown area? According to the website, meetings are planned to address the issue of urban design.
Maybe it's worth trying to make the a case that the ultimate bridge concept is "shovel ready" for the Obama stimulus package, and that the downtown reconnection work comes in as phase two?
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Downtown Reconnection Efforts Go Online
President-elect Obama built up a wave of support by harnessing the power of the internet. His fundraising was huge in the online, smaller contribution segment.
Google Exec Eric Schmidt notes how online social networking and the power of the internet can drive change and social movements.
Schmidt has been a key advisor in the early stages of the Obama adminstration. He is a supporter of the idea of rebuilding America's infrastructure as a core strategy of the nation's economic recovery plan.
In this vein, the Arch, downtown, riverfront connections effort is going online. A new google group has been established for this purpose. The public is invite to join. Access the google group on the right side of this page.
Google Exec Eric Schmidt notes how online social networking and the power of the internet can drive change and social movements.
Schmidt has been a key advisor in the early stages of the Obama adminstration. He is a supporter of the idea of rebuilding America's infrastructure as a core strategy of the nation's economic recovery plan.
In this vein, the Arch, downtown, riverfront connections effort is going online. A new google group has been established for this purpose. The public is invite to join. Access the google group on the right side of this page.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Eating the elephant
There's an old saying, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
On Saturday, we took the first bite, and we discussed ways of continuing the feast. And a huge feast it will be.
That feast is the task of restoring connections between downtown, the Arch grounds, and the riverfront. The tasks are huge.
Over the past ten years, downtown has made tremendous progress. The elephant in the room, to borrow another cliche, is the rotten connectivity conditions between the Arch, downtown, and the riverfront.
On Saturday, a group of people met in downtown St. Louis to consider forming an organization dedicated to working together on this issue. Detailed coverage of the meeting is reported in the Beacon.
Here at STL Rising, we've been advocating ideas including the reworking of the depressed and elevated lanes into a new Memorial Drive/grand urban street. On Saturday, we didn't discuss specific plans, but rather approaches on how to proceed. How to start working through the elephant.
There was talk about starting small, to test things out, and help get people comfortable with the idea of change. The first possibility is to close from one to three blocks of Memorial Drive, creating immediate, permanent pedestrian access between the Old Court House and the Arch grounds.
The group also agreed to continue working together. If you want to learn more about how to get involved, please contact me at rbonasch@sbcglobal.net. The list of individuals is growing, and is now nearly 50 strong.
On Saturday, we took the first bite, and we discussed ways of continuing the feast. And a huge feast it will be.
That feast is the task of restoring connections between downtown, the Arch grounds, and the riverfront. The tasks are huge.
Over the past ten years, downtown has made tremendous progress. The elephant in the room, to borrow another cliche, is the rotten connectivity conditions between the Arch, downtown, and the riverfront.
On Saturday, a group of people met in downtown St. Louis to consider forming an organization dedicated to working together on this issue. Detailed coverage of the meeting is reported in the Beacon.
Here at STL Rising, we've been advocating ideas including the reworking of the depressed and elevated lanes into a new Memorial Drive/grand urban street. On Saturday, we didn't discuss specific plans, but rather approaches on how to proceed. How to start working through the elephant.
There was talk about starting small, to test things out, and help get people comfortable with the idea of change. The first possibility is to close from one to three blocks of Memorial Drive, creating immediate, permanent pedestrian access between the Old Court House and the Arch grounds.
The group also agreed to continue working together. If you want to learn more about how to get involved, please contact me at rbonasch@sbcglobal.net. The list of individuals is growing, and is now nearly 50 strong.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Organizational Meeting for Arch/Downtown/Riverfront Connections Citizens Group
Date and Time: Saturday, December 20, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Location: Landmarks Association of St. Louis, 911 Washington Avenue, Suite #170
AGENDA
1. Welcome and introductions
2. Discussion of possible formation of a volunteer citizens group to promote improved connections between downtown, the Arch grounds, and the riverfront
3. Possible roles and structure
4. Preliminary discussion of goals
5. Next steps
This will be a very preliminary meeting to introduce interested parties and explore the level of interest in the idea of starting a new organization around the issue of improving connections between downtown, the Arch grounds, and the riverfront.
If there is sufficient interest, future meetings will be set to establish goals, priorities, and structure going forward.
If you plan to attend, please rsvp to rbonasch@sbcglobal.net. If you cannot attend this Saturday, but would like to have your name added to the list of interested parties, please also send us a note to the same email address. We will add you to the list and notify you of future meetings. Thanks.
Location: Landmarks Association of St. Louis, 911 Washington Avenue, Suite #170
AGENDA
1. Welcome and introductions
2. Discussion of possible formation of a volunteer citizens group to promote improved connections between downtown, the Arch grounds, and the riverfront
3. Possible roles and structure
4. Preliminary discussion of goals
5. Next steps
This will be a very preliminary meeting to introduce interested parties and explore the level of interest in the idea of starting a new organization around the issue of improving connections between downtown, the Arch grounds, and the riverfront.
If there is sufficient interest, future meetings will be set to establish goals, priorities, and structure going forward.
If you plan to attend, please rsvp to rbonasch@sbcglobal.net. If you cannot attend this Saturday, but would like to have your name added to the list of interested parties, please also send us a note to the same email address. We will add you to the list and notify you of future meetings. Thanks.
Foreclosure Help
Channel 9 KETC TV in St. Louis is helping households in the St. Louis area facing possible foreclosure by providing information through their website and programming.
A lof of detailed information about where and how to get help is available here:
KETC foreclosure assistance web portal
A lof of detailed information about where and how to get help is available here:
KETC foreclosure assistance web portal
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The "Depressed Lanes" Need a New Name
For decades, St. Louisans have referred to the section of interstate between the Old Court House and the Arch grounds as the "depressed lanes". While the lanes are below grade, somehow, the term just doesn't communicate the present reality.
Let's call them what they really are: a trench.
While some men in the picture above are smiling, most of what goes on in trenches is pretty awful. Trenches are among the worst of man's environments.
Face it - we have a dirty, smelly, ugly trench running through the heart of our downtown, right alongside one of the most beautiful landmarks ever constructed. A trench! How stark a contrast, how completely ironic, and how damaging to our city's image!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The 70 Connection
Here's a view of how downtown will look after the installation of the new Mississippi River Bridge. Upon completion, there will be four bridges entering the heart of downtown: the Poplar Street Bridge, the Eads Bridge, the Dr. Martin Luther King Bridge, and the new Mississippi River Bridge.
The outer two bridges, the PSB and the new MRB, will be interstate highway throughways (serving Interstates 40/64, 44, 55, and 70). The inner two bridges, the Eads and MLK, connect directly to downtown streets. The picture above shows how the new MRB, to be located about one half mile north of the Edward Jones Dome, has the effect of "stretching" downtown to the north.
Imagine the area between the four bridges connected via a new Memorial Drive. In the picture, you can see how I-70 and the elevated lanes now cut through downtown. The elevated lanes are especially noticeable. Think how the feel of downtown changes if those are replaced with a surface level boulevard. Consider the development potential for lands along this boulevard. It could be our "Miracle Mile".
Some have questioned the feasibility of constructing a new Memorial Drive prior to completion of the new MRB. With or without a new Memorial Drive, reconnecting I-70 from it's old alignment to the new bridge is going to create disruptions. The project is similar to the reworking of the I-64/I-170 interchange.
Part of the task for advocates of a new Memorial Drive is to show how these connections can happen with minimal disruptions to downtown and interstate traffic. Preliminary estimates from highway contractors place the timeframe for building a new Memorial Drive at about one year, or about the same as the completion of one leg of the new I-64.
During the construction period, as in the case of the 64 rebuild, alternative routes would need to be established, including directing traffic onto Interstates 64, 55, 44 and downtown streets.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Calling On the "29th Ward"
With around 350,000 residents, the population of the city of St. Louis makes up less than 20% of the region's 2.5 million.
President-Elect Obama is making a big move with his plans for national infrastructure improvements, prioritizing roads, bridges, and schools. Over the weekend, he used the expression "use it or lose it" when it comes to taking action on this opportunity. The program is being described as the largest federal infrastructure project since the 1950s.
Meanwhile, work on the new Mississippi River Bridge project is well underway. Greg Horn, project manager for the new bridge, said soil testing under the river has found solid bedrock on which to anchor the new bridge. He's predicting the start of construction in the next 18 months.
So how will the St. Louis region respond to Obama's challenge to invest in new infrastructure? What will be our region's top priorities? With a regional mandate, improvements around the Arch grounds might make the cut. For that to happen, we need a large contingent of non-city residents to support the Arch improvement project.
So, if you're a resident of Illinois, St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Jefferson County, or other parts of our region, what you say about efforts to improve the connection between downtown, the riverfront, and the Arch grounds will make a difference. You really carry the most weight. The city needs your support in this endeavor.
The city of St. Louis is made up of 28 aldermanic wards. Meanwhile, regional citizens, residents of what I like to call our "29th Ward", will be key in determining the outcome of this process.
President-Elect Obama is making a big move with his plans for national infrastructure improvements, prioritizing roads, bridges, and schools. Over the weekend, he used the expression "use it or lose it" when it comes to taking action on this opportunity. The program is being described as the largest federal infrastructure project since the 1950s.
Meanwhile, work on the new Mississippi River Bridge project is well underway. Greg Horn, project manager for the new bridge, said soil testing under the river has found solid bedrock on which to anchor the new bridge. He's predicting the start of construction in the next 18 months.
So how will the St. Louis region respond to Obama's challenge to invest in new infrastructure? What will be our region's top priorities? With a regional mandate, improvements around the Arch grounds might make the cut. For that to happen, we need a large contingent of non-city residents to support the Arch improvement project.
So, if you're a resident of Illinois, St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Jefferson County, or other parts of our region, what you say about efforts to improve the connection between downtown, the riverfront, and the Arch grounds will make a difference. You really carry the most weight. The city needs your support in this endeavor.
The city of St. Louis is made up of 28 aldermanic wards. Meanwhile, regional citizens, residents of what I like to call our "29th Ward", will be key in determining the outcome of this process.
Friday, December 05, 2008
For A Friday...
Theater of the Bizarre
I could write today about the bizarre dream I had last night about a privately run swimming pool in nearby St. Louis County. In the dream, as a condition to gain pool membership, applicants must go to "Tommy Bahama's" restaurant (where 200 pound roasted turkeys sit uneaten on four foot plates), and tear in half three sandwiches. Once you've torn in half the sandwiches, they put a trophy on the wall with your name on it, entitling you to join the pool.
But instead, equally bizarre, another idea dawned on me. In thinking about all the hard work it is going to take to build a coalition of good people in support of a development effort to connect downtown, the Arch and riverfront, I thought about how public opposition might push back.
Here this coalition gets created, develops professional presentations and structure, and goes on the road to make the case for the plan. People start taking notice. Audiences are had with news agencies and community leaders. The idea starts gaining traction.
Fearing a change in their driving routines, drivers from all around the region start getting nervous about the possibility of losing their freedom to speed through downtown via the depressed lanes. They come from out of the woodwork, carrying signs and showing up in angry mobs at meetings. They are demanding nothing be done to change the interstate or add one-minute to their commutes. These people are as ferocious as a mother bear separated from her cubs.
Maybe getting permission to join a private pool by tearing in half sandwiches is more likely than reworking an ugly interstate highway cutting off downtown from the Arch and riverfront?
I could write today about the bizarre dream I had last night about a privately run swimming pool in nearby St. Louis County. In the dream, as a condition to gain pool membership, applicants must go to "Tommy Bahama's" restaurant (where 200 pound roasted turkeys sit uneaten on four foot plates), and tear in half three sandwiches. Once you've torn in half the sandwiches, they put a trophy on the wall with your name on it, entitling you to join the pool.
But instead, equally bizarre, another idea dawned on me. In thinking about all the hard work it is going to take to build a coalition of good people in support of a development effort to connect downtown, the Arch and riverfront, I thought about how public opposition might push back.
Here this coalition gets created, develops professional presentations and structure, and goes on the road to make the case for the plan. People start taking notice. Audiences are had with news agencies and community leaders. The idea starts gaining traction.
Fearing a change in their driving routines, drivers from all around the region start getting nervous about the possibility of losing their freedom to speed through downtown via the depressed lanes. They come from out of the woodwork, carrying signs and showing up in angry mobs at meetings. They are demanding nothing be done to change the interstate or add one-minute to their commutes. These people are as ferocious as a mother bear separated from her cubs.
Maybe getting permission to join a private pool by tearing in half sandwiches is more likely than reworking an ugly interstate highway cutting off downtown from the Arch and riverfront?
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Arch, Riverfront, DT Advocates Need to Organize
With momentum building around the concept of reestablishing downtown, the riverfront, and the Arch grounds as the focal point of the urban core of St. Louis, it is time for supporters of such an effort to organize into a formal association or coalition in order to give community voice and energy to the cause.
At present, there is no such entity. There have been lots of meetings, and good ideas offered, but there is no organizational structure in place to drive this process forward. A well organized group, made up of a diverse, talented, and committed group of individuals, could make a major impact on this effort.
A good place to start would be to call on the individuals attending last night's Landmarks Arch charrette. There was no sign up sheet, but the attendees were all good candidates to move this project forward. If you are interested in joining such an effort, please email me at rbonasch@sbcglobal.net and we will add your name to the list of interested supporters.
At present, there is no such entity. There have been lots of meetings, and good ideas offered, but there is no organizational structure in place to drive this process forward. A well organized group, made up of a diverse, talented, and committed group of individuals, could make a major impact on this effort.
A good place to start would be to call on the individuals attending last night's Landmarks Arch charrette. There was no sign up sheet, but the attendees were all good candidates to move this project forward. If you are interested in joining such an effort, please email me at rbonasch@sbcglobal.net and we will add your name to the list of interested supporters.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Accident(s) Waiting to Happen
Critics of STL Rising will often point out that we here are too positive, optimistic and even pollyanna about St. Louis. We accept the criticism. In order to offer a little balance to our usual total homer stance when it comes to things St. Louis, today we draw attention to a very unsafe traffic condition on the city's streets.
Westbound drivers on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard, headed towards Vandeventer, are easily confused by the street layout and stoplight locations in that area. A dangerous intersection exists just east of the main north/south Vandeventer intersection at Dr. Martin Luther King and "North Vandeventer", a spur-like short street located at most 100-150 feet east of the main north/south Vandenventer alignment.
The problem is, both intersections have stoplights, and at times, the main Vandeventer light is green while the much less visible "Vandeventer spur" light is red. More than once I have been riding in westbound cars on Dr. King which inadvertently missed the Vandeventer spur redlight, instead seeing the green lights at the main Vandeventer intersection. Had cars been crossing MLK on the Vandeventer spur at the same time, serious collisions might have resulted.
The problem is easily fixed. By abandoning the short block of North Vandeventer, and dedicating the vacated street right of way to the adjoining property owners, the intersection would be eliminated, while adding more land to the city's tax base.
All traffic would then be directed to the main Vandeventer and Dr. Martin Luther King intersection, no more confusion for drivers, possibly some lives saved, injuries avoided, and property protected.
Westbound drivers on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard, headed towards Vandeventer, are easily confused by the street layout and stoplight locations in that area. A dangerous intersection exists just east of the main north/south Vandeventer intersection at Dr. Martin Luther King and "North Vandeventer", a spur-like short street located at most 100-150 feet east of the main north/south Vandenventer alignment.
The problem is, both intersections have stoplights, and at times, the main Vandeventer light is green while the much less visible "Vandeventer spur" light is red. More than once I have been riding in westbound cars on Dr. King which inadvertently missed the Vandeventer spur redlight, instead seeing the green lights at the main Vandeventer intersection. Had cars been crossing MLK on the Vandeventer spur at the same time, serious collisions might have resulted.
The problem is easily fixed. By abandoning the short block of North Vandeventer, and dedicating the vacated street right of way to the adjoining property owners, the intersection would be eliminated, while adding more land to the city's tax base.
All traffic would then be directed to the main Vandeventer and Dr. Martin Luther King intersection, no more confusion for drivers, possibly some lives saved, injuries avoided, and property protected.
Monday, December 01, 2008
New Links
Thanks to a tip from a Washington University graduate student in architecture, we are happy to add the following permanent links to the site:
Freeways Without Futures
Removing Freeways - Restoring Cities: The Movement Has Begun
The Highways to Boulevards Initiative
Freeways Without Futures
Removing Freeways - Restoring Cities: The Movement Has Begun
The Highways to Boulevards Initiative
America's Institute for (Insert Name Here)
With the Danforth Foundation continuing its pursuit of a major new downtown attraction at the Arch grounds, STL Rising has a suggestion to add to the conversation. Given the ongoing redevelopment of the City of St. Louis - and the industrial midwest - what about establishing a national institute for community renewal, and headquartering the project right here in St. Louis?
When it comes to community redevelopment, St. Louis is a national leader. In the Arch, we have one of the most dramatic redevelopment projects ever. And while St. Louis is a pioneer in the area of redevelopment, we still have a lot of work to do. The institute could become a working center to promote the best in redevelopment practices, with St. Louis serving as both host city and implementation practitioner.
One possible location for the institute is the Bottle District site on the north side of downtown. If I-70 were removed through downtown (another ongoing renewal program - and emerging best practice), the Bottle District site offers unobstructed views of the Arch - possibly from multiple floors of a new dramatic, "green" building. Imagine conference rooms with windows facing downtown and the Arch.
Thinking outside of the box...literally...perhaps the project could be an expansion of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and tie in with the Danforth Foundation's plans? This way, the new attraction proposed by Danforth would not alter the landscape of the current Memorial, yet would still be an intergral part of the national park. The park would be crossing I-70 (or perhaps a new Memorial Drive) into downtown!
Such a facility would have natural ties to business, government, and academia. Local universities and national corporations would have much in common with the institute's mission. For government, smart redevelopment is an ongoing challenge and national priority. The institute would provide an important public purpose and service.
The site connects to downtown, the riverfront and Metrolink, giving it excellent locational advantages. Architecturally, such a facility would be a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate the creative reuse of an abandoned industrial site.
As an institute for community renewal, the facility would have long term significance, since we will always be looking for new and better ways for solving the challenges of community redevelopment.
There would be opportunties to explore social issues, community design approaches, legal and organizational models, and historic preservation and green building techniques.
Imagine entering St. Louis from the north side of downtown. Somwhere around Cass Avenue, I-70 gracefully transitions into a major urban boulevard, with the skyline of downtown in the background. As you approach downtown, one of the first buildings you see is a beautiful, modern institute, built of steel and glass, home of America's "Institute of _________". What a welcome center that would be!
First off, the center needs a good name...
When it comes to community redevelopment, St. Louis is a national leader. In the Arch, we have one of the most dramatic redevelopment projects ever. And while St. Louis is a pioneer in the area of redevelopment, we still have a lot of work to do. The institute could become a working center to promote the best in redevelopment practices, with St. Louis serving as both host city and implementation practitioner.
One possible location for the institute is the Bottle District site on the north side of downtown. If I-70 were removed through downtown (another ongoing renewal program - and emerging best practice), the Bottle District site offers unobstructed views of the Arch - possibly from multiple floors of a new dramatic, "green" building. Imagine conference rooms with windows facing downtown and the Arch.
Thinking outside of the box...literally...perhaps the project could be an expansion of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and tie in with the Danforth Foundation's plans? This way, the new attraction proposed by Danforth would not alter the landscape of the current Memorial, yet would still be an intergral part of the national park. The park would be crossing I-70 (or perhaps a new Memorial Drive) into downtown!
Such a facility would have natural ties to business, government, and academia. Local universities and national corporations would have much in common with the institute's mission. For government, smart redevelopment is an ongoing challenge and national priority. The institute would provide an important public purpose and service.
The site connects to downtown, the riverfront and Metrolink, giving it excellent locational advantages. Architecturally, such a facility would be a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate the creative reuse of an abandoned industrial site.
As an institute for community renewal, the facility would have long term significance, since we will always be looking for new and better ways for solving the challenges of community redevelopment.
There would be opportunties to explore social issues, community design approaches, legal and organizational models, and historic preservation and green building techniques.
Imagine entering St. Louis from the north side of downtown. Somwhere around Cass Avenue, I-70 gracefully transitions into a major urban boulevard, with the skyline of downtown in the background. As you approach downtown, one of the first buildings you see is a beautiful, modern institute, built of steel and glass, home of America's "Institute of _________". What a welcome center that would be!
First off, the center needs a good name...
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Trading Interstates for Better Downtowns
Great article here. It's a growing trend.
Looking around the country, it would be hard to find a better candidate for such a project than our situation in front of the Arch.
On the other hand, few subjects raise so much heated controversy. If you've ever worked on traffic issues, you've heard it before: "Do what you want - just don't mess with my commute!"
Looking around the country, it would be hard to find a better candidate for such a project than our situation in front of the Arch.
On the other hand, few subjects raise so much heated controversy. If you've ever worked on traffic issues, you've heard it before: "Do what you want - just don't mess with my commute!"
Friday, November 21, 2008
Jazzy Cops Downtown?
People talk about street vendors, sidewalk cafes, and trolleys to enliven downtown.
How about some flashy, traffic directing police officers during rush hour?
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Arch Improvements As A Federal Public Works Initiative?
Back in the days of the Great Depression, strategies to turn around our ailing economy included completing major public works projects such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam, and Mount Rushmore. The idea was to strengthen the nation's infrastructure and create jobs.
The program worked, and the Obama administration is thinking about bringing back the approach. What about targeting the Arch and downtown St. Louis infrastructure improvements for one of these initiatives?
As a national symbol and a national park, the Arch is a worthy project. It suffers from dilapidated and outmoded infrastructure and improvements there leverage ongoing efforts to strengthen an American city.
Missouri Senator and Obama supporter Claire McCaskill is suggesting public works projects as a way to stimulate the economy. The Arch is in her home state. From a timing standpoint, we could work to complete the Arch project during President Obama's first term.
Arch improvements are already in the planning process. The National Park Service is leading the effort. Funding is always one of the challenges. Is this a case of need and opportunity meeting just at the right time?
The program worked, and the Obama administration is thinking about bringing back the approach. What about targeting the Arch and downtown St. Louis infrastructure improvements for one of these initiatives?
As a national symbol and a national park, the Arch is a worthy project. It suffers from dilapidated and outmoded infrastructure and improvements there leverage ongoing efforts to strengthen an American city.
Missouri Senator and Obama supporter Claire McCaskill is suggesting public works projects as a way to stimulate the economy. The Arch is in her home state. From a timing standpoint, we could work to complete the Arch project during President Obama's first term.
Arch improvements are already in the planning process. The National Park Service is leading the effort. Funding is always one of the challenges. Is this a case of need and opportunity meeting just at the right time?
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
STL Literature and Artistry Week, Continued
Here's another St. Louis themed book, just released, well worth your consideration. It contains wonderful watercolors of famous St. Louis scenes, both past and present. I read the book this weekend and thoroughly enjoyed the artwork and historical information. From the publisher's website:
In St. Louis in Watercolor, renowned artist Marilynne Bradley presents rich, breathtaking scenes of architecturally significant places, past and present. Accompanied by concise and intriguing histories, Bradley's renderings illuminate buildings like Brookings Hall, City Hall, and the Old Post Office--all designed after world-famous structures. The book also depicts originals that define St. Louis, including the Gateway Arch and Forest Park's Jewel Box.
More than just current sites are featured. Lost treasures (the Buder and Title Guaranty buildings) as well as failed attractions (Spanish Pavilion and Santa Maria) appear with background stories. Bradley captures the essence of these and other places, as the Foreword, by preservation historian Esley Hamilton, and Introduction, by local historian Johnny Rabbitt, set them in context. A rare combination of gorgeous illustration and fascinating history, St. Louis in Watercolor is a must-have for art and architecture enthusiasts alike.
About the Author:
Marilynne Bradley's watercolors are recognized in museum exhibitions and national juried competitions. They appear in corporate collections around the world.
The author is knowledgeable about St. Louis history and architecture. The book is published by Reedy Press, an independent St. Louis-based publisher specializing in books on St. Louis and local neighborhood histories.
To arrange promotional events with the author, please contact the publisher's representative on (314) 956-9800 for additional information.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Book Sales To Assist Community Group
Amy Fontinelle, author, photographer, and blogger at Seeing St. Louis, is publishing a book entitled "Disappearing St. Louis". The book provides beautiful photography of St. Louis architecture with hopes of encouraging its preservation.
Ms. Fontinelle created the book to bring greater awareness to the issues faced by the city in the hopes of bringing greater support to help solve them. She has pledged to donate all profits from the sale of her book to the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group.
More info available here.
Ms. Fontinelle created the book to bring greater awareness to the issues faced by the city in the hopes of bringing greater support to help solve them. She has pledged to donate all profits from the sale of her book to the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group.
More info available here.
Short List Twitter
I was slow to the blog scene, and am certain will never get to the twitter thing. Besides there being no way people would be interested in following my every move, I never want to be trying to operate one of those tiny keyboard, blackberry things...so in the category of appropos of nothing, here's a quick shortlist from a long weekend away from the keyboard...
Had a brother visit this weekend from California. Picked him up at the airport on Metrolink, which he thought was great, then spent a few days together getting around and seeing some of the places that make this place great. Started at Blueberry Hill (exiting the Delmar Metro station), then Broadway Oyster Bar, Iron Barley, Fast Eddies, a couple of Macklind Avenue spots, raking leaves into the street (me - not him), St. Louis Bread Company, and the Old Court House. By the end, he was thinking how a St. Louis lifestyle could suit him just fine. The sense of neighborhood and community we have here is a thing you can't package.
Over at Ecology of Absence, Michael Allen notes that there around 30 "half flounder" buildings left in the City of St. Louis. I wonder if the old part of the Broadway Oyster Bar (the eastern half) counts toward that total? Based on Michael's description, it sounds like one of the type, dating to the 1850-60s. Whether or not it's a legit half flounder, the place has great food, service, atmosphere, and music.
If you're in the market for furniture, check out the ground floor of Macy's at Northwest Plaza. The prices are amazing (about 1/3 retail), and there's a neighborhood guy who works side deals for same day home delivery, even on Sundays. Well worth the trip.
Had a message in my in-box from a new startup urban magazine called "Knot". They were looking for "categories" describing St. Louis. Got any suggestions? Post them here and the writers at "Knot" might work them into a future article.
From over at Urban Review St. Louis, there's news of a charrette being held tonight in downtown St. Louis to discuss the future of Lucas Park. Thanks to Steve Patterson for the tip, and for setting me straight on how many "r's" and how many "t's" there are in the word "charrette".
Got a thought about what to do at the Arch? It's a topic that interests architects and planners, but for the most part, the general public has taken little notice. Ideas run the gamut (that is spelled correctly), but a consensus for the future of the Arch seems nowhere in sight. A hundred divergent views results in what?
Since we made that trip to the furniture department at Macy's, we now have available a twin sized Serta Perfect Sleeper mattress and box spring, with steel frame and a Cardinal red head board, all in excellent condition. Interested? No reasonable offer refused. Email me at rbonasch@sbcglobal.net for more info.
Had a brother visit this weekend from California. Picked him up at the airport on Metrolink, which he thought was great, then spent a few days together getting around and seeing some of the places that make this place great. Started at Blueberry Hill (exiting the Delmar Metro station), then Broadway Oyster Bar, Iron Barley, Fast Eddies, a couple of Macklind Avenue spots, raking leaves into the street (me - not him), St. Louis Bread Company, and the Old Court House. By the end, he was thinking how a St. Louis lifestyle could suit him just fine. The sense of neighborhood and community we have here is a thing you can't package.
Over at Ecology of Absence, Michael Allen notes that there around 30 "half flounder" buildings left in the City of St. Louis. I wonder if the old part of the Broadway Oyster Bar (the eastern half) counts toward that total? Based on Michael's description, it sounds like one of the type, dating to the 1850-60s. Whether or not it's a legit half flounder, the place has great food, service, atmosphere, and music.
If you're in the market for furniture, check out the ground floor of Macy's at Northwest Plaza. The prices are amazing (about 1/3 retail), and there's a neighborhood guy who works side deals for same day home delivery, even on Sundays. Well worth the trip.
Had a message in my in-box from a new startup urban magazine called "Knot". They were looking for "categories" describing St. Louis. Got any suggestions? Post them here and the writers at "Knot" might work them into a future article.
From over at Urban Review St. Louis, there's news of a charrette being held tonight in downtown St. Louis to discuss the future of Lucas Park. Thanks to Steve Patterson for the tip, and for setting me straight on how many "r's" and how many "t's" there are in the word "charrette".
Got a thought about what to do at the Arch? It's a topic that interests architects and planners, but for the most part, the general public has taken little notice. Ideas run the gamut (that is spelled correctly), but a consensus for the future of the Arch seems nowhere in sight. A hundred divergent views results in what?
Since we made that trip to the furniture department at Macy's, we now have available a twin sized Serta Perfect Sleeper mattress and box spring, with steel frame and a Cardinal red head board, all in excellent condition. Interested? No reasonable offer refused. Email me at rbonasch@sbcglobal.net for more info.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
This Land Is Your Land...
...this land is my land...You know how the rest of the song goes. It's a patriotic number about America and all her beauty. We sang it as a little children in school. Back in those days, there was a lot of singing in schools, and more public singing in general. Not so much any more.
When we moved to St. Louis, one of the most striking things for us was the amount of public singing here, often at sporting events. Being among thousands of people singing either the national anthem at a Cardinals game or the name of a Blackhawk goaltender in mock affection, is a pretty cool thing.
What is happening with the Arch is going to take a similar level of community spirit. For the Arch effort to succeed, St. Louisans need to rally around it. We're not there yet. Most people don't have the Arch planning project on their radar screens. And if they're aware of it, many want to see things left alone. That's not a surprise. St. Louisans are famously resistent to change. Change the Arch? Well, that brings people off the sidelines.
We can build on this interest. When it comes to the Arch, people across the region have a sense of ownership. It's the symbol of St. Louis. From Wentzville to Belleville, there's a connection. And beyond personal connnections, there are legal ties as well.
The Arch is a national park. It's a National Historic Landmark. It's owned by the National Park Service - that's you and me. It's located in the City of St. Louis, in the State of Missouri. It has a federal highway running through it, though the NPS owns the land under the highway. The Corps of Engineers manages the Mississippi. And it's been the subject of numerous plans and design studies. There are as many ideas about what to do with the Arch as their are planning firms, universities, and special interest groups.
With so many different perspectives, it's easy to do nothing. Yet most people acknowledge some things could change. Improving access generates little controversy. How to do it? Then you'll get differing views.
What we need is regional buy-in. The National Park Service and the Danforth Foundation have started the process. There have been a number of meetings and design concepts presented. However, given the way people feel about the Arch, will current efforts lead to a regional mandate for the plan?
The planning process needs to build toward a regional consensus. With consensus, the project has the greatest opportunity for success. This process can be a powerful exercise in building civic energy and community pride, connecting the region. (Hmmm, ideas for logos are starting to come to mind. The Arch, connecting the region, in a community development process...)
We are headed toward a design competition. How the designs will be judged remains to be seen. The design competition needs to result in a decision which is embraced by the greater St. Louis community. How should that happen? From a top down or grass roots approach? Some of both?
From the administrative file on the original development of the Arch:
"The memorial was not simply to be a huge shaft of stone, a statue of Thomas Jefferson, or a monumental structure that people would visit only once or twice and then revisit only when showing a stranger the city's sights, the paper said.
Instead, the area must be made an integral part of the community's life, and revive the adjacent downtown area in terms of beauty and vigor."
When we moved to St. Louis, one of the most striking things for us was the amount of public singing here, often at sporting events. Being among thousands of people singing either the national anthem at a Cardinals game or the name of a Blackhawk goaltender in mock affection, is a pretty cool thing.
What is happening with the Arch is going to take a similar level of community spirit. For the Arch effort to succeed, St. Louisans need to rally around it. We're not there yet. Most people don't have the Arch planning project on their radar screens. And if they're aware of it, many want to see things left alone. That's not a surprise. St. Louisans are famously resistent to change. Change the Arch? Well, that brings people off the sidelines.
We can build on this interest. When it comes to the Arch, people across the region have a sense of ownership. It's the symbol of St. Louis. From Wentzville to Belleville, there's a connection. And beyond personal connnections, there are legal ties as well.
The Arch is a national park. It's a National Historic Landmark. It's owned by the National Park Service - that's you and me. It's located in the City of St. Louis, in the State of Missouri. It has a federal highway running through it, though the NPS owns the land under the highway. The Corps of Engineers manages the Mississippi. And it's been the subject of numerous plans and design studies. There are as many ideas about what to do with the Arch as their are planning firms, universities, and special interest groups.
With so many different perspectives, it's easy to do nothing. Yet most people acknowledge some things could change. Improving access generates little controversy. How to do it? Then you'll get differing views.
What we need is regional buy-in. The National Park Service and the Danforth Foundation have started the process. There have been a number of meetings and design concepts presented. However, given the way people feel about the Arch, will current efforts lead to a regional mandate for the plan?
The planning process needs to build toward a regional consensus. With consensus, the project has the greatest opportunity for success. This process can be a powerful exercise in building civic energy and community pride, connecting the region. (Hmmm, ideas for logos are starting to come to mind. The Arch, connecting the region, in a community development process...)
We are headed toward a design competition. How the designs will be judged remains to be seen. The design competition needs to result in a decision which is embraced by the greater St. Louis community. How should that happen? From a top down or grass roots approach? Some of both?
From the administrative file on the original development of the Arch:
"The memorial was not simply to be a huge shaft of stone, a statue of Thomas Jefferson, or a monumental structure that people would visit only once or twice and then revisit only when showing a stranger the city's sights, the paper said.
Instead, the area must be made an integral part of the community's life, and revive the adjacent downtown area in terms of beauty and vigor."
Monday, November 10, 2008
Vacant Beauty
STL Rising seldom writes on vacant or abandoned sites, but this weekend's Arch and riverfront planning charette brought into stark focus vacancy where our city should be it's best - downtown, facing the Arch.
The Mansion House complex was built near the time of Arch construction, back in the mid-1960s. It's a three tower complex, with each tower now under separate management. One serves as a hotel and the other two as apartment buildings, Gentry's Landing and Mansion House. Within the complex there are a number of related service buildings, some for retail, others for office or community space.
The charette was held in one of the community/office spaces, a 3 or 4 story building directly facing the Arch and riverfront. With good reason, the building was generously loaned to the AIA for the charette by the owners of Mansion House. If future improvements happen around the Arch, it can only mean good things for downtown property owners. They are "deep stakeholders" in this effort.
Owners of this building should be concerned. According to charette organizers, the building has not had a tenant for over 21 years. Knocking on the door of 50, I know personally how the years can add up pretty fast. In this building, the bathrooms and elevators no longer work. Nonetheless, to the casual observer (given that most people see it through a windshield at upwards of 50 miles an hour) the building still looks pretty good. There could have been no more ideal setting for this charette.
This building not only offers commanding views of the Arch and grounds, but also a panoramic view of the highway barrier dividing downtown from the riverfront, Arch, and Laclede's Landing. Counting shoulders, traffic lanes, raised concrete barriers and viaduct walls, the expanse between downtown's front row of buildings and the Arch and riverfront uses is equal to about 16 traffic lanes.
For the charette, the students were divided into seven teams. Each team had architecture, art and traffic engineering students represented. Based on the diversity of presentations, the teams were given broad latitude in developing their ideas.
One team followed closely Professor Krieger's "Mind the Gap" principle, prioritizing the edges of the Arch grounds, connecting them to their neighboring uses. On the north side, they proposed replacing the underground garage with a dramatic new use, with a wall of steel and glass facing the Eads Bridge and Laclede's Landing. It could possibly house a new museum or other major attraction, drawing visitors from the Laclede's Landing, Lumiere Casino, and Washington Avenue areas.
Along the southern edge, where concrete pillars support the Poplar Street Bridge and its ramp connections to Interstate 70, Memorial Drive, and Interstate 44, they proposed a concrete garden, to green the area and soften the transition to Chouteau's Landing.
On the western edge, where the Arch faces downtown, they proposed reworking Interstate 70, the depressed lanes, and Memorial Drive. They recommended removing the interstate, filling in the depressed lanes, and creating a new, local circulation system. They envision a trolley loop connecting with downtown, new retail uses and sidewalk cafes facing the Arch, and a cobblestone road, remembering back to the original days of the St. Louis riverfront. What would such an improvement mean for the vacant Mansion House building?
One team suggested multiple bridges connecting downtown across the interstate and Memorial Drive. These bridges would provide varying view angles of the Arch. Another team made the analogy that while Forest Park is the "back yard" of St. Louis, the Arch is the front yard, suggesting that the region place equal priority to improving its front yard as its back yard. Recent improvements to Forest Park have transformed Forest Park into a regional jewel. The price tag for the Forest Park improvement effort was about $50 million.
(Note: a commentor notes the actual cost of Forest Park improvements was $102.6 million. That's a better number, giving more headroom for thinking big in terms of possible Arch/riverfront improvements.)
The students presented a wide range of ideas about how to improve the Arch and riverfront. Restoring connectivity was a theme throughout their presentations. Results of their work will be made available to the public on a blog in the near future.
Our new president-elect has stated that among his plans to rebuild our economy will be the prioritization of public works projects. Professor Krieger stated that one of the requirements of a successful waterfront revitalization program is support through a regional mandate. Michael Allen at Ecology of Absence makes the case that President-elect Obama may be one of the most urban friendly presidents in 50 years.
Another blogger writes about St. Louis as "Confluence City". Are we possibly at a crossroads where our region, our national agenda, and efforts to revitalize the connections between downtown and the river can be leveraged into a regional development agenda?
With so much potential and focus on our riverfront, the Arch, the national effort to restore the economy, and our city's overall ongoing renewal, think of the case we might make for this effort as a demonstration project on various local and national priorities. That's a case statement waiting to be written.
The Mansion House complex was built near the time of Arch construction, back in the mid-1960s. It's a three tower complex, with each tower now under separate management. One serves as a hotel and the other two as apartment buildings, Gentry's Landing and Mansion House. Within the complex there are a number of related service buildings, some for retail, others for office or community space.
The charette was held in one of the community/office spaces, a 3 or 4 story building directly facing the Arch and riverfront. With good reason, the building was generously loaned to the AIA for the charette by the owners of Mansion House. If future improvements happen around the Arch, it can only mean good things for downtown property owners. They are "deep stakeholders" in this effort.
Owners of this building should be concerned. According to charette organizers, the building has not had a tenant for over 21 years. Knocking on the door of 50, I know personally how the years can add up pretty fast. In this building, the bathrooms and elevators no longer work. Nonetheless, to the casual observer (given that most people see it through a windshield at upwards of 50 miles an hour) the building still looks pretty good. There could have been no more ideal setting for this charette.
This building not only offers commanding views of the Arch and grounds, but also a panoramic view of the highway barrier dividing downtown from the riverfront, Arch, and Laclede's Landing. Counting shoulders, traffic lanes, raised concrete barriers and viaduct walls, the expanse between downtown's front row of buildings and the Arch and riverfront uses is equal to about 16 traffic lanes.
For the charette, the students were divided into seven teams. Each team had architecture, art and traffic engineering students represented. Based on the diversity of presentations, the teams were given broad latitude in developing their ideas.
One team followed closely Professor Krieger's "Mind the Gap" principle, prioritizing the edges of the Arch grounds, connecting them to their neighboring uses. On the north side, they proposed replacing the underground garage with a dramatic new use, with a wall of steel and glass facing the Eads Bridge and Laclede's Landing. It could possibly house a new museum or other major attraction, drawing visitors from the Laclede's Landing, Lumiere Casino, and Washington Avenue areas.
Along the southern edge, where concrete pillars support the Poplar Street Bridge and its ramp connections to Interstate 70, Memorial Drive, and Interstate 44, they proposed a concrete garden, to green the area and soften the transition to Chouteau's Landing.
On the western edge, where the Arch faces downtown, they proposed reworking Interstate 70, the depressed lanes, and Memorial Drive. They recommended removing the interstate, filling in the depressed lanes, and creating a new, local circulation system. They envision a trolley loop connecting with downtown, new retail uses and sidewalk cafes facing the Arch, and a cobblestone road, remembering back to the original days of the St. Louis riverfront. What would such an improvement mean for the vacant Mansion House building?
One team suggested multiple bridges connecting downtown across the interstate and Memorial Drive. These bridges would provide varying view angles of the Arch. Another team made the analogy that while Forest Park is the "back yard" of St. Louis, the Arch is the front yard, suggesting that the region place equal priority to improving its front yard as its back yard. Recent improvements to Forest Park have transformed Forest Park into a regional jewel. The price tag for the Forest Park improvement effort was about $50 million.
(Note: a commentor notes the actual cost of Forest Park improvements was $102.6 million. That's a better number, giving more headroom for thinking big in terms of possible Arch/riverfront improvements.)
The students presented a wide range of ideas about how to improve the Arch and riverfront. Restoring connectivity was a theme throughout their presentations. Results of their work will be made available to the public on a blog in the near future.
Our new president-elect has stated that among his plans to rebuild our economy will be the prioritization of public works projects. Professor Krieger stated that one of the requirements of a successful waterfront revitalization program is support through a regional mandate. Michael Allen at Ecology of Absence makes the case that President-elect Obama may be one of the most urban friendly presidents in 50 years.
Another blogger writes about St. Louis as "Confluence City". Are we possibly at a crossroads where our region, our national agenda, and efforts to revitalize the connections between downtown and the river can be leveraged into a regional development agenda?
With so much potential and focus on our riverfront, the Arch, the national effort to restore the economy, and our city's overall ongoing renewal, think of the case we might make for this effort as a demonstration project on various local and national priorities. That's a case statement waiting to be written.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Keynote Speaker Challenges Arch Planners
For those wondering whether the design charette for the future of the Arch and riverfront in downtown St. Louis would be a “think big” effort, based on last night’s keynote presentation, they should be encouraged.
Alex Krieger, professor or architecture at Harvard University, and principal in the firm Chan, Krieger, and Sieniewicz, opened the design charette with an hour long presentation highlighting dramatic riverfront transformation projects from around the world. Chan Krieger has been directly involved with a number of these.
Krieger showed slides of current and planned projects where underutilized waterfront areas are being restored as beautiful and vibrant centers of activity. His practice has developed a number of principles to guide the redevelopment of waterfront areas. He challenged the participants in this weekend's Arch/riverfront design charette to consider these principles as they develop their design concepts.
Chan Krieger's ten principles of waterfront planning are as follows:
1. Waterfronts change over time. They can evolve from old industrial, to recreation, to desirable neighborhood.
2. The aura of a city resides along the waterfront.
3. People have a natural instinct to preserve and reinvent waterfronts. Those that reinvent have been more successful than those trying to preserve.
4. Mind the gaps (places that separate the city from the waterfront, like our depressed lanes or blockages from obsolete structures).
5. Downtown waterfront revitalization is the best antidote to generic development.
6. Successful urban waterfronts must be a desirable place to live.
7. The public demands access to the water.
8. The appeal of landside developments are intrinsically linked to the appeal of the waterfront.
9. Prioritize the role of perpendicular corridors, such as city streets, connecting to the waterfront.
10. Waterfronts are the umbilical chords which connect people to nature.
Krieger noted that in St. Louis, our challenge is three-fold. Not only is our waterfront a challenge, but the “lawn” (Arch grounds) is too wide, and the first couple of blocks of our downtown next to the Arch/riverfront are not appealing. Krieger is challenging designers to look beyond the limits of the immediate riverfront and Arch grounds.
Krieger noted that waterfront revitalization projects have the opportunity to be "catalytic, watershed" projects. He gave examples of many projects opening up new areas for residential, recreational, and commercial development.
The most dramatic images Krieger presented were of waterfront revitalization efforts in Seoul, Shanghai, Dallas, Boston, New Orleans, and Montreal. The efforts in these cities provide examples of the possible. Kreiger noted that a regional mandate is required for a successful, long range waterfront revitalization effort.
Shanghai Before:
Shanghai After:
Krieger is thinking big. Applying the prinicples laid out last night, St. Louis should be looking far beyond the four corners of the Arch grounds, and thinking how to reposition it's riverfront from Chouteau's Landing north to the new Mississippi River Bridge, incorporating trails, perpendicular connections to the city street grid, and multiple points of interest and human activity. Krieger's visions are long term, connecting multiple generations.
With the old power station north of downtown, LaClede's Landing, the Arch site, and emerging Chouteau's Landing neighborhood, St. Louis has the physical assets. Our challenge is how will we use them.
The public is invited to attend parts of this weekend's charette. Tonight at 6:30 pm, Steinberg Auditorium on the Washington University campus, there is a panel discussion with local experts discussing the history and future of the Arch and riverfront. This Sunday, from noon - 4 pm at the Mansion House, participants in the charette will present their concepts for the future of the Arch, downtown, and riverfront.
Some examples from Chan Krieger's riverfront planning work:
Trinity River in Dallas
Anacostia Waterfront in Washington, DC
Pittsburgh, PA
Alex Krieger, professor or architecture at Harvard University, and principal in the firm Chan, Krieger, and Sieniewicz, opened the design charette with an hour long presentation highlighting dramatic riverfront transformation projects from around the world. Chan Krieger has been directly involved with a number of these.
Krieger showed slides of current and planned projects where underutilized waterfront areas are being restored as beautiful and vibrant centers of activity. His practice has developed a number of principles to guide the redevelopment of waterfront areas. He challenged the participants in this weekend's Arch/riverfront design charette to consider these principles as they develop their design concepts.
Chan Krieger's ten principles of waterfront planning are as follows:
1. Waterfronts change over time. They can evolve from old industrial, to recreation, to desirable neighborhood.
2. The aura of a city resides along the waterfront.
3. People have a natural instinct to preserve and reinvent waterfronts. Those that reinvent have been more successful than those trying to preserve.
4. Mind the gaps (places that separate the city from the waterfront, like our depressed lanes or blockages from obsolete structures).
5. Downtown waterfront revitalization is the best antidote to generic development.
6. Successful urban waterfronts must be a desirable place to live.
7. The public demands access to the water.
8. The appeal of landside developments are intrinsically linked to the appeal of the waterfront.
9. Prioritize the role of perpendicular corridors, such as city streets, connecting to the waterfront.
10. Waterfronts are the umbilical chords which connect people to nature.
Krieger noted that in St. Louis, our challenge is three-fold. Not only is our waterfront a challenge, but the “lawn” (Arch grounds) is too wide, and the first couple of blocks of our downtown next to the Arch/riverfront are not appealing. Krieger is challenging designers to look beyond the limits of the immediate riverfront and Arch grounds.
Krieger noted that waterfront revitalization projects have the opportunity to be "catalytic, watershed" projects. He gave examples of many projects opening up new areas for residential, recreational, and commercial development.
The most dramatic images Krieger presented were of waterfront revitalization efforts in Seoul, Shanghai, Dallas, Boston, New Orleans, and Montreal. The efforts in these cities provide examples of the possible. Kreiger noted that a regional mandate is required for a successful, long range waterfront revitalization effort.
Shanghai Before:
Shanghai After:
Krieger is thinking big. Applying the prinicples laid out last night, St. Louis should be looking far beyond the four corners of the Arch grounds, and thinking how to reposition it's riverfront from Chouteau's Landing north to the new Mississippi River Bridge, incorporating trails, perpendicular connections to the city street grid, and multiple points of interest and human activity. Krieger's visions are long term, connecting multiple generations.
With the old power station north of downtown, LaClede's Landing, the Arch site, and emerging Chouteau's Landing neighborhood, St. Louis has the physical assets. Our challenge is how will we use them.
The public is invited to attend parts of this weekend's charette. Tonight at 6:30 pm, Steinberg Auditorium on the Washington University campus, there is a panel discussion with local experts discussing the history and future of the Arch and riverfront. This Sunday, from noon - 4 pm at the Mansion House, participants in the charette will present their concepts for the future of the Arch, downtown, and riverfront.
Some examples from Chan Krieger's riverfront planning work:
Trinity River in Dallas
Anacostia Waterfront in Washington, DC
Pittsburgh, PA
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Time for light rail expansion in STL City?
With Metro suffering voting setbacks in St. Charles County and now St. Louis County, maybe people in St. Louis City should start exploring ways to extend rail service within the city limits?
If routes travelled twin loops through main corridors north, south and central, we could get every city resident within a mile or so of a train stop. Everyone could be within walking distance, connecting all parts of the city.
Are there other places in the US with recently installed light rail systems that primarily focus on serving the urban core of the region? I don't know. What I do know is that as a convert to riding light rail, I'd sure like a system that could get me all over town.
If routes travelled twin loops through main corridors north, south and central, we could get every city resident within a mile or so of a train stop. Everyone could be within walking distance, connecting all parts of the city.
Are there other places in the US with recently installed light rail systems that primarily focus on serving the urban core of the region? I don't know. What I do know is that as a convert to riding light rail, I'd sure like a system that could get me all over town.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Arch Design Charette November 6 - 9 at Mansion House
Students from across the midwest will be participating this week in a design charette for the future of the Arch site. The public is invited to attend this Sunday from noon - 4:00 pm.
Details available here.
Details available here.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Advice on How to Spend $3.92 Billion
"Stabilizing Neighborhoods by Addressing Abandoned and Foreclosed Properties"
Good read published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The article addresses many of the concerns faced by neighborhood development advocates in the St. Louis region.
Good read published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The article addresses many of the concerns faced by neighborhood development advocates in the St. Louis region.
Helping Build the Grass Roots
In this election season, there's lots of talk of getting out the vote: organizing people, and working the grass roots. But what about the other grass roots? The ones under our feet? It's always a good time to be thinking about how to empower them.
Halloween on our block is a great tradition. We close the street with a block party permit; lots of people decorate their houses; and, we get over 200 kids through for trick or treating. One of our neighbors, a young couple with young kids, is raising the bar in terms of yard care.
Before Halloween, he raked all his leaves and swept the sidewalk. So, maybe in an expression of a little positive peer pressure, three or four of us immediate neighbors all followed suit. Well, okay, I didn't sweep the sidewalk.
Afterwards, I walked over to compliment him on how nice his yard looked. His lawn is perfect, which is quite a feat on our block. We have one of those tree canopied blocks. A neighborhood lady some sixty years ago went around and made sure every house had a street tree. So now, we enjoy great shade, but, it's hard to grow a nice lawn under all that shade.
Somehow, a few neighbors still manage. This fall, our new neighbor with the great lawn, had his lawn aerated with a gas powered aerator. He overseeded and fertilized; and, this week, his lawn is growing and bright green. It's a thing of beauty. Wouldn't it be great if every lawn on this shady street was so nice? How could we make that happen? Apply block science.
We do lots of things on our block as neighbors. There's a block captain; we have a block wide email loop; we have a block party; kids play together; adults socialize, we share ladders and other tools; and, have a great Halloween. We look out for one another. All of these things improve the quality of life. So, just maybe, working together, we could green up everyone's lawn?
Home Depot rents aerators. Our lawns are not big, so in about 20 minutes, we could knock out a lawn. At a rate of 3 per hour, with the 50 or so houses on the block, in one weekend, we'd have the job done. Aerator's rent for about $80 a day. For the weekend, that works out to less than $5 per house on our block.
We'd need to line up workers, with shifts and that. But think about it. Group aerating, group fertilizing, group seeding, watering across property lines, covering for the elderly or physically challenged, we could make it work. We could have the best lawns in the city. This is a project that we could do! This is a project we should do!
Halloween on our block is a great tradition. We close the street with a block party permit; lots of people decorate their houses; and, we get over 200 kids through for trick or treating. One of our neighbors, a young couple with young kids, is raising the bar in terms of yard care.
Before Halloween, he raked all his leaves and swept the sidewalk. So, maybe in an expression of a little positive peer pressure, three or four of us immediate neighbors all followed suit. Well, okay, I didn't sweep the sidewalk.
Afterwards, I walked over to compliment him on how nice his yard looked. His lawn is perfect, which is quite a feat on our block. We have one of those tree canopied blocks. A neighborhood lady some sixty years ago went around and made sure every house had a street tree. So now, we enjoy great shade, but, it's hard to grow a nice lawn under all that shade.
Somehow, a few neighbors still manage. This fall, our new neighbor with the great lawn, had his lawn aerated with a gas powered aerator. He overseeded and fertilized; and, this week, his lawn is growing and bright green. It's a thing of beauty. Wouldn't it be great if every lawn on this shady street was so nice? How could we make that happen? Apply block science.
We do lots of things on our block as neighbors. There's a block captain; we have a block wide email loop; we have a block party; kids play together; adults socialize, we share ladders and other tools; and, have a great Halloween. We look out for one another. All of these things improve the quality of life. So, just maybe, working together, we could green up everyone's lawn?
Home Depot rents aerators. Our lawns are not big, so in about 20 minutes, we could knock out a lawn. At a rate of 3 per hour, with the 50 or so houses on the block, in one weekend, we'd have the job done. Aerator's rent for about $80 a day. For the weekend, that works out to less than $5 per house on our block.
We'd need to line up workers, with shifts and that. But think about it. Group aerating, group fertilizing, group seeding, watering across property lines, covering for the elderly or physically challenged, we could make it work. We could have the best lawns in the city. This is a project that we could do! This is a project we should do!
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