Massive Demolition List Makes Me Question Decade
Once again actions in this city lead me to wonder what decade we are in. This coming Monday the City’s Preservation Board will consider an application to demolish some 30 buildings in the Forest Park Southeast/The Grove neighborhood.
Michael Allen & Claire Nowak-Boyd from The Ecology of Absence have written a great piece on the subject as well as photographed all the buildings:
Forest West is the real estate arm of the Washington University Medical Center Redevelopment Corporation and acquired these buildings from negligent landlords like Jack Kraus. After a year of ownership and silence to the neighborhood about their intent, Forest West now emerges with a plan for demolition that would severely impact the neighborhood and may stunt efforts to rehabilitate its valuable historic buildings.
Rehab is going on in the area and many of these buildings look like good candidates for rehab. Are we in some weird 1950s world where massive demolition is thought to be a good thing for a city? Do I need to buy copies of Jane Jacob’s 1964 classic, The Death & Life of Great American Cities, for every alderman?
The alderman for the area is Joe Roddy. You will recall that he is willing to do what BJC’s lawyers want with respect to Forest Park because BJC is the largest employer in the city. So now comes Washington University asking for demo permits so I’m sure he just signed whatever letter of support they placed in front of him.
The Preservation Board meeting begins at 4pm on Monday April 24, 2006 at 1015 Locust, 12th Floor. If you come be sure to look for public notices from the LCRA and other board of the St. Louis Development Corporation.
– Steve
This is fucking insane, I am going to the meeting, what kind of bullshit!
I want this house:
http://www.eco-absence.org/stl/fpse/swan4429.jpg
Here’s my problem, the demolition is being proposed with no suggested redevelopment plan. That should never happen.
My feeling on demolition is mixed. I’m not a strict preservationist by any means, but I have this rule: Any proposed demolition should be replaced by a building of equal or greater architectural and urban design, respectful of the existing architecture in the area, and should share equal or greater potential for servicing the neighborhood (if the property was not residential). If the property had poor architectural merit, then the new development should be at least equal to or greater than the surrounding properties.
In this city, though, even my own rule makes me nervous when half the demolitions take place and then the origianl plan is never followed through… or their backwards definition of “better” would be “Lowes”.
One of the most depressing things, to me, in this city is going through neighborhoods or streets and seeing the ghosts of where houses or buildings used to stand. Delmar, east of the loop, for instance.
It should really be required by law that any demolition, unless for reasons other than immediate structural emergency or other impending threat to the residents, should have a plan in place for the property prior to demolition.
I may not have a problem with the demolition of these buildings if I saw plans for their replacement that were of equal or greater significance. However, until I do I will be against the demolition of these buildings.
I hope that the pro-density folks who have turned out for the Opus meetings will come to this meeting to protest this loss of density. It’s truly astounding that anyone would contemplate clearance projects like this nowadays.
I agree that you shouldn’t knock down tons of buildings without a redevelopment plan in place, but I have to say, other than 3-4 of those buildings, most of them aren’t worth a darn.
Most people would say that they are worth a few hundred thousand darns if they were located in Soulard or Fox Park…