Ballpark Village Phase One Started

In December 2009 I suggested the then-stalled Ballpark Village site should be broken up and built in phases rather than all at once, here’s a quote:

As big multi-block projects gets harder to finance and build as a single package we need to break it up into smaller pieces. Legal mechanisms exist to ensure the total vision will be realized once all the parcels have been built out. It might take 10-15 years by the time it is fully built out but great spaces and great spaces seldom happen at once.

We are close to four years of the site being vacant and we don’t know how many more years it will remain so. Had the site been platted as individual building sites we may have already seen a new structure or two in the area. (It takes a village, or does it?)

What did the Cardinals & Cordish announce  at Friday’s groundbreaking?

Phase one will have “two large buildings” facing Busch Stadium, one on each side of an entertainment space.

“The first phase will also include the construction; all of the streets, parking and infrastructure to support the remaining blocks of the project in future phases.  That means that in just over a year from now, this about this, in addition to having one hundred thousand square feet of  new retail and entertainment downtown, we will also have several very attractive pad-ready development sites. Ballpark Village will be a premier location for offices, entertainment and housing.” — stated at groundbreaking

This is how the site should’ve been planned all along! From the press release:

Ballpark Village will serve as an entertainment center for the region, attracting 6 million-plus visitors year-round. The $100 million first phase also includes all of the streets, parking and site infrastructure to support the future phases of the seven-block mixed-use project, allowing the city to market pad-ready sites ripe for development. The development team expects future phases of Ballpark Village to include additional retail and entertainment venues, as well as commercial office space and residential units.

Questions still remain about phase one, mostly around the street grid. Currently 8th Street (west edge) is one-way southbound (down) until Clark Ave. where it’s then two-way.

Hopefully 8th Street will become two-way all the way up to Washington Ave., but I doubt it.Will the new east-west street shown in the site plan be a public or private street?It should be public since the city is giving up 7th, a good chunk of real estate.

Phase One is scheduled to be completed by opening day 2014 (March 31?).

— Steve Patterson

Poll: Do You Identify With Any Particular Religion?

Fewer and fewer people are identifying themselves as being part of a recognized religion:

More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion – or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether. (Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life)

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life: U.S, Religious Landscape Study is interesting reading, to me at least.

Highlights in the report include

• Men are significantly more likely than women to claim no religious affiliation. Nearly one-in-five men say they have no formal religious affiliation, compared with roughly 13% of women.
• Among people who are married, nearly four-in-ten (37%) are married to a spouse with a different religious affiliation. (This figure includes Protestants who are married to another Protestant from a different denominational family, such as a Baptist who is married to a Methodist.) Hindus and Mormons are the most likely to be married (78% and 71%, respectively) and to be married to someone of the same religion (90% and 83%, respectively).
• Mormons and Muslims are the groups with the largest families; more than one-in-five Mormon adults and 15% of Muslim adults in the U.S. have three or more children living at home.
• The Midwest most closely resembles the religious makeup of the overall population. The South, by a wide margin, has the heaviest concentration of members of evangelical Protestant churches. The Northeast has the greatest concentration of Catholics, and the West has the largest proportion of unaffiliated people, including the largest proportion of atheists and agnostics.
• Of all the major racial and ethnic groups in the United States, black Americans are the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation. Even among those blacks who are unaffiliated, three-in-four belong to the “religious unaffiliated” category (that is, they say that religion is either somewhat or very important in their lives), compared with slightly more than one-third of the unaffiliated population overall.
• Nearly half of Hindus in the U.S., one-third of Jews and a quarter of Buddhists have obtained post-graduate education, compared with only about one-in-ten of the adult population overall. Hindus and Jews are also much more likely than other groups to report high income levels.
• People not affiliated with any particular religion stand out for their relative youth compared with other religious traditions. Among the unaffiliated, 31% are under age 30 and 71% are under age 50. Comparable numbers for the overall adult population are 20% and 59%, respectively.
• By contrast, members of mainline Protestant churches and Jews are older, on average, than members of other groups. Roughly half of Jews and members of mainline churches are age 50 and older, compared with approximately four-in-ten American adults overall.
• In sharp contrast to Islam and Hinduism, Buddhism in the U.S. is primarily made up of native-born adherents, whites and converts. Only one-in-three American Buddhists describe their race as Asian, while nearly three-in-four Buddhists say they are converts to Buddhism.
• Jehovah’s Witnesses have the lowest retention rate of any religious tradition. Only 37% of all those who say they were raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses still identify themselves as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
• Members of Baptist churches account for one-third of all Protestants and close to one-fifth of the total U.S. adult population. Baptists also account for nearly two-thirds of members of historically black Protestant churches.
  

This changing religious landscape, along with a huge drop in population, has left St. Louis with many vacant & underutilized churches.  More on this on Wednesday February 20th when I present the results of this week’s poll.

The poll asks how you identify, the options are:

1. Christian – Protestant
2. Christian – Catholic
3. Christian – Mormon
4. Christian – Jehovah’s Witness
5. Christian – Other
6. Jewish
7. Buddhist
8. Muslim
9. Hindu
10. Other
11. Unaffiliated – Atheist
12. Unaffiliated -Agnostic
13. Unaffiliated -Secular
14. Unaffiliated -Religious
15. Don’t Know/Rather Not Say

The poll is in the right sidebar.

— Steve Patterson

Unable To Use All MetroBus Stops

I have no problems using most of Metro’s bus stops using my power chair, bus there are exceptions that I can’t.

I’m a huge fan of on-street parking, the fixed cars provide a nice buffer between pedestrians and moving vehicles. Unfortunately, this buffer becomes a barrier to anyone that can’t just step out into the street when the bus comes.

I’m thinking most days vehicles aren’t parked here and I’d have no problem using this stop. If so, that means an entire lane sits empty except for when a bus has to use it to pickup or drop off a passenger. But when cars are here the stop is useless to disabled riders. The solution?

Allow on-street parking, set up meters and generate revenue. In the space that would have one car build out the sidewalk so disabled riders, seniors and others can reach the bus stopped briefly in the travel lane.

— Steve Patterson

Signs: Not Just For Blocking Sidewalks Anymore

Businesses have to attract customers to stay in business, I get that. I’ve written before about Shrinking Sidewalks where businesses place their sign directly  in the pedestrian route. Earlier this week the problem was moved to the crosswalk at 14th & Washington Ave.

This is the only time I’ve seen this sign in the crosswalk, later in the week it was on the sidewalk mostly out of the way. Hopefully it won’t be back in the crosswalk.

— Steve Patterson

Really Get A Life!

“Really get a life!” was a comment left on a imagine I posted to this blog’s Facebook page Monday afternoon, I was complaining at the offices of St. Louis Parking about them pushing snow off their private parking lot and subsequently blocking the public sidewalk. The photo got 19+ likes by Monday evening but “Yippee Skippee” felt differently:

I get such a comment every so often when I’m speaking out about what I feel is an injustice.  What is the meaning of such a comment?

“Get a life” is an idiom and catch phrase usually intended as a taunt, to indicate that the person being so addressed is devoting an inordinate amount of time to trivial or hopeless matters. (Wikipedia)

So basically Yippee is a bully that’s unwilling to use his real name on social media. Here is the pic he commented on.

Have a great day!

— Steve Patterson