Loughborough Commons Fails to Accommodate Pedestrians

No real surprise but the sprawl-centric new shopping center being constructed in the City of St. Louis lacks pedestrian connections. Loughborough Commons is the lowest form of development, suitable only for an auto-only exurb. Such clearly anti-urban development has no place in an established core of a region where pedestrians do exist.

And before the sprawl apologists tell me we need the sales tax revenue that Lowe’s and Schnuck’s will generate please read carefully:

It is entirely possible to construct sidewalks in and around big box stores. The big box and pedestrian access are not mutually exclusive. Just because you may not walk to the store does not mean we should prevent, by design, others from doing so. Got it?

But to developers like Desco the concept of pedestrians is completely foreign. Desco, if you will recall, is one of the developers that razed the historic Century Building in downtown St. Louis to construct a parking garage next door to the Old Post Office building. The argument was people using the Old Post Office needed an adjacent parking garage — they could not walk a block or two from numerous other garages or MetroLink. And if you take a look at many of the Schnuck’s they’ve built all over the region you’ll see pretty much the same thing — zero planning for pedestrians.

Using the same decades-old development formula in various sprawl areas is hard to question. With the various areas of suburbia being so isolated from each other by design it is virtually impossible to walk anywhere except in circles within your gated subdivision. But more urban areas are different. And this is another of those places where people get confused. Urban does not necessarily mean 6-story buildings in a gritty neighborhood. Urban generally means a grid pattern of interconnected streets that affords a high level of pedestrian access and multiple route choices. In this regard, much of suburban communities such as Ferguson, Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Maplewood, Alton, Edwardsville and Belleville are “urban.” While technically suburbs they do not, at least in their older areas, invoke the images of suburbia/sprawl. Downtown Webster Groves is more urban than Chesterfield.

So, with older urban municipalities such as Maplewood around the city I personally expect the entire City of St. Louis to be urban in design. Again, this does not mean everything should be high-density housing. Many areas can and should remain as single family and 2-family housing types. The area adjacent to Loughborough Commons is primarily single family homes but it is still very urban in nature — gridded streets that are all connected and walkable (the complete opposite of sprawl which has few access points and numerous streets that end).

Within a mile radius of Loughborough Commons we have over 7,000 households and nearly 17,000 people. That is quite urban relative to our sprawl areas. Granted, people aren’t to walk a mile but they will walk a quarter of a mile. That would still place several thousand people within walking distance of the development. Do we, as a society, really expect someone that can see the project to get in their car and drive to it?

So am I just bitching after the fact? Well, yes and no. I bitched beforehand as well. In fact, I attended and spoke out at the public meeting held on January 25, 2005. This meeting was a bit of a farce. The intention was not to get feedback to create a better project but a chance for Desco and Ald. Villa to say they went to the public. It was a cover your ass meeting. In addition to speaking publicly at the meeting I also talked one on one with Ald Villa and with a representative from Desco’s engineering consultant. Disingenuous claims of “we can’t show sidewalks at this scale of drawing” were said to give me the brush off. However, as I pointed out, they were able to show the thickness of the curb and parking lot strips — they could show sidewalks. The real issue is they didn’t plan any sidewalks. None. Zip. Nada. Not even along Loughborough and Grand where they would be removing existing sidewalks!

Again, this is the lowest form of design. The only way to make it any lower would be if the buildings were constructed only out of concrete blocks or faced with vinyl siding. Desco is basically scraping the bottom of the urban design barrel with Loughborough Commons. Are we as a city and region that desperate for new construction that we are not willing to insist that developers raise their standards just a tad? I’m not saying require a high-density mixed-used project (although that would have been great) but simply to allow a neighbor to walk from their home to the grocery store on a sidewalk. Is that really too much to require? Instead, this neighbor seeking a few items will either have to drive or walk in grass or in the entrances used by cars, SUVS and trucks. Schnuck’s claims to be the friendliest stores in town but walking to them is anything but friendly.

This view is looking south from the new main entrance on Loughborough. The new Schnuck’s is down the hill but as you can see they’ve already planted grass next to the entrance. Pedestrians must walk in the drive or on the grass.

The curb cut does show provision for a sidewalk along Loughborough, something not even shown on their original drawings in January 2005. I suppose they assume that people just wander around on main streets but don’t actually walk to destinations such as a friendly neighborhood grocery store.

Turning to the west we see the curb cut in the foreground for the sidewalk running along Loughborough although at this point it is not clear which side of the massive traffic signal controller the sidewalk will take. My hope is the sidewalk will go to the left so that it is set back from the curb and traffic. This would allow for street trees to be planted, although developments like this usually don’t like trees as they tend to block views of the buildings. The curve of the plantings suggests the sidewalk will be pushed out toward the street and to the right of the traffic control device.

The massive pile of dirt is where homes once stood. I certainly hope a stack of dirt is not the highest and best use of this land.

This is a view of the other entrance to the project, off of South Grand. It should be noted that Grand south of the park and Loughborough is a very residential street — much different than most of Grand.

This is the most convenient entrance to the hundreds of people living immediately adjacent to this project and as you can see the Lowe’s is actually quite close so walking is not unreasonable. However, no provisions have been made for any pedestrians at this entrance — no curb cuts in the new entrance. No sidewalks for pedestrians.

We as a city should be embarrassed that we’ve allowed such a project to be built without even minimal (token) accommodations for pedestrian access. If we want to be a strong urban core city we’ve got to start acting like it at some point.

Prior Posts:

January 25, 2005 (Initial Public Meeting)
June 4, 2005 (Construction Begins)
September 27, 2005 (Alternate Development from Atlanta)
October 4, 2005 (A more Urban Lowe’s with rooftop parking)

– Steve