Alderman Seeks to Vacate Street Grid for Bottle District
Ald. April Ford-Griffin (D-5th Ward) will introduce Board Bill 247 tomorrow which would further erode our street grid. Here is the bill’s summary:
An ordinance recommended by the Board of Public Service to vacate public surface rights for vehicle, equestrian and pedestrian travel in 1) Biddle: 7th to Broadway, 2) Carr: 7th to Broadway, 3) Sixth: O’Fallon to Cole, 4) O’Fallon: 7th to 6th, 5) 20 feet wide north/south alley in City Block 557 as bounded by O’Fallon, 6th, Biddle and 7th in the City of St. Louis, Missouri, as hereinafter described, in accordance with Charter authority, and in conformity with Section l4 of Article XXI of the Charter and imposing certain conditions on such vacation.
This is unacceptable. Many developers say they can’t develop a parcel at a time, that they need to assemble larger parcels. Fine, but must they take away our streets in the process? These developers own five and a half city blocks, why must they remove the street grid as well? If you cannot produce a good urban project on nearly six blocks of contiguous land you need to go back to the drawing board. [See Google Map]
In reviewing the various drawings for an editorial I did in the West End Word I saw they will have a 6th Street — actually called 6th on the drawings. In looking through the legal language of the bill it looks as though the city will still retain the ground — we’d just be vacating the “surface” rights. This gives the developer the ability to remove the public street and control what does back. They cannot, however, build upon this land unless another bill were to go further and actually give them the land.
The problem here is we are taking a public street and making it a private street. So while the new 6th Street may have some visual appearance of a public street it will not be. It will be under the control of the management of the Bottle District, just as Westfield controls the food court at a suburban mall.
We need to keep our public streets public. Let them develop all the real estate around the public streets. Work on some public financing to make necessary capital improvements to the streets and sidewalks . But do not turn over control of our public streets to private corporations!
I ask that you all contact April Ford-Griffin and ask her to look at keeping these streets public. I’d also let Streets, Traffic and Refuse Committee Chair Freeman Bosley Sr. if you are not keen on our public streets being turned over to private entities.
Funny, just a few blocks northwest one can see another example of a Fifth Ward street closure, on 14th Street. Anyone who has seen the result there would never want to close a street in this ward again.
Then again, if these streets are not closed just north of the closed streets of America’s Center, how else will the near north side be effectively walled off from downtown?
Oh, yes — the bridge ramps.
Better to be safe and go for all of the barriers, though. Never know when one of those pesky pedestrians might make it through the gauntlet.
Excuse me but I can’t understand how anyone could think this is good. What good urban examples are they basing this idea on? None that I can possibly think of. This is simply another age old attempt at suburbanization of the city. You would think we would have learned by now. This is going to be St Louis Center Two, or just like any other of the number of larg scale urban projects that were designed to be separated from the urban fabric.
I’m a bit confused. Are they closing off these streets, or just taking control of them? In other words, will they still be thru streets?
I agree the privatization of public space is problematic, but this is already an area pretty isolated from the street grid.
Both O’Fallon and Carr have long been closed off from access to N. Broadway; the north end of N. 6th just north of O’Fallon is similarly barricaded. The only through street access lost will be on Biddle.
Biddle is kind of a lost cause anyway since it long ago succumbed to urban renewal a bit west of here. It became a pedestrian mall between 8th and 11th as a result of the Cochran Gardens, Columbus Square, and Father Filipiac Park developments. And it’s closed to traffic between Hadley and North Tucker.
I keep wondering what will become of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, on the now prime real estate at 7th and Cole. Will that be sold to the Bottle District developers? I’ve already heard it is slated for closure. Ironically, it was built in the early 1980s to replace the Shrine of St. Joseph, which former parishioners and others rallied to preserve.
It’s not my neighborhood, so I’m neither invested in nor excited by the issue. I understand the philosophical arguments and support many of them. However, given its urban context (pretty isolated already on the east and south) and the fact that the city will maintain control of the utility easements, the end result will likely be urban in feel, if not totally “public” in access. Bottom line, it sounds like a fair tradeoff for a needed redevelopment project.
Isn’t The Bottle District a dead project?
“Isn’t The Bottle District a dead project?”
If it is still supposed to be anything like any of the plans I have heard and read about, I hope so.
“”Isn’t The Bottle District a dead project?”
If it is still supposed to be anything like any of the plans I have heard and read about, I hope so.”
’tis a silly place.
“Isn’t The Bottle District a dead project?”
No, that is the Chouteau Pond project.
Oh wait…it was never alive to begin with.
What is so appalling about a street being privately owned? This has already been done in many cities. Many casinos in Vegas own the sidewalks adjacent to their buildings. The Morman Church in SLC owns the street next to it. The city sold them the land with an easement for pedestrians. The city of St. Louis could easily give the developers the streets but add an easement for vehicle and pedestrian traffic, etc.
This is a good thing because the developers will be able to do what works best to attract people. For those who think of the city government of some sainted street guardian, why don’t you go and take a look at the 14th street mall or drive down MLK or any other blighted commercial area and notice all of the parking meters in front of the vacant storefronts. The truth is that the city has different priorities than the businesses. They only care about revenue. Everytime I want to take the half hour drive to eat at Crown Candy, I have to make sure I have change so I can park. It is ridiculous that the city is sqeezing every penny it can from one sole business on that block!
Privatizing these streets I think will be vital to the success of the Bottle District if it is built. The example UR gave of “no skull caps allowed on the street” is great. Dress code gives the ability to sift out all potential delinquents living in the projects next door and homeless people as well. Not many are going to go to the BD if it is full of those types of people because they other safer (percieved or real) alternatives.
“City streets work best when fronted by multiple property owners and thus multiple stores, see the Loop.” Basically, I agree. But, duh, one owner owns all the land here, including both sides of the streets they want vacated. Vacating or not vacating won’t affect ownership or significantly impact the development direction, especially in the short term. The only way to force urban “messiness” would be to force divestiture to unrelated entities as a condition for vacation, and that ain’t gonna happen (nor would it make much real sense if you to see this tough projevt move forward) . . .
“I agree the privatization of public space is problematic, but this is already an area pretty isolated from the street grid.”
“It’s not my neighborhood, so I’m neither invested in nor excited by the issue.”
“the end result will likely be urban in feel, if not totally “public” in access. Bottom line, it sounds like a fair tradeoff for a needed redevelopment project”
While I haven’t had time to study the development in question, I do grow weary of hearing these same justifications over and over again. Here in the City, we have little besides public space and a richly constructed urban fabric. Parochialism and “practical” thinking help to make the City more and more like the suburbs where many of us have deliberately chosen not to live.
How much more do we have to “trade off”? What happens if we all adopt this attitude of “courtesy”?
Unfortunately, the trade-off in much of St. Louis is working with developers on projects of varying (dubious to excellent) merit OR simply “standing on the sidelines” watching vacant and decaying structures continue their slow decline. And, even more unfortunately, the development community has become very adept at playing this game, getting both design and financial concessions from our elected “leaders”, many of whom are narrowly focused on new taxes and new developments, assuming that one or both will “turn things around”!
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