St. Louis Cardinals Unveil [Model] Ballpark Village
Today the St. Louis Cardinals, The Cordish Company (developer) and the City of St. Louis announced an “agreement in principal” on the much debated Ballpark Village project. The Ballpark Village site is to be located where the old Busch Stadium was located from 1966-2005, currently the mud hole you see at right. To be fair, the new stadium just opened this year with the north facade facing us in this view just getting finished very recently. Clearly, considerable attention and work has gone into the future of the now vacant site. OK, we’ve established they have not been sitting around. What have they been up to?
First, lets get oriented. The view at right is taken from the posh branch office of The Cordish Company located on the 17th floor of the Bank of America tower at the NW corner of 8th & Walnut. The street in the left of the image is Walnut and 8th street is in the right. Clark Street now runs along the north side of the new stadium (Note: I am not sure if this is a “public” street or privately controlled street). At the far side of the image is Broadway in front of the horrible parking garage structure. In the bottom of the image is the roof of the Bowling Hall of Fame. Curving in front of the hall of fame is 7th street with one-way traffic heading north. It should be noted, all the streets mentioned are one-way with the sole exception of Clark.
Before the show got underway we see from left to right, Cardinal Senior VP Bill DeWitt III, and developers David Cordish & Chase Martin inspecting the covered model.
Once unveiled the model shows in great detail what they plan to construct. This internalized park is part of the picture.
This is among the professional images provided today. The view is looking east on Clark from 8th Street. Here is a good place to talk about one of the issues that is not yet resolved. Currently traffic coming from the south can head northbound on 7th Street which, at the stadium, merges in with 8th street heading south. If you recall from the existing image above the northbound traffic on 7th street bends around and finally connects with the original street grid of the city. At this point it is unclear what will happen to northbound traffic on 7th.
The choices for this traffic is to make 8th street two-way, divert east onto Clark and then through the new “village” to get to 7th northbound or make all traffic go west on Clark and then north on 9th.
If you recall from the downtown traffic study it was suggested that 8th, 11th (north of Market) and Walnut be changed from one-way to two-way. The issue, to date, has been the cost of the new signals to make the change. So, I can see this project helping get 8th two-way at least up to Market street. Also, Walnut will likely go two-way at this point as well. These changes will be welcomed.
This view is looking from the NW corner of the site back toward the SE corner of the site, across the internalized park area. They’ve been talking for some time about this “six block” area but no matter how you slice the pie it is still the same size. Originally this area was three city blocks — Broadway (aka 5th) to 8th being three blocks in the east-west direction and Clark to Walnut is a single block. It is three city blocks with some internal driveways that vaguely resemble public streets. Just as this is supposed to resemble a public park.
Putting aside my issues with respect to public vs. private streets, the scale and such is all quite nice. They’ve managed to avoid a number of common pitfalls such as neo-traditional architecture to add instant history, boring monolithic buildings such as those facing Market Street, and endless uniformity. The design is not perfect and not what I would have designed for the site but I’ve yet to see any real glaring anti-urban elements.
i do question how successful this project will be in the long term. In the near term, say 10+ years, it will be wildly popular. My fear is that beyond that it will begin to lose some of its luster. Cordish says they do not sell their projects and that they will continue to own, maintain and care for the project long into the future. I have no cause to doubt them. But, where is the buy-in for the public. For the rest of the city the residents all have a stake in their streets. Here it is like overlooking a mall, albeit a well detailed and outdoor mall. Still, the idea of this much outdoor space pretending to be public space just rubs me the wrong way.
The bright lights and the variety of signage is encouraging. Not so long ago it was thought in planning circles that uniformity of awnings and signs was a good thing but thankfully things have come full circle and it is now recognized we don’t want everything to be the same — even our chain restaurants and stores. Well, you expect the chain to have the same sign from location to location but you don’t want your Applebee’s having the same sign as your Chili’s.
The obligatory Arch view with Busch stadium in front and the new village lit up from behind. I don’t know if they will ask residents of the condo and office towers to leave their lights on or not. Somehow I don’t think it will be this bright.
This is a close up of one of the corners, not sure which. All of the architecture shown in the model and images is modern. Thankfully. The last thing I wanted to see is more fake historic. I’m not saying I mind it that much on the stadium itself but I just could not deal with more of it. It is wise for them to depart from that for this area. Cordish & DeWitt talked about the need for activity on non-game days which is quite true. The question is who will they attract and from where. Which brings us to the issue of taxes.
Mayor Slay said again today this will not involve our current tax revenues paying for this project. The only way to fund it is to buy something at one of the restaurants or shops, lease office space or buy/rent a condos. Those taxes within the project will be the public contribution. Except that some people will eat at the ESPN Zone restaurant rather than Hooters two blocks to the north. Or even Shannon’s across Walnut. Taxes will get diverted unless they can show that 100% of the money spent in ballpark village is not currently being spent within the City of St. Louis.
This, of course, they cannot prove. They did provide a two-pageoutline (pdf) of the project. I’ll let you look at the file and comment what you think of their take on the taxes and such.
And finally, here is Bill DeWitt III and Chase Martin explaining the project, the video is under under 7 minutes.
