Poll: Should Preservation Review be Citywide or Continue Ward-by-Ward?

The city of St. Louis is divided into 28 wards and each alderman has authority over his/her ward, the city as a whole be damned.

As the above map show, eight of the twenty-eight wards are excluded from the city’s other  Preservation Review Districts:

Any demolition application in a Preservation Review District will be referred by the Building Division to the Cultural Resources Office for review. No demolition permit may be issued without the approval of the Office.

Criteria for Review:

The Office will consider these criteria in making its determination:

• redevelopment plans passed by ordinance;
• the building’s architectural quality;
• its structural condition;
• the demolition’s effect on its neighborhood;
• the building’s potential for reuse;
• urban design factors;
• any proposed subsequent construction;
• any commonly-controlled property.

So in 30% of the city buildings can be razed without any review by the staff hired to protect our cultural history. There are some exceptions, such as the 7th ward. It appears the CBD does have preservation review and other parts of the ward would be reviewed as part of of a National Register historic district. The same thing occurs in parts of the other seven non-review wards. Forget Team Four, lack of preservation review in six north side wards has done great damage.

But ward boundaries change this year due to redistricting. Preservation Review districts don’t automatically change, these must also be changed with new legislation.  That is, unless it was simplified and covered the entire city. Here is an example of the description of one of twenty districts:

PRESERVATION REVIEW DISTRICT THIRTEEN

Beginning at the intersection of the centerlines of Kingshighwayand Lindell, and proceeding in a generally clockwise direction east along the centerlines to Taylor, north to Maryland, east to Boyle, south to West Pine, east to Sarah, south to Laclede, east to Spring, south to Market, east to Grand, north to the Forest Park Parkway, east to Compton, south to Chouteau, west to Grand, south to Park, west to 39th, south to Blaine, west to Tower Grove, south to Interstate 44, west to Kingshighway, north to the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway tracks, west to Hampton, north to Manchester, west to Graham, north to Oakland, east to the southern prolongation of Euclid, north to Barnes Hospital Plaza, west to Kingshighway, and north to the point of beginning. (source)

Think of all the staff time to write new legislation, to alter the city’s property database.

My loft will go from being in the 6th ward to the 5th ward, from preservation review to non-review. The buildings above, in the block to the west of me,  will also go from 6th to 5th, will suddenly be at greater risk of being razed without public input once the preservation review districts are revised. The substation is on Landmark’s 2010 Most Endangered List.

All this is to introduce the poll question for this week: Should Preservation Review be Citywide or Continue Ward-by-Ward?  The poll is located in the upper right corner of the blog.

– Steve Patterson

Thirty Years Since the Hyatt Regency Crown Center Walkway Collapse

Tomorrow evening marks the 30th anniversary of the walkway collapse at the Hyatt Regency Crown Ceenter in Kansas City:

The Hyatt Regency hotel walkway collapse was a collapse of a walkway that occurred on July 17, 1981, in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, killing 114 people and injuring 216 others during a tea dance. At the time, it was the deadliest structural collapse in U.S. history.

On July 17, 1981, approximately 1,600 people gathered in the atrium to participate in and watch a dance competition. Dozens stood on the walkways. At 7:05 PM, the second-level walkway held approximately 40 people with more on the third and an additional 16 to 20 on the fourth level who watched the activities of crowd in the lobby below. The fourth floor bridge was suspended directly over the second floor bridge, with the third floor walkway offset several meters from the others. Construction difficulties resulted in a subtle but flawed design change that doubled the load on the connection between the fourth floor walkway support beams and the tie rods carrying the weight of both walkways. This new design was barely adequate to support the dead load weight of the structure itself, much less the added weight of the spectators. The connection failed and the fourth floor walkway collapsed onto the second floor and both walkways then fell to the lobby floor below, resulting in 111 immediate deaths and 216 injuries. Three additional victims died after being evacuated to hospitals making the total number of deaths 114 people. (Wikipedia)

A “subtle” design change resulted in the deaths of many people.

I started architecture school just four years after this accident occurred.  This tragedy, and others, were discussed over and over, especially in structures courses. More from Wikipedia:

Investigators, including David Tonneman (a respected engineering critic), concluded that the basic problem was a lack of proper communication between Jack D. Gillum and Associates, Christopher Willoughby (a University of Michigan engineering student at the time), and Havens Steel. In particular, the drawings prepared by Jack D. Gillum and Associates were only preliminary sketches but were interpreted by Havens as finalized drawings. Jack D. Gillum and Associates failed to review the initial design thoroughly, and accepted Havens’ proposed plan without performing basic calculations that would have revealed its serious intrinsic flaws — in particular, the doubling of the load on the fourth-floor beams.

The engineers employed by Jack D. Gillum and Associates who had approved the final drawings were convicted by the Missouri Board of Architects, Professional Engineers, and Land Surveyors of gross negligence, misconduct and unprofessional conduct in the practice of engineering; they all lost their engineering licenses in the states of Missouri and Texas and their membership with ASCE. While Jack D. Gillum and Associates itself was discharged of criminal negligence, it lost its license to be an engineering firm.

This Hyatt Regency was, and is, owned by a subsidiary of Hallmark.

Hallmark was the driving force behind the Crown Center redevelopment:

Before the First World War, Downtown Kansas City was heavily populated and bustling. The area today home to Crown Center was an extension of the Union Hill historic neighborhood. Gradually, however, the center of population for the metro area moved south, and by the Second World War the area today comprising Crown Center had become dilapidated. Although Hallmark had maintained its headquarters at 26th Street and Grand Avenue since 1922, the headquarters itself and nearby Union Station comprised the only non-slum in the area. Instead, what there was were old warehouses, used car lots, and vacant buildings.

In 1966, Donald J. Hall, Sr. became President and CEO of Hallmark Cards, taking over from his father, Joyce Hall. Joyce Hall had long wished to develop the area around the corporate headquarters, and with his new leadership Donald Hall quickly made it known that he wished to renew the area entirely. Hallmark quietly began acquiring all the property surrounding its headquarters, and consulted with urban planning experts about the possibility of creating an experimental “city within a city” on the property. The City of Kansas City formally approved the plans for Crown Center (named after the Hallmark corporate symbol) by the end of 1967. (Wikipedia)

Crown Center wasn’t Urban Renewal.  Instead it was an early example of an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_Cities_Program

To city planners, Crown Center is a mixed-use redevelopment, one of the earliest in the nation, on an 85-acre site adjacent to the international headquarters of Hallmark Cards, Inc. It has been a catalyst for change in the city’s urban core, replacing blight with quality working, living and entertainment facilities to breathe life back into the city.

Victor Gruen & Associates of Los Angeles developed the project’s original master plan, which was then modified and implemented by Edward Larrabee Barnes of New York. Crown Center was announced to the public in January 1967, and ground broke on September 16, 1968, for the first phase of the project – an underground parking facility, five-building office complex and landscaped central square. (PDF of Crown Center History)

Victor Gruen is the father of the shopping mall with the open-air Northland Center (1954), enclosed Southdale Mall (1956) and pedestrianization of a street with the Kalamazoo Mall (1959).  I’m not a fan of Gruen’s centralized designs.

I’m also not  a fan of Crown Center. I am a fan of making sure those who must be diligent to protect the safety of the public are checked and double checked.

– Steve Patterson

Brick Relief Sculpture Nearly Removed from Council Towers

A brick sculpture once covered the east facade of the 27-story Council Tower Senior building. Here is the description when the 5-building Council Plaza complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007:

A 250 foot relief sculpture was designed and created in brick by artists Saunders Schultz and William Severson, nationally known sculptors and is visible on the St. Louis skyline on the east elevation. The bas relief carving took 15 months to complete and used about 100,000 brick. The sculpture utilizes a series of abstract arch geometric designs representing, “man’s continual striving toward God.” The artists also designed a small fountain within the complex and a sculpture within the fountain, Catfish and Crystal.

For a picture with the relief sculpture intact see this post at Saint Louis Patina or earlier discussion at NextSTL. I’m saddened by the removal of this sculpture.

– Steve Patterson

Civic Space in Rock Hill Missouri

The Rock Hill Public Library is just down the street from the Rock Hill City Hall. Both are located in generic strip centers, with the library in the newer of the two.  One benefit is each is near food, the library has a pizza buffet next door while city hall is next to a chop suey place.

With the most important civic spaces in a municipality just a storefront among many it is no wonder they don’t care to save the historic 19th century church I posted about on Tuesday. How could I expect this community to value history, good design, or anything without a massive asphalt parking lot?

– Steve Patterson

Readers Want Ald Freeman Bosley Sr. Out of Office

Many people think Ald Freeman Bosley Sr. (D-3) has been a member of the Board of Aldermen longer than any other member. However, Phyllis Young & Fred Wessels hold that honor, both were first sworn in on April 16, 1985 (26 years!). Next is Joseph Roddy, first sworn in on March 11, 1988 (23 years!). Freeman Bosley Sr., and Terry Kennedy, were first sworn in on April 18, 1989 (22 years!).

In the poll last week readers picked the father of former mayor Freeman Bosley Jr. as the alderman they’d most like out of office. Where do I begin? Bosley’s plan for his 1/28th of the city has been tear down anything vacant more than a week. If not for the persistence of the staff at the city’s Cultural Resources office, and others, the third ward would have significantly fewer buildings.

As an example, Ald Bosley has mentioned for years about razing the beautiful library in Hyde Park with an IHOP.  I like eating at IHOP but I’m a bigger fan of the historic library.

In my first weeks of blogging I spoke at a Preservation Board meeting against the demolition of a historic church on North Grand that Bosley supported.  Thankfully they rejected the application and the church remains.

Here are the Top 10 vote getters in the poll, readers could pick up to five (those shown in bold are the ones I voted for):

1. 3) Freeman Bosley Sr. 75 [14.34%]
2. 19) Marlene E. Davis 60 [11.47%]
3. 6) Kacie Starr Triplett 40 [7.65%]
4. 7) Phyllis Young 38 [7.27%]
5. 5) April Ford-Griffin 34 [6.5%]
6. 20) Craig N. Schmid 32 [6.12%]
7. 1) Charles Troupe 28 [5.35%]
8. 18) Terry Kennedy 24 [4.59%]
9. 15) Jennifer Florida 22 [4.21%]
10. 9) Kenneth Ortmann 19 [3.63%]

The following are the remaining, in order.  In the case of a tie the software placed them in numerical/alphabetical order.

• 21) Antonio D. French 16 [3.06%]
• President Lewis Reed 15 [2.87%]
• All of them 14 [2.68%]
• 13) Fred Wessels 12 [2.29%]
• 17) Joseph D. Roddy 12 [2.29%]
• 8) Stephen Conway 11 [2.1%]
• 4) Samuel L. Moore 10 [1.91%]
• 28) Lyda Krewson 10 [1.91%]
• 11) Thomas Albert Villa 7 [1.34%]
• 27) Gregory Carter 7 [1.34%]
• 22) Jeffrey L. Boyd 6 [1.15%]
• 23) Joseph Vaccaro 6 [1.15%]
• 2) Dionne Flowers 5 [0.96%]
• 10) Joseph Vollmer 5 [0.96%]
• 12) Larry Arnowitz 4 [0.76%]
• 16) Donna Baringer 4 [0.76%]
• None of them 2 [0.38%]
• 14) Carol Howard 2 [0.38%]
• Unsure/no answer 1 [0.19%]
• 24) Scott Ogilvie 1 [0.19%]
• 25) Shane Cohn 1 [0.19%]
• 26) Frank Williamson 0 [0%]

No votes for Williamson? Someone I know didn’t vote then.

Clearly many of them don’t know when to make an exit.  Twenty-six years?  If we want them out we’ve got to make it happen by challenging them at the next election, recall or just being so critical of everything they finally give up and step aside so younger folks can take a shot at leadership.

Odd numbered wards, seven of the top ten, are up again in 2013. Start planning your campaign today!

– Steve Patterson