Assumptions And Perspectives May Vary
Following my post on Sunday entitled ‘Festivus vs. Rams’ I had a very good face-to-face conversation with a friend of mine that happened to have a different take than I did on the benefit of the dome on downtown. In short, he argued the early 1990s dome and convention center expansion was positive.
Again, he is a friend and I value his opinions. It was a good conversation, one that you can’t get from short blog posts and the subsequent comments. What I got from our conversation was a much different view on things than I have but also a better understanding of how someone might conclude this makes a positive contribution.
His view in favor of the dome went something like this:
Before the dome was built the area was a dump.
Tony’s restaurant was isolated.
The bus station wasn’t attractive.
Much of the area was just surface parking lots.
The dome & expansion cleaned up the area and gave it some physical form beyond random buildings and surface lots.
Without the possibility of football the city never would have done anything with the area.
The last bit is the key to our different perspective. I’ve been arguing what could have been instead of an expanded convention center & football stadium while others, like my friend, are of the belief that if we didn’t build what we have now we never would have done anything with the area. So at the very least the dome is positive in that it was something. Both perspectives are valid, neither is right or wrong.
Yes, had the convention center and dome site been left as-is the downtown area wouldn’t be the same, or as positive. And I’ll even go along with the idea the area could very well be sitting there the same (or worse) today had we not expanded the convention center and built the dome. If that were indeed the case then the loft district and other improvements in downtown would not be where they are today.
But, this is all assuming A) the convention center and dome were the only alternatives for the area and B) that nothing else would have gotten built in the last 15 years.
So bear with me oh great Rams fans. Step back to the mid to late 80’s when Bill Bidwell wanted his own stadium or he’d pull the football Cardinals from St. Louis (as it in fact did). What if we would have built a stadium on the Pruitt-Igoe site then? What if we had put the football Cardinals in Metro East along what was then a future MetroLink route?
Stay with me on this…
With a football stadium added to the region near downtown the current convention center & dome site in the early 90’s would still have been a mess with Tony’s the only ray of hope. But we wouldn’t have spent a few extra hundred million losing a team and then spending eight years trying to get one back. That time lost and effort spent was costly. Not that it would have actually happened but humor me and wonder if the convention/dome area had been remade into a vibrant part of downtown — keep street grid, new shops & retail, new residential buildings, more restaurants to compliment Tony’s.
What’s done is done. We have the dome and convention center already. It is better than the nearly vacant mess that was there because it adds people to the area. But, I still think, in hindsight, the area could have made a much greater contribution to downtown. The purpose of this exercise is not to beat up the people that made the decisions in the 50’s-70’s to raze buildings for parking or to make those that enjoy a Rams game to feel guilty about the area. No, the purpose is to learn what have we done in the past and why. What can we learn from this to help us in future decisions?
I want us to expand our thinking when it comes to new projects.
In many respects I believe we are still in a 1950’s “urban renewal” mode of thinking — that everything must be located downtown; that we must create neat & tidy districts of narrowly defined uses; that everything needs parking; and that a few big events or venues is better than blocks and blocks of smaller activities.
St. Louis, prior to the 50’s, had shopping, entertainment and workplaces spread throughout the city. These were connected both by streetcars and roads for cars. Downtown was the center of activity but it wasn’t where everything had to be.
The fact we placed the symphony hall on Grand rather than downtown in 1968 is a very good thing. But trying to build an arts and entertainment district around it and the Fox is a bad thing. We should have art, entertainment, sports, retail, restaurants, residences, and workplaces everywhere — not just in districts. But I’m getting off track, I’ll have to come back to this another time.
My main thought is when I post about a project not being the best or most urban it is on the assumption that we could have done better. I now know that some of you will have the assumption that as least we did something. Maybe I’m being too optimistic (or naive)? But just maybe some of you are not giving the region enough credit for being able to rebuilt the core into a world class city.
– Steve
good post steve. the “building something is better than nothing” is a very st. louis mindset.
i think it stems from:
a) low civic self-esteem
b) a belief that “planned development” is somehow un-american.
I agree with some of the above comments.
However, we cannot go back to 1950 or 1960 and keep old buildings standing, we can only work with the hand that we are dealt.
Regarding entertainment districts, I don’t see what’s so wrong with them. On Grand, you have Powell, the Fox, the Grandel, Jazz at the Bistro and the Sheldon…in NY you have the Theater District, in London it’s the West End. I’m not saying that there can’t be places like the Roberts, the Pageant, Kiel Opera House (if it ever gets done) or the Loretta Hilton, but to me, having some concentration there on Grand is not a bad thing at all.
As far as downtown, it is the symbolic and financial hub of the region. Not all development has to take place downtown – but, it’s not a bad place to focus on. It’s where most visitors go…millions of sports fans converge on the area every year, and there’s still a fair amount of commercial activity. And it’s getting to be more and more of a mixed use environment, with shops and restaurants following the lofts.
We don’t have the kind of mass transit system at the moment that can support a more decentralized kind of neighborhood environment like a NY or SF. It’s too hard for people to get from place to place without driving. I’d love to be able to hop on public transportation and go from Grand Center to U-City to Soulard and home in one evening…but we’re not at that point.
[REPLY – We can learn from the vitality of earlier decades and we can try to keep good urban buildings from decades past.
The problem with districts is two fold. First, they can’t be forced. Putting up banners that say “arts district” just doesn’t make it so. Even if you manage to make something so narrowly focused it often is at the expense of other uses. The application of districts needs to be cautiously applied. – SLP]
We can certainly learn from the vitality of past decades, but a lot of the underpinnings that were in place then, are no longer – population, population density, public transportation vs. automobiles, concetration of employment, gender makeup of workforce, etc.
As far as districts, there is probably a fine line between “forcing” and “pushing/helping.” Wash Ave would not be where it is today without tax credits…ditto for Lafayette SQ. The reality is that business people will go where the money is. One can certainly debate the merits of what the Grand Ctr people are doing – but the reality is that there are other uses happening in that area in terms of housing, museums, etc that were not before. Creating Disney-esque areas that are manufactured should not be the goal – but having an area on Grand where venues as diverse as Off Ramp, Moolah Temple, The Black Rep, SLSO, Jazz & the Bistro, etc are located isn’t a bad thing IMO…
[REPLY – Just because the underpinnings don’t exist currently doesn’t mean they won’t return if you provide the proper framework. We’ll never duplicate the past exactly, nor should we. We must look forward. But we must do so after learning the hard lesson that planned large-scale destruction of a city just doesn’t work for people.
Yes, we agree that having venues is a good thing and sometimes you need a legal district for the purposes of having say a “taxing district.” I think we also agree on the forced disney-like districts being less than ideal. Tragically, I think elected officials and much of the general public think the disney district is a good thing. – SLP]
Maybe I scanned the blog post and comments too quickly, but it seems no one mentioned Union Market. Before this nearby amenity became just another hotel, I believe it was the other longest running public market in our City.
With proper renovation and marketing, I think Union Market could have become our version of Philadelphia’s downtown Reading Terminal Market, which also has rail transit and convention space surrounding it as well.
Fairly young (grew up in the County through the 80s to mid-90s), I never got to see Union Market or am sure of even when or how long ago it closed. Does anyone know its great history?