Car Illegally Parked Blocking Fire Hydrant

On the way to the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse a couple of weeks ago I stopped to photograph a car illegally parked on 11th Street at Market St.

This location on 11th Street is next to the Carnahan Courthouse:

The Carnahan Courthouse is the former federal courthouse building located at 1100-1114 Market Street in St. Louis. The Carnahan Courthouse provides office space and facilities for the Twenty-Second Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri. Additionally, the Carnahan Courthouse provides office space for the City of St. Louis Sheriff’s Department, the City of St. Louis Circuit Attorney, the City of St. Louis Circuit Clerk, the City of St. Louis Public Defender, the City of St. Louis Personnel Department, the City of St. Louis Internal Audit Department, and other City offices.

Many vehicles that park around the courthouse belong to those doing business inside. We have many spots downtown where parking isn’t allowed but it probably should be. But there’s no excuse for parking in front of a fire hydrant.

I’ll send a link to this post, as well as the plate number, to various officials. Hopefully parking enforcement isn’t afraid to ticket court officials who block fire hydrants.

— Steve Patterson

New Parking Payment Stations Finally Added To South Side of 11xx Block of Locust Street

Scaffolding next to the condemned parking garage at Tucker & Locust prevented the adjacent parking meters on the South side of Locust Street from being upgraded with the rest of downtown. Until last week, the old meters remained on the South side of Locust between 11th & Tucker (12th). The North side got new individual meters last year.

The other side of the street has new individual meters, not the multi-space pay stations added to the South. This is far from the only block that has both individual meters and multi-space pay stations. I guess having lots of one-way streets and streets that are closed for a block wasn’t confusing enough — now we have two different types of electronic payment machines to understand.

— Steve Patterson

Court Documents Shed Some Light On Condemned Parking Garage

For over a year I’ve been posting about the now-condemned parking garage at Tucker & Locust, it closed in the summer of 2014 for structural repairs:

• December 2014: Parking Garage Undergoing Time-Consuming Multi-Million Dollar Restoration; Businesses Closed, Jobs Lost
• April 2015: Parking Garage Repairs Halted, Emergency Structural Condemnation Issued
• July 2015: Car Hit Planters & Scaffolding Outside Condemned Parking Garage
• July 2015: Readers: New Building Should Replace Condemned Parking Garage

On March 9, 2015 CENTRAL PARKING SYSTEM OF MO, LLC sued TUCKER PARKING HOLDINGS LLC & TUCKER PARKING EQUITIES LLC, the two entities that own the garage, Case 1522-CC00532.  That same day Tucker et al countersued.

Later that month the court issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to prevent contractor Tarlton from removing the shoring and rented equipment with Tucker et al to pay invoices. “Rental, monitoring, and other shoring related expenses” for April 2015 through October 2015 totaled $894,479. Tucker et al didn’t pay and in November the exterior scaffolding was removed, the interior shoring remains to date.

Last month the court issued a judgment against Tucker et al for the original amount plus an additional $11k in interest for a total of $905,507.05. It’s unclear to me if Tarlton has been fully paid for their more labor-intensive work from July 2014 through March 2015. Regardless, if paid, it was likely in excess of $2,000,000.  Just before the judgment the city filed a motion to intervene, but withdrew it four days later.

Early this month a hearing for February 16th was cancelled. Court records & documents found at Missouri Court’s Case.net.

— Steve Patterson

Motorcycle Parking on Sidewalk

Last week I posted about buying a small 49cc Honda Metropolitan scooter a decade ago. Like a bicycle, it wasn’t required to be registered as a vehicle, often overlooked, and could be easily stolen.  As a result, I’d park it on the sidewalk -locked to something if I couldn’t watch it. But I also see very large motorcycles on sidewalks

Really?

I’m at a loss for why this is parked here, maybe no on-street parking spaces were free?   I’m open to hearing the reasons why registered motorcycles/scooters should be allowed to park on sidewalks.

— Steve Patterson

10th & Olive Parking Lot Loses One Entry; Fence Gains Height, Gate

It’s rare to see an owner of one of downtown’s many surface parking lots spend money making improvements, but for nearly a month now that has been the case at 10th & Olive.

Ideally, at some point in the future, this corner will once again have a multi-story building. In the meantime, these changes are welcomed — especially closing off the 10th Street entrance.  Would be nice to see one additional on-street parking space added where the driveway was.

— Steve Patterson