Sign the Wall to Let the City & BJC Know We Want to Keep Forest Park Intact
It looks like many groups are organizing in opposition to the city’s deal to lease part of Forest Park to BJC, allowing for construction above ground. One group is planning a demonstration each weekend:
PRESS RELEASE
‘The Signing Wall’ will be here every week-end for people to come and sign, until a final decision is made by the Protectors of Forest Park and the Mayor, Darlene Green and Jim Shrewsbury.
We hope the number of participants will grow, as more people gather, who are opposed to any loss of Forest Park. We hope you will come and sign ‘The Wall’.
Across from Barnes Hospital, above the underground garage. 3:00pm til 6:00pm
The silent protest; with yard signs, letters to the Editor, blog comments, websites and news articles by the media have done a great job exposing the proposal..
It is time to be seen and heard.
Vocal demonstration at 5:00pm
‘The Wall’ is a gathering place to conjoin resources and energy. To unite enmasse, on common ground.
There will be a vocal demonstration at 5:00pm; all are invited to join in.
We hope, publicity will be the key the opposition needs, to trash this proposal and agree, collectively,
Forest Park will be Forever, Always.
Never an amputation.
Sincerely,
The Neighbors of BJC
Indeed it is Mayor Slay, Comptroller Darlene Green and Board President Jim Shrewsbury that will make the final decision. To date both Green and Shrewsbury have been vocal in their questioning the deal while not outright rejecting the concept. If you haven’t told each of them yet how you feel, now is the time to act. Below are links to their email forms as well as their office phone numbers.
Mayor Slay, (314) 622-3201
Comptroller Darlene Green, (314) 622-4389
President Jim Shrewsbury, (314) 622-3287
It wouldn’t hurt to contact the folks over at Forest Park Forever to let them know you want to keep the park intact as well.
Another group out there is the Citizens to Protect Forest Park. You’ve probably seen their green & white yard signs saying in bold letters, “Our park is NOT for sale.” Their website is protectforestpark.org. Another website on the topic is CWE Greenspace.
We do have an issue with how to fund the on-going maintenance of Forest Park. The last thing we want to do is have gone through 10+ years of work and planning and millions of dollars just to see it deteriorate in the same amount of time. The solution is not a secret deal to lease well-used park land for construction, at least not until alternatives have been publicly discussed and ruled out. Leasing this land to BJC should be a last resort measure, not a first step.
– Steve
Steve, I think you’re on the wrong side of this one. In addition to providing funds for the maintainance of the park, it allows a valuable and responsible corporate citizen room to expand. BJC has already invested tens of millions of dollars in the FPSE neighborhood, how much should we expect of them? All park amenities will be replaced elsewhere, the upshot of this deal seems great compared to the small appendage of park land we’d be losing. Can you find anectdotal evidence of those who use the park? Sure. But how small of a group of people are we going to allow to stand in the way of this deal?
I would encourage people to use the above links to email your support for the deal.
Where do we get money like this to maintain the park if this deal is kybosh’d?
[REPLY We as a community look for solutions to our current problems. We may, after exhausting other options, accept the idea of leasing this land. It should be a last resort not our first option. – SLP]
Steve,
You said it was a “secret deal”. It’s not a secret deal. It’s been out in the open for quite some time now. All of these sorts of things begin with a smaller group.
You also wrote that “we, as a community look for solutions”. That’s exactly what’s happening.
There is a committee of the Board of Aldermen, new appraisals on the table, much news coverage, and the Board of E and A, our elected representatives, charged with making this decision.
It looks like a win-win situation for city residents. Forest Park might get millions in maintenance dollars for a couple of generations, and our elected leaders will be viewed in their leadership roles.
[ REPLY A secret deal was crafted by BJC’s lawyers over a year period before it become public at the very last minute. The community is not seeking solutions, we are scrambling to avert a bad deal before it is a done deal.
What should have happened is the city shoudl have said, “We cannot afford to maintain Forest Park. We need additional revenues to cover the expense. What are your thoughts.” The BJC lease “solution” could have come out of that but perhaps, if we’d had a year or so to work on a solution, something better could have been found.
What happens is a bad deal is made and folks are given weeks to respond. Then the politicos say something like, “if you don’t have a better solution…” They take 12+ months on a solution to a problem we don’t know exists and then we are expected to come up with a better, more workable, solution in a matter of weeks. – SLP]
We were given more than weeks to solve this. Going through the Post-Dispatch archives, it’s been almost three months since the proposal was put on the table, and the city has yet to give a final thumbs up/down on the matter. And for all the kvetching about it, I’ve yet to see anyone stand up and seriously pitch any alternatives. The “ProtectForestPark.org” site you linked certainly doesn’t suggest much. Their yard signs are factually correct, however; the park isn’t for sale. It’s for lease.
If it were, as you paint it, a secret backroom deal with no time to respond, they’d have railroaded it through by Memorial Day.
If the issue at hand is that there’s no other playground in the immediate area, BJC/WU have piles of land in the area, and I understand they just got demolition permits for some decrepit buildings. Let them build a neighborhood playground on one of those lots.
Thank you for the email contacts; I am going to write them in support of this proposal so that an already existing lease can be leveraged to provide funding for the city that doesn’t have to come from taxes.
Should BJC put a building up on the land in question, I would also encourage anyone who opposes this to back this up by pledging not to seek medical treatment at that facility. Because, after all, you didn’t want it to be there!
[REPLY Oh please, sure it has been longer now simply because people objected. He nobody objected it would have been cramed through in a manner of weeks.
The mayor and BJC don’t want this to be about alternatives as that might potentially mess up the deal they’ve been working on for 15+ months now. No, they are trying to keep the focus on the particulars so that we are only debating the fine points.
Again, this may well be the best solution. It is hard to say and so much energy has been spent just trying to put a stop long enough to figure out if any alternatives exist. This is not how we should be problem solving in our city. This process shows a serious lack of leadership on the part of Slay and his team. – SLP]
I wouldn’t sign the petition, simply because I think it could be a good deal. I think they should be able to get more money from BJC though.
Count me as one of those who doesn’t think this is such a bad deal. I don’t know if the $ figures are right, but I think it’s one of the more creative things that the city has done to try and better manage (short and long-term) one of its crown jewels and ensure its future viability.
Has anyone done a use survey of that little postage stamp of Forest Park beyond anecdotal stories? How many people would really use that small square if not for the hospital and its staff and visitors?
Most people in St. Louis, before this deal, had no idea that was even a part of Forest Park. It’s not for sale. It’s a 99 year? lease.
And out of it, we’ll get something like half of the money needed to maintain Forest Park with all of its improvements? I have a hard time seeing how this is a bad deal. “Slippery slope” arguments don’t count.
[REPLY – First of all, 12 acres is hardly postage stamp size, we have many neighborhood parks considerably smaller. And no, a useage survey was not done — that was something I suggested when this whole thing became public. I did my own informal survey and found the park in use by many at various times during the week and weekend, primarily by non-hospital related folks. How can we even consider getting rid of 12 acres of park land without knowing who uses the park, when they use it and where they are coming from? – SLP]
This is crazy.
Get some perspective folks.
Forest Park is over 1,000 acres.
BJC has committed to replace the lost tennis courts and playgrounds someplace else.
The city will get around $2,000,000 per year to maintain Forest Park.
BJC will expand, further enhancing our world class medical community status.
No one’s mentioned it, but it sounds like this BJC expansion might bring a thousand or more jobs to the city. Can you say “increased earnings taxes”?
If the plans call for new high rise construction, then we become more urban. Already, the wall of buildings along the east side of Kingshighway enhances the urban park feel of Forest Park. More buildings walling in Forest Park will make it feel like more of an urban oasis.
I say build it, and build it BIG!
[REPLY Yes, Forest Park is big. But over the years it has gotten smaller as we took a big chunk for the highway and an increasing number of parking lots.
However, this park feels separate from Forest Park — that is a reason to keep it. Being on the east side of Kingshighway it is easily accessible to those east.
But what is the rush? Let’s get the full plan figured out before signing this 90 year lease. Which reminds me, that $2 million per year may sound great today but in just 25-30 years that will be a pittance compared to the park’s maintenance costs. As park improvements age the maintenance will rise exponentially higher than inflation.
This BJC plan is a short term gain for the city and a long term gain for BJC. – SLP]
I enjoy your site. But please stop spreading the misinformation that the lease price does not increase over time.
The lease payment includes an escalator tied to the CPI, which kicks in when and if BJC begins building on the site.
Have you heard about one of the “solutions” offered by those opposing the deal? Charge admission at the entrances to the park.
[REPLY Thanks for reading but I take exception to the “misinformation” label. I believe maintenance costs will get higher and higher, having nothing to do with the CPI. Furthermore, I was one of the first to publicly state the lease should be adjusted for inflation.
The process is still what bothers me. Say I were to suddenly become mayor and I would secretly craft a new zoning code without any input from the citizens. I then spring it on them and say, “well, what are your alternatives.” That folks is not leadership and it is not going to get St. Louis where we need to be.
Admission to the park? I’ll personally endorse the BJC lease before I’d go for that.
If we can ever get to an open discussion about where to find park land to serve those east of Kingshighway, where the amenities will be located and the what and how of BJC’s building plans then I’ll feel comfortable knowing the full picture. As it is we simply do not know enough to make a rational decision. – SLP]
A Place of Honor for a black man.
Richard C. Hudlin Tennis Courts
Tennis coach, to the great Arthur Ashe who won the Wimbledon singles and the World Championship singles in 1975.
Would you want a place of honor dedicated to you to disappear or be downsized and moved to an isolated area?
Steve, you hit the nail on the head with your last statement. The process has not allowed the public to understand the reasoning behind it. This appears to be another example of the short-term thinking and corporate appeasement that permeates our city government.
The lease provides a simple, partial solution to a very complex problem. The payments provide approximately 1/3 of the funds necessary to maintain the Park, and do not augment the City’s committment to do so. The escalator kicks in, as Anon noted above, in 10 years or when BJC begins construction. Therefore, the money loses up to 30% of its value to the park.
The serious solutions to these problems are those that have been proposed in the past–adding the Park to the ZMD, for example. The Mayor has proposed a new sales tax for recreation centers and programs–why not for Forest Park? Have these options been considered? We don’t know.
BJC is an important member of the community, and a major property owner in the area. Why can’t BJC build a new medical facility on the 25+ acres that they and Wash U control within two blocks of the site? We don’t know.
Finally, while the deal may technically be a lease, it gives a private entity unfettered use of public lands for 99 years. Is that not in effect a sale? In the City’s apparent desperation to attract business and baby boomers, is it unreasonable to think that other “underutilized” neighborhood parks might be ceded to development? We don’t know, do we?