Undoing a huge mistake from the 1980s
At 5:10pm Today a wrecking ball will take a swing at the 4-story pedestrian bridge over Washington Ave. The bridge, and it’s twin across Locust St, were certainly a mistake but the real mistake was the construction of an indoor mall downtown. The grand scheme to revitalize downtown by razing an entire city block between two large department stores to make a massive 3-block indoor shopping mecca was so amazingly flawed. The large blank walls of the pedestrian bridges distract from an entire city block razed and the land assembled into a monolithic mall.
“St. Louis Centre, built in 1985 for $95 million, was once the largest enclosed urban shopping center in the country with 120 stores and a food court with 20 restaurants. The mall has deteriorated in recent years and now only a handful of stores remain.” [St. Louis Business Journal 2007]
“In April 1981, [Mayor] Schoemehl hit the office running. He continued the work begun by his predecessor, Jim Conway, on the St. Louis Centre shopping mall downtown and pushed to completion the long-discussed St. Louis Union Station renovation.” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch 11/1/1992]
Some would say the city was just responding to the market, that retailers wanted to be in indoor malls so we had to build an indoor mall to attract those retailers. I don’t believe in chasing every trend in suburbia (malls, houses with front garages, etc) to attract that market. I believe in working toward the best urban public streets and spaces as possible and people will follow and the retailers will follow the people.
Older urban centers can’t — and shouldn’t — try to compete with new suburban areas on their terms — large parking lots, huge setbacks, etc. No, the urban core needs to provide an urban experience. Suburbia can build all the New Urbanist developments on greenfield sites or even retrofit a “downtown” into an once auto-centric suburb but they can never offer what an older core has to offer. The core tossing aside what makes it unique to capture a suburban audience is just foolish.
But St. Louis and nearly every other city in America did just that — ignored existing urbanism to chase the suburbanite. So we can take comfort knowing we were not alone — other cities were just as stupid as we were.
U.S. Bank is sponsoring a big street party tonight as the wrecking ball hits the bridge. The event is timed for live coverage on the local TV news. The bridge will take 3 weeks to remove so don’t expect to see down Washington Ave Saturday morning.
But what about the rest of the shuttered mall? Retail will finally face the direction it always should have — the sidewalk.
“When considering the future of vacant and underused space downtown, it is important to consider what I believe to be certain realities. Among these are the following: …. (2) Given the presence of world-class shopping at St. Louis Centre and Union Station, we cannot hope to fill all of the ground floor space downtown with retail shops.”
– Richard Ward in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch March 30, 1989
How times have changed! The spaces are not full and it will be many years before they are full but building the “largest enclosed urban shopping center in the country” set us back at least a decade if not more.
The upper levels of the mall will be occupied as well — by parked cars, not people. 750 cars I believe! These spaces will help keep some firms located downtown but we really must get a handle on our supply and demand of parking. To me our allowance of parking spaces is excessive except where it is really needed — on the street in front of sidewalk-level storefronts and restaurants. Those going to work for 8 hours shouldn’t park on the street just as those just hanging out downtown should be able to park on the street near their destination. Arriving at a street with zero on-street says “good luck parking” whereas arriving at a street with on-street parking spaces — even if full — says “this is a popular area.”
I’m glad we are finally at this point but we still have a long way to go to undo the many mistakes made over the last few decades. The “Bridge Bash” will be held on Washington Ave (7th-9th Streets) from 4pm to 7pm tonight.
– Steve Patterson
