Urban Buildings Have an Obligation to Engage Each Street They Face

In an urban setting it is critical for buildings to “engage” the street.  By street I mean the entire public right of way, not just the road.  In other words, the public sidewalk on each side of the roadway.  By engage I mean interact, have access points & windows.

Downtown’s Holiday Inn Select was built in 1980 next door to the three year old Cervantes Convention Center (now called America’s Center). It occupies the entire block bounded by 9th of the east, Convention Plaza (formerly Delmar) on the south, 10th on the west and Dr. Martin Luther King Dr (formerly Franklin Ave) on the north.

The building fronts onto four streets but only barely addresses ninth, behind a circle drive.

Sure, a relic of the period. But we have nothing on the books to prevent more of the same. The purpose of zoning is to dictate what the community desires from the built environment. From our zoning the above is still desired.

Our Board of Aldermen have no desire to change the zoning to articulate what is desired in 2011 rather than 1980. Why? So they get to negotiate for their approval, of course.

– Steve Patterson

Suburban Office Park Buildings Don’t Belong Downtown

The building on the NW corner of 10th & Convention Plaza (formerly Delmar) is better suited for a suburban office park.

The mirrored glass, generic design, parking out front (39 spaces) was commonplace in 1987, the year the building was built.  Located one block north of Washington Ave., this building is a good example of how wrong we went in downtown St. Louis.

When built the convention center, one block east, was just 10 years old.  Convention Plaza led to the entrance at the time, the entry was pushed out to Washington Ave in the early 1990s.

This building, once considered the future, is now part of one horrible suburban pocket adjacent to the good part of downtown.  This building will be 25 years old next year but I can’t see the owners planning a new skin or something to infill the large corner parking lot.  Without a strong effort to fix past mistakes, this section of downtown will remain dead.

– Steve Patterson

Making A Setback Less Objectionable

In urbanized areas I like buildings to “hug” the public sidewalk, with active facades.  By active I mean numerous doors & windows, like you’d get with storefronts.  But not every area can support that many storefront spaces.  In the past buildings were often set back behind large blank plazas or surface parking.

The Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes-Jewish College is an example of new thinking about how to build in an urban context where storefront spaces just don’t work and where some public outdoor space may be desirable.  Just a block from the busiest MetroLink station in our system, pedestrians are a sure thing.

The building is open at the corner of Taylor & Duncan but it does extend to both sidewalks away from the corner.  Parking is placed on the back sides, not between the building & sidewalk.

Pedestrians approaching this building have several options on where to enter.  None require the pedestrian to walk in a driveway designed for automobiles.

To recap how to make a setback less objectionable:

1. Extend part of the building to each public sidewalk
2. Extend building line with a low fence
3. Do not place parking or driveways between the public sidewalk and building
4. Provide multiple routes for pedestrians to enter the building

– Steve Patterson

Remembering The “Revolutionary” Max Starkloff

On Tuesday I attended the visitation for Max Starkloff.

Max Starkloff lived in a nursing home on a hill outside St. Louis from the time he was 26 until he turned 38. The day after he moved out, he did something he knew he couldn’t do and stay in a nursing home: He got married.  (NPR – recommended)

I forgot that my friend & Tower Grove East resident, Christian Saller, is the nephew of Starkloff. The following were his remarks at the funeral Mass:

It’s impossible to summarize anyone you love in 2 or 3 minutes. In the case of my Uncle Max, it is especially difficult to adequately express my admiration for his character and extraordinary understanding.

He recently objected to being characterized as a “super hero”, but it’s difficult to avoid the term when speaking of a man whose dedication and tenacity were heroic.

From the time I was a small child, I always saw my Uncle Max as a person with a strength and dignity all his own. Like other truly strong people, he was kind and generously shared his spirit. When I looked at his paintings I saw him: bold, alive, a formidable force.

He has also been referred to as an activist, but this is as insufficient as any other label. I think a better term for his life and legacy is revolutionary. Activists may add a lot to a discussion, but revolutionaries start the conversation and exert fundamental change. My Uncle Max’s cultural revolution continues.

His work and advocacy were not a bid for accommodation or sympathy, but for recognition that a society that limits opportunity and justice for any of its members ultimately denies itself the full measure of its own potential. He made people understand that. Like other transformational leaders, he made his life a lasting gift we can never imagine not having.

I never knew he spent 12 years in a nursing home before he turned 38 years old!  It was the times, thankfully they have changed.  Instead of spending the next 35 years there he had a wife, three kids, and a career – a normal life basically.

Something like 80% of those who are disabled were not born disabled.  Something happened.  For Max Starkloff it was an accident at age 21 when he crashed his Austin Healey.  Each of you will know someone in your lifetime that will become disabled. Everyday I’m grateful for the work of Max & Colleen Starkloff.

Thank you Christian for sharing your remarks.

– Steve Patterson

Brentwood Finally Addressing Poor Pedestrian Connections

A friend sent me a link to this alert issued by the City of Brentwood on December 1, 2010:

Brentwood Pedestrian & Transit Improvement Project
The design phase of the Brentwood Pedestrian & Transit Improvement Project is now underway. The City was awarded $664,000 in federal transportation enhancement funding for the project through a competitive grant program administered by East West Gateway Council of Governments. The City of Brentwood selected two engineering firms, CDG Engineers and Crawford Bunte Brammeier, through a competitive bid process to design two miles of new sidewalks connecting the Brentwood MetroLink station to area shopping centers and employers. The new sidewalk starts in the Brentwood Pointe (Dierbergs) shopping center and will continue south along Hanley Industrial Court, providing safe pedestrian access to the south entrance of the Brentwood Promenade. It then connects with the existing sidewalk on Strassner Drive by Memorial Park. The design phase is scheduled for completion by the end of September, 2011. Construction will start in 2012.

I’m glad I saved a PDF of the alert on the 7th, by the 9th it was gone:

But onto the actual issue, connecting the Brentwood MetroLink station to adjacent retail.  I’ve experienced all the retail in this area as a motorist but on one day, 6/19/2008, I experienced it as a pedestrian. What a horrible experience it was too.  Did I get from the MetroLink platform to Trader Joe’s and back without getting struck & killed?  Obviously, but not getting hit by a car is not how you’d describe a good pedestrian environment.

The journey starts with the narrow & long path up to grade from the west MetroLink platform. At the top you see the grim reality of what the pedestrian will find at the top.

I got to to the Trader Joe’s in the next development but it was not an easy task. Below is an aerial showing the route (blue) from the MetroLink station on the right to Trader Joe’s

It was kind of a crazy route because I was trying to find a way other than just through a parking lot. You see on the day I made this trip I was still a few weeks away from driving again post-stroke.  Transit and my power chair was my only option to reach Trader Joe’s.

I felt unsafe going to/from a store that is very close to expensive transit infrastructure.  I talked to a couple of lawyers that take ADA cases.  They liked the case but they didn’t have $30,000 to bring a suit.  I feel Brentwood was primarily responsible since they acquired the land for the developments.  When built next to the rail line they knew future plans called for a station.  The fact it wasn’t built to handle pedestrians is shameful.

The fact another $664,000 tax dollars needs to be spent to improve the area is frustrating. Why wasn’t this built better to begin with? Someone at Brentwood was asleep!  And this project only gets you to the edge, “providing safe pedestrian access to the south entrance of the Brentwood Promenade.”

Once at the south entrance you still cannot safely visit each merchant. Look for lots of money to be spent in the coming decades retrofitting pedestrian access where it should have been in the first place.  I’m not saying this shouldn’t be done now, it just should have been better planned so the best pedestrian route wasn’t the back way through an industrial park.

– Steve Patterson