Busch Stadium Parking Garages Need to be Razed
There are ugly parking garages and then there are the twin garages known as Stadium East and Stadium West. These garages used to be on either side of Busch Stadium II (1966-2006).  They will bookend the East & West sides of Ballpark Village. Each occupies a full city block.
The design of these garages is worse than most downtown in that they lack any sidewalk level retail/restaurant space. The levels of the floors also prevent any such retail space being carved out of a corner or two.
The brutal design of the garages, their mass and blank walls deadens the sidewalks on all four sides. When Ballpark Village is done these garages will serve as they have for four decades — as barriers.
These garages need to go if we want any hope of sewing back together our downtown. At least the equally ugly Kiener Garages have retail/restaurant space at the sidewalk level making them marginally tolerable. These garages have no redeeming qualities.
Plans for Ballpark Village need to include razing these garages and the construction of new more sensitive parking wrapped by buildings. Eventually we can undo all the bad planning and bad structures done to downtown over the last half century. Nothing will bring back the nicely scaled buildings we lost — but we don’t have to keep these monstrosities around forever. Maybe if we get these garages on the National Register of Historic Places then our elected leaders and developers like Steve Stogel will want to raze them?
In theory, yes. But in the near term, the last thing we need are more vacant lots (especially ones that would cover entire city blocks) pockmarking downtown. The reality is that we have too much vacant ground downtown already and too few development plans (or a market to absorb them). Better to keep an appearance of viability than to try to recreate East St. Louis. When the market catches up, then we can think about replacing them with something more “sensitive”.
What about some sort of cosmetic change? For example, a darker hue to make it more compatible with the stadium? Certainly there is a way to make the garages somewhat fit better into the “theme†of the village. It does take a village ya know 🙂 I’m impressed that you are able to take all these shots of the City without getting any trash in the picture. Because truly that is a major disgrace that plagues the entire state…and a preventable one! Maybe it’s my Vermont upbringing but it is such a turn-off to visitors and residents alike.
You can’t tear down historic garages!
The car culture worships all garages, especially if they are easy to enter, exit and close to point B. You’re being sacrilegious, all those fans planning to use the barrier oriented New 64 see much redeeming value. The Lou is all about barriers, the more the merrier.
I have been going to Cardinals games my entire life and have never used these garages. I don’t know of a single person who has ever parked in one of these garages. To me its is part of the game experience to park a few blocks away and walk to the stadium. Its part of the fun to approach the stadium with the flood of red clad fans. Parking farther away also gives the oppritunity to grab a bite before the game and not pay for a $10 hot dog. Now I am sure there are lots of people who do use the garages or they wouldn’t be there. But speaking for me, my family, and all my friends, go ahead and tear them down. That will two less eyesores my kids will have to walk by on the way to the game as they enjoy the view of Lake Dewitt.
They’re hideous, but they’re very important to the Deloitte Building, the Equitable Building, 1010 Market Street, the Bank of America Plaza, etc.
And considering that the General American Building has a whopping TWO interior parking spots, Stadium West will be used by any future tenants there.
Isn’t the City building a new parking garage in that area? seems I read something about that recently …
At the bare minimum, even if we can’t all agree to reduce the number of parking spots the two garages provide, we must redesign or rebuild what we have now. They are ugly and cut the riverfront and Cupples Station off from the stadium and Ballpark Village. I’m open to possibilities, but the current ones cannot stay they way they are.
All in good time folks. I know downtown progress seems to move at a snails pace, but I hold out hope that the Ballpark will be a development magnet in the future, in which case these garages along with some other vacant lots will offer much development potential. Ideally, the spaces in either garage would be quickly replaced with both a garage on the useless tatoo park in downtown, inside of new buildings on each site, or underneath the Gateway mall.
I’ve parked in the garages – before I had a job in a building downtown that has a garage in the building. The garages were especially convenient for going to playoff games when my wife was 8 months pregnant, and for taking our infant son to games the following year. Not everyone is able to walk 4-5 blocks to a baseball game, and not everyone has easy access to Metrolink.
In addition, these garages are very crowded on weekdays with parking for the nearby office buildings. I parked in the West garage when I worked at the Bank of America building on Market Street.
I agree that they are eyesores, and wish that the Cardinals had put underground parking under the new stadium, but right now, I don’t think we can afford to lose them.
I also agree with Jim that the last thing we need is two more vacant blocks.
I parked in Stadium East for several years for work. A lot of people park in those garages. Those folks have to park somewhere. And no, they aren’t going to take public transportation if you take their spots away. It’s just not feasible (currently) for way too many people, myself included.
Also, the city garage is at Tucker & Clark. And it won’t be nearly as big as Stadium West.
Come on Steve: as bad as these garages might be, they can’t hold a candle to the most absolute butt-ugly garage of all, the one at the corner of 4th Street and Olive – redefining bad design for the 21st Century
The thing about surface parking and garages in downtown, it has become highly profitable as policies towards mass transit caused its demise, thus demolition of the profitable garages is hard to undertake. Certainly the whole area needs to be redefined, which brings up the whole point of city planning, that is to achieve larger goals supporting economics, city life and culture.
That is why the sculpture park in the mall is such an albatross. It is not because it is inherently bad, but because no public attempt to achieve broader goals in city planning has emerged.
Getting back to the garages, they too are part of this Gateway Mall, Ballpark Village, Arch grounds rethinking, except everything is happening peicemeal.
You don’t build great public squares or public spaces doing things piecemeal. It is a tremendous opportunity to kick start downtown and the city of St. Louis. But the opportunity to build a great downtown for the 21st century is being squandered for the piecemeal approach.
The piecemeal approach does allow for greater control. That is the word control. Development control equals big money for a few people, a few insiders.
Thus policy is controlled by small minded, money driven egos who think they are all.
The result is parking garages, which, as you rightly point out should be on the ground and replaced by something more people orientated. I would disagree with JZ however, I do think vacant lots would be an upgrade.
I agree that they should, in the long run, be replaced. But unfortunately I really don’t want to see anymore tax dollars going for such a project and we know that ultimately, they will.
But, BUT they certainly can be given a face lift. A fresh coat of paint with some nice trim paint will bring it from a 0 to a 6.
As a practical matter, I don’t think the Cardinals own the garages anymore. So I don’t think there’s any chance to tie them into Ballpark Village.
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In fact, I doubt there’s a government solution to the garages. These are probably two of the most profitable pieces of property downtown. They only way to get rid of them is to build
up the rest of downtown to the point where it makes no sense to leave these properties as mere garages.
As a practical matter, I don’t think the Cardinals own the garages anymore. So I don’t think there’s any chance to tie them into Ballpark Village.
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In fact, I doubt there’s a government solution to the garages. These are probably two of the most profitable pieces of property downtown. They only way to get rid of them is to build
up the rest of downtown to the point where it makes no sense to leave these properties as mere garages.
You are all forgetting the other important purpose these ugly garages serve…a urinal for the urban outdoorsmen.
Where would they go without them?
Nasty places. Raze them.
insert ground floor retail and reskin the facades.
they don’t have to be dead space.
there are better uses for the sites, but well designed parking can in fact be attractive.
sad, but not the sterile box so many are complacent with.
in the last decade there are lots of examples of structures or ramps that don’t ignore the street. and even offer something back to the street life.
Exactly, ex-stl, my thoughts exactly; as much as I don’t like the Kiener Garages, those two behemoths north of the Gateway Mall at least provide some semblance of an urban walkable environment. Like I said before, let’s keep the same number of spots, but rather redesign or rebuild the current ones to tie them into Ballpark Village (whenever that gets built).
They are most absolutely not urban. The Keiner Garages are disgusting both in form and concept. Demolishing viable buildings for the automobile is the antithesis of urban! It does not matter if there is a Hardees and if people eat in Keiner Plaza. If only we could demolish them all.
I agree I would like to see these garages gone…but I agree with Maurice and Otto, the garages are profitable and therefore aren’t going away until the owners see a more profitable use for the land. We need to build up downtown enough that the owners no longer see a garage as profitable and raze the structures so that retail and resedential can be built.
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I’m willing to bet many of the regular readers and posters of Urban Review STL, and myself, would like to see our beloved downtown St. Louis have the walkability and urbanity of a western European capitol city. I spent time in Madrid, Spain, and was amazed at how the downtown is so well built up that a parking garage is seen as a less profitable use than the type of development for which we all want here…mid-rise and high-rise buildings with 1-3 floors of commercial and several floors of resedential.
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Long story short, the garages in question are ugly, but they aren’t going anywhere until downtown is so well built that this land is needed for the uses we want to see. I can appreciate the people that would rather see an empty lot right now instead of a garage, but please pause for a second and think if we need more empty lots downtown.
Doug,
Don’t you drive everywhere?
Sorry, that came out wrong; what I meant, is that there is going to need to be some parking garages left in downtown St. Louis, even if it becomes an ideal urban environment. Even New York and Chicago have copious downtown parking options, with all of their mass transit.
Those garages are privately owned. Who would pay the tens of millions to buy them?
I think Dole has this the best and measured view of the the matter from an August, 2008 perspective. Our academic planning visions of our urban environment are obviously very strong and well-reasoned, especially in evaluation of the destruction unleashed by the recklessly indulgent urban renewal strategies of decades past, but visions and plans can’t replace lost revenue, and can’t possibly offer more to downtown vitality than a vacant lot. What would the vacant lot likely become prior to what none of us really knows about the eventual development at BPV site? A mudhole to rival the impressive muddiness that is the former site of Busch II? A sod-carpeted dog poop meadow? A surface parking lot one tenth the service capacity of the current garage? Our disdain for these horrible masses doesn’t diminish their utility while better plans emerge, and I can’t imagine that more vacancy is what will paint our downtown as an attractive picture to tourists visiting for All-star baseball games, the Arch, and other attractions.
Regarding urban parking garages and how they should be conceived and built, I believe most will agree that the form-based reasoning that understands the roles of certain functions in relationship TO the street, and how these functions shape the urban spaces OF the street should be how our city plans for its future. Wrapping the otherwise ugliness that is a parking facility is a no-brainer, and this (see link) San Diego project by Studio E architects remains one of my very favorite mixed-use buildings that responds appropriately to what should be expected of a ball park village. This building is in fact in San Diego’s own ball park village, within a few blocks of the ballfield. It’s a great precedent for city the scale of St. Louis, and its form takes advantage of the street layout as it is. See it here:
http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/multifamhousing/08_Fahrenheit/
Check out an aerial photo of the larger area (google maps, mapquest, terraserverusa, etc.). North of Chestnut the urban downtown of pre-1960 survives somewhat intact. In the string of blocks between Chestnut and Market, we have that wonderful, empty, linear “park”, of sorts. In the next string of blocks, between Market and Walnut, we mostly have a series of 1960’s and later office buildings that really don’t respect the streets. South of Walnut, and including these two structures, we morph into the typical downtown fringe, where more than half the land is devoted to surface parking and entertainment venues (Scottrade, Busch, etc.). Take the two garages away and you’ve killed any chance at urbanity, unless and until Cordish does something really urban with Ballpark Village (and based on what they do in other cities, they won’t).
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I don’t disagree, these are big, plain boxes, that store cars. But they also create bookends and containment for an area that would otherwise ooze away, from an urban design standpoint. On the blocks immediately to the east and the west, you have several buildings with plazas that don’t respect the street edge. Take the garages away, and without strong urban design leadership from the city, and the odds are good that whatever replaces them won’t be any better than what’s there now! In other words, be careful what you ask for!
If they could be incorporated into the eventual BPV spread, why would their immediate demolition make that eventuality any easier? I’m not sure I’m following your argument for immediate removal of the garages.
Your last sentence is rather ironic, considering it must be urban renewal of prior generations to which you refer, and I’d hope we’re not making that comparison simply because it proved possible to wipe out large swaths of urban existence. I know that you have the same contempt for urban renewal of the 1950s and 1960s that the rest of us do, but I’m still not following your argument. If the garages are not currently part of the BPV plan but probably should, through what course of action would the two garages be demolished? If the powers-that-be are not thinking about replacement, what can the powerless-that-be do in your envisioned timeframe to remove them? I, personally, would like to see all of the garages with no ground floor retail pulled down if they cannot accomodate the necessary alterations to render them acceptably urban. While I would obviously prefer to see people commute to the city via mass transit (however thinly served the city currently is, or how abundantly served it may be in the future) rather than drive private automobiles, this is not the reality. Garages are indeed fathoms better than surface parking, and so if they are included in the urban fabric, let them be built in a way that defers to the human activity of the street and rarely impose themselves otherwise. Parking garages can be designed to be esthetically pleasant if thoughtfully considered, and the small garage to the immediate west of the St. Louis Federal Reserve building on Broadway is such a garage. Even the garage that replaced the unfortunately lost Century Building puts architecture in front of stored cars, while providing street level retail space. The two ballpark garages are hideous, and appropriately reflect the often carelessness that was ‘modern’ architecture and planning following the destruction of urban renewal land clearance. I would HOPE that these garages are absorbed by new development surrounding the BPV, if not part of the BPV itself, but can’t easily see how their removal prior to known plans helps provide a better urban environment.
OK. Don’t get me wrong… I would not cry a tear if both garages burned to the ground in a hilariously synchronized dual lightning strike (yes, concrete is non-combustible but it’s still funny), and then we’d be forced to address the vacant spaces as they relate to the BPV. You gotta love those blue, steel angle screens draped over the facades.
Agreed, “new garages with street level retail/restaurant space would be a huge improvement.” IF, and that’s a big if, Cordish is willing to incorporate replacement parking in more urbane structures, either here or eleswhere in their project, then sure, plan on tearing these boxes down and replacing them, quickly, with something better. But this ain’t “build it and they will come” (or tear it down and new will be built) – too much of downtown is already pockmarked by vacant lots with surface parking (or less/worse) waiting for something to happen. And Cordish hasn’t created much confidence with their “progress” to date on BPV!
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Urban areas are defined as much by their background structures as they are by their signature projects. Suburbia is defined by surface parking. If we create more holes in our downtown, especially south of Market, we face the very real possibility that this area will morph into a suburban-feeling area (which may actually attract more suburbanites downtown). I’d love to see the CWE garage/library magically appear here too, but we face a very real economic reality, and we’re better off leaving something than reverting to nothing and hoping that something better will materialize.
Tear them down, along with Gateway One.
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