Gravois Plaza Less Pedestrian-Friendly than previous center

Gravois Plaza was completely rebuilt from the ground up in the last few years. The old shopping center dated to probably the 1960s and had an interesting courtyard space between a K-Mart and smaller stores. I can’t say it worked well – but it was different than most strip malls.

Basically, K-Mart got the boot in favor of a new Shop-N-Save grocery store. On the whole, the new Gravois Plaza is more attractive than the old. However, what we need to remember is almost anything new is apt to be better looking than something which is dated and poorly maintained. It is this newness that often masks underlying design flaws. Unfortunately, the new Gravois Plaza makes a number of big mistakes for an urban shopping area. First, check out the map link below to see the street pattern:

Map of
3861 Gravois Ave
St Louis, MO 63116-4657

Below is a photo looking East on Oleatha at Gravois Plaza – nothing but wall. The entire Western border of Gravois Plaza along Gustine remained unaltered from the old plaza – keeping the unfriendly wall.

Most of the housing around Gravois Plaza is to the West & North of the development. However, entrances from the West & North are not provided except at the extreme corners to the South & East. But, this is one of the better urban neighborhoods so people do walk to the store. Unfortunately, Gravois Plaza was not designed to be accessed by foot.

Walking along Gustine street along the west (above) the pedestrian is trapped between an overbearing wall and passing cars. Note, the sidewalk is right next to the street and you don’t have any parked cars or street trees to give you any feeling of protection.

Above is the Southwest entrance to Gravois Plaza, looking out across Gustine and down Tholozan. If you look closely you see the sidewalk continues along Gustine but doesn’t enter Gravois Plaza. The grass is worn where pedestrians have cut through to create the shortest walk. Let’s turn around and head toward the grocery store.

Above is what the pedestrian is faced with. You cross a large service drive for delivery trucks (where I am standing to take the picture) and ahead is a drive for CiCi’s Pizza. No sidewalk is provided so pedestrians must walk in the path of cars. Real inviting huh?

The view above is continuing into Gravois Plaza as seen from the drive to the CiCi’s Pizza. You can see in this view a pedestrian walking toward the store along the driveway.

Rounding the curve the Shop-N-Save comes into view. Here the pedestrian is forced to walk in the driveway again. But look close, the wrought iron fence designed to keep someone from falling down the change of level forces the pedestrian in the drive – they have no where to escape in case a car comes to close. Clearly, no thought was given to pedestrian access.

The photo above was taken at the same position as the prior picture. This view is looking West & South where we just came from. As you can see by the worn grass, pedestrians have been walking on the tiny strip of grass between the drive and retaining wall. In the background you can see a pedestrian leaving Gravois Plaza with two full bags of groceries – forced to walk in the drive and unable to see cars approaching from behind.

The view above is looking South from the Shop-N-Save with a US Bank branch in the background. Again, you can see how the fence keeps pedestrians in the driveway. Please note, the Bank and daycare center along Gravois were not part of the redevelopment – these remained unchanged.

I’m in this area 2-3 times per week and I have always seen pedestrians taking this unfriendly route. I guess one could take the attitude that people are walking anyway so what is the big deal. However, the message to people is clear – if you don’t have a car we really don’t give a shit about you. Sure, we don’t mind if you walk here to spend your money but don’t expect us to go out of our way to do anything for you.

In the meantime the parking lot is way too big and has so few trees it is almost comical. How is it TIF financing can be used to finance a project that is closed to the neighborhood to the West & North, is anti-pedestrian and is mostly paving? Our city must not have any codes requiring a connection to the neighborhood, pedestrian access and even something so basic as a reasonable level of landscaping.

The old Gravois Plaza, for all its faults, was more accessible to neighbors to the North. People could enter at Potomac & Gustine and enter the courtyard space. So while the new Gravois Plaza is cleaner and features a nice Shop-N-Save store it is less pedestrian-friendly than the old Gravois Plaza.

So what would I have done you ask? Well, I would have destroyed the wall along Gustine and connected the development to the neighborhood by regrading the site. To achieve a true connection to the surrounding neighborhoods I would have divided the site back into separate blocks divided by public streets. Hydraulic Street, the South entrance along Gravois, would be cut through all the way North to Potomac Street. Oleatha & Miami streets would be cut though between Gustine on the West to Bamberger on the East. This, of course, is completely counter to conventional thinking about shopping areas.

With all these new streets plenty of on-street parking could have been provided. Several small parking lots could be provided as necessary. Arguably, less total parking could have been provided as you’d have more people willing to walk from the adjacent neighborhoods. Ideally, some new housing would have been provided above some of the retail stores. Big Box stores like the Shop-N-Save have been integrated into more urban shopping areas in other cities – it takes a willingness on the part of the city to show developers & retailers the way. The smaller stores would easily fit within a new street-grid development.

A substantial amount of money was spend rebuilding Gravois Plaza but the area is not really a part of the city. It is a suburban shopping center imposed upon the city. This could have been so much more.

– Steve