Looking at the intersection of 8th & Walnut St it is easy to see why the sidewalks are so empty. Blanks walls, no street trees. Dead zone extraordinaire. Eventually the former Bowling Hall of Fame (far side) will be razed once Ballpark Village is completed. That could be 5-10 years away at the current rate. Will the replacement be any better? The garage destroys the corner anyway.
And virtually no cars. Just adding some on-street parking would be the quickest fix, and at least give the illusion of some street life in the interim.
And compete with those city-owned parking garages?! Plus, we gotta move those cars!
Realistically, this is another case of no there there. Adding meters, or even free parking, will only work if there is demand, aka something within walking distance. The other two corners have office buildings, one vacant, one occupied, with minimal street-level activity, that both face Market (the opposite direction). Until the Hall of Fame is replaced / reoccupied and BPV happens, on-street parking here would only be used during baseball games.
But if you want activity here, what if the Hall of Fame were replaced with an Apple store? It'd be about the right size, in a highly-visible location, close to mass transit (al Chicago). Hmmmm . . . . .
The parking situation in downtown borders on destructive. The obsession with parking has led to a large glut of spaces downtown. Take a look at the aerial photos of downtown and you won't see a single car on the roof deck of any garage, yet we are building even more garage space (St. Louis Center, Park Pacific, for example). How about intersections like 7th and Pine, with parking garages on three corners? None of this parking is economically sustainable, hence the need for public subsidy. Twenty years ago we had far more employees downtown and far less parking. And with all of this cheap parking downtown we can hardly expect public transit to succeed….
Is there a single intersection downtown east of Tucker that does not have at least one parking garage or surface lot? Often one on all four corners? It's to accommodate people who are downtown but don't want to walk in it and in many cases, probably wish they were not there in the first place. It used to amaze me what people reckoned as “proximate” parking; that typically meant RIGHT next door, preferably with no need to set foot on the sidewalk, or at most, across the street, ideally with the National Guard to see us in, night and day. Two blocks away? Forget it. That's too far…and I'm not, er, comfortable with that.
I agree. The real issue is the perception by the real estate community that to attract businesses downtown, plentiful (and usually free) parking needs to be available at the front door of every building, which results in massive (although mostly unused) garages connected by skywalks to adjacent buildings. Vibrant cities don't succumb to this logic. Those cities have an active street life, lots of pedestrians, which in turn supports street-level retail. I don't see how we plan to fill all of those vacant storefronts (many, ironically, located on the street level of parking garages) when we have deliberately removed pedestrians from the sidewalk. Our de-facto parking policy is ultimately destructive in creating the kind of vibrant, interesting downtown that we would all like to see. All because we believe that people will not walk a few blocks to their cars….
These downtown dead zones are absolutely embarrassing. This is where I could see the Arch plan making a difference by stirring up some development in areas like this.
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And virtually no cars. Just adding some on-street parking would be the quickest fix, and at least give the illusion of some street life in the interim.
And compete with those city-owned parking garages?! Plus, we gotta move those cars!
Realistically, this is another case of no there there. Adding meters, or even free parking, will only work if there is demand, aka something within walking distance. The other two corners have office buildings, one vacant, one occupied, with minimal street-level activity, that both face Market (the opposite direction). Until the Hall of Fame is replaced / reoccupied and BPV happens, on-street parking here would only be used during baseball games.
But if you want activity here, what if the Hall of Fame were replaced with an Apple store? It'd be about the right size, in a highly-visible location, close to mass transit (al Chicago). Hmmmm . . . . .
The parking situation in downtown borders on destructive. The obsession with parking has led to a large glut of spaces downtown. Take a look at the aerial photos of downtown and you won't see a single car on the roof deck of any garage, yet we are building even more garage space (St. Louis Center, Park Pacific, for example). How about intersections like 7th and Pine, with parking garages on three corners? None of this parking is economically sustainable, hence the need for public subsidy. Twenty years ago we had far more employees downtown and far less parking. And with all of this cheap parking downtown we can hardly expect public transit to succeed….
Is there a single intersection downtown east of Tucker that does not have at least one parking garage or surface lot? Often one on all four corners? It's to accommodate people who are downtown but don't want to walk in it and in many cases, probably wish they were not there in the first place. It used to amaze me what people reckoned as “proximate” parking; that typically meant RIGHT next door, preferably with no need to set foot on the sidewalk, or at most, across the street, ideally with the National Guard to see us in, night and day. Two blocks away? Forget it. That's too far…and I'm not, er, comfortable with that.
I agree. The real issue is the perception by the real estate community that to attract businesses downtown, plentiful (and usually free) parking needs to be available at the front door of every building, which results in massive (although mostly unused) garages connected by skywalks to adjacent buildings. Vibrant cities don't succumb to this logic. Those cities have an active street life, lots of pedestrians, which in turn supports street-level retail. I don't see how we plan to fill all of those vacant storefronts (many, ironically, located on the street level of parking garages) when we have deliberately removed pedestrians from the sidewalk. Our de-facto parking policy is ultimately destructive in creating the kind of vibrant, interesting downtown that we would all like to see. All because we believe that people will not walk a few blocks to their cars….
These downtown dead zones are absolutely embarrassing. This is where I could see the Arch plan making a difference by stirring up some development in areas like this.