Access to the Coronado

The Coronado is known to many of you.  The building sat vacant for many years until it was renovated into residences, offices and restaurants.  Located across from Saint Louis University at Lindell and Spring (map) it is in the center of the action.

Last month I went to the Coronado to try the new Chuy Arzola’s.  I couldn’t find on-street parking close enough for me so I drove around back to the parking garage.

The walk wasn’t short but it was shorter than anything I could have found on the street.  Part of the garage is reserved for building residents (right).  Guests drive in on a lower level and take the elevator to reach the walkway you see here.  I was walking but to a wheelchair user it is completely accessible.  Well, at least this part is.

Hmm, that curb just blows the accessibility.   I’m able to set up/down curbs but I like accessible routes because not having a curb to deal with reduces my risk of falling.  People using wheelchairs & mobility scooters are out of luck.  People using a walker may have a hard time stepping up.  There may have been a ramp somewhere in the vicinity but I didn’t see it.

The lesson here is you can have many items that are compliant but if the end to end route has one curb all the other efforts don’t really matter.

– Steve Patterson

Lisi’s Route: Saturday November 21, 2009 at 10am

Two weeks ago today I posted about incomplete sidewalks on Delmar in the two blocks West of Jefferson (map).

In late 2005, due to these incomplete sidewalks, Elizabeth “Lisi” Bansen was using her manual wheelchair in the road to travel the two blocks from the store to her apartment.  She was struck by a vehicle on Wednesday November 2, 2005.  She died a few days later.  In December 2007 I posted about the incomplete route after the City of St. Louis was found negligent in her death.  Nothing happened after the 2007 post.

But two weeks ago I emailed a number of city officials a link to my post.  That got the ball rolling.  Later that week I did an interview with Mike Owens of NBC-affiliate KSDK (see Owens’ report).  He spoke with Director of Streets Todd Waelterman who indicated the missing sidewalk and two needed curb ramps would be done by the end of the month.

I was glad to see last week the work finally getting done.

So Saturday November 21, 2009 at 10am I’m going to walk the two blocks from the store to the apartments where Lisi lived – Lisi’s Route. I’d like you to join me.  The walk has two purposes; 1) remember a citizen who’s life was cut short at 40 years of age and 2) to show the community cares about complete sidewalk networks (incomplete networks don’t function).  I want to celebrate the route that she never had but current residents of the same apartments can now enjoy.

New readers might be asking what the big deal is to walk a couple of blocks.  For them: at age 40, I had a stroke a little less than two years ago so two blocks is a good walk for me.  As a disabled person I want to fight for others who are also disabled and need sidewalks to lead an independent life.  But I’m also fighting to create a walkable city for everyone — disabled or able bodied.  The exurbs might be fully auto centric but I expect the core to be walkable.

If you’d like to join me as I slowly walk from the gas station at Jefferson & Delmar (map) to the apartments where she lived please meet me on the public sidewalk on Delmar next to their car wash at 10am this coming Saturday.  After a few words I will start walking at 10:15am promptly. If you drive please park on Delmar — not at the gas station/market.

If you haven’t been before I suggest afterward stopping to visit the Scott Joplin House state historic site.

– Steve Patterson

The building I most want to see renovated

The City of St. Louis has hundreds, if not thousands, of beautiful urban buildings I’d like to see renovated.  Significant buildings like the Arcade/Wright downtown, among them.  But the one building I think I’d put at or near the top of my list is a 2-story building at the East end of Fountain Park (map):

In researching this story I found a few posts from friends.  Matt Mourning observed on July 6, 2008, “The pleasant building seems to literally embrace the oblong Fountain Park that is its neighbor.” So true, the building was built before zoning existed yet it manages to do a spectacular job.  As cities write form-based codes they look at buildings like the above to see if it could be built under a new zoning code.  Our 1947-era zoning would not allow this fine building to be built today.  We need to do two things about that.  1) save this example of how to have a building relate to the sidewalk and adjacent area and 2) change our zoning to allow/encourage modern versions.

Matt’s post led me to Toby Weiss’ post from February 4, 2007 where she wrote:

It was built in 1897, with store fronts at ground level and apartments above. The building curves to match the geometry of the neighborhood, and the cylindrical turrets are like lyrical bookends. I immediately imagined decades of people lounging in these spaces, gazing out over the park, and it felt magical.

Magical indeed.  Whenever I’m in the vicinity of Fountain Park I take a spin past this building.  Toby linked to Robert Powers’ photo site, Built St. Louis. I scrolled down to the comments on Toby’s post and the first one was from me.  I had posted a link to a post I had done on this building in February 2005.  At the time I wrote:

The building curves to follow the street pattern. This is a lost art — most people just build square buildings these days. The composition of this building is one of the finest I’ve ever seen — anywhere. Seattle has nothing like it. Vancouver has great buildings downtown but their residential neighborhoods are a bit dull architecturally. Same for San Francisco, D.C., and most others. Scale, proportion, materials. All come together in a way that most newer buildings just don’t. This building just belongs – feeling perfectly at home with the adjacent houses. Rarely is a commercial building such a fit in a residential area.

Obviously I can see past the current condition. Hopefully you can too. The surrounding residences are being rehabbed and if someone is smart they’ll snap up this building and do a coffee house/deli/cafe/market on the ground floor. The sidewalk facing Fountain Park is just begging for outdoor dining. The old upstairs apartments would make great condos.

Only after we see past old racial lines and boards on windows will we fully realize the potential of our city. Good urbanity is colorblind.

I had a wide angle lens back then:

Two comments after mine on Toby’s blog was from yet another friend, Lisa Selligman. She wrote in February 2007:

The mixed-use castle on the corner, embracing the square with its turrets and archways, remained derelict, and I dreamed of buying it, restoring it, opening a coffee shop on the ground floor, with tables on the sidewalk filled with chattering customers. My studio on the second floor overlooked a renewed park with the fountain splashing in the distance.

As has been noted by others the building is actually two buildings joined by a brick wall.

The north structure is fine in its own right but the combination of the two it was make this corner of the city such a gem.

I am positively captivated by this building.

With several storefronts the options are many.  A coffee shop on the ground floor at the corner seems ideal.  Cafe tables and umbrellas out front.  Something modeled on Hartford Coffee or the original Kaldi’s.The reasons for this building to never be renovated are numerous: low adjacent values, perception of neighborhood by outsiders, current economy, etc.  I want the harder list — the ways in which this project can once again be occupied and be a part of a vibrant Fountain Park neighborhood.

– Steve Patterson

Grand and Chippewa a few years later

My first post about the McDonald’s at Grand & Chippewa was on February 1, 2005, nearly 5 years ago.    I was alerting everyone about the plan to build a new McDonald’s drive-thru across Grand at Winnebego (map link).

In 2006 the battle began.  The vacant site on Grand where the McDonald’s was proposed had been a Sears site decades ago. It stood vacant.  Neighbors of new nearby homes (and many others) objected to the drive-thru which did not conform to the original blighting plan for the redevelopment.

Many meetings were attended, protests were made.  The Summer of 2006 was a busy time fighting for an urban South Grand.

By September 2006 McDonald’s had won the approvals they needed to build their new location.  In November 2006 I declared the drive-thru project dead, delays took their toll and the local franchise owner closed the old McDonald’s rather than rebuilding on the new or old site.

Not long afterward the now defunct Pyramid Construction began building senior apartments once planned for the old McDonald’s site on the former Sears site.

On January 30, 2008 I posted about a title loan operation wanting to open up shop in the long boarded up McDonalds’s building.  I attended the hearing on the title loan outfit on Thursday January 31, 2008.  I didn’t get a chance to blog about the meeting, the following afternoon I had a stroke.  It was 3 months before I returned home.

During the Spring 2009 campaigns I heard a comment from someone the only thing I contributed to the 25th Ward (just South) was the boarded McDonald’s.  Thanks, I appreciated that.  Since then someone bought the unfinished senior building and finished the project.   And just recently the boarded McDonald’s got a fresh start:

Pho Mama (Mama Pho) Vietnamese Restaurant, a new restaurant in the Dutchtown West Neighborhood Association (DWNA) area is set to open on Monday, November 2, 2009! Pho Mamma is located at the corner of S. Grand and Chippewa. Their phone is 314-802-8348 and they will be open 7 days a week from 9am to 10pm.  (Source)

The old building is not the most urban but it also isn’t new.  Often small local start-up businesses cannot afford the rents on new construction. The site may eventually become more urban.  I stopped by the area yesterday to photograph both places.

Far more tasteful in appearance than the McDonald’s.

Today the former vacant site contains senior housing with street-level retail spaces facing Grand.   I’d say S. Grand is better off without a new McDonald’s drive-thru.  It would have been a tiny building on a large site with too much parking and a duel drive-thru lane.  If only we can get the traffic calmed in this part of Grand as well as a zoning overlay to require new construction to conform to the established urban standard.

Many people were involved in putting a stop to the auto-centric McDonald’s.  We should all be proud of the outcome, I know I am.  We should also go patronize Pho Mama.

– Steve Patterson

Sidewalks on Delmar still unusable

Four years ago today Elizabeth Bansen was struck and killed by an SUV as she returned home from the market two blocks East of her apartment.  Although the accident occurred around 6pm driver didn’t see Bansen in her wheelchair on the street.  On December 6th 2007 I posted on the jury finding the city negligent in Bansen’s death since the sidewalks were not passable.  The accessibility of sidewalks has long been a passion of mine. From that post:

Besides the broken sidewalk in front of the existing business on the street, much of the sidewalk area on this block is completely impassable to a person in a wheelchair.

I did that post nearly two months prior to the massive stroke that disabled me.  Since I’ve traveled many miles using an electric wheelchair myself.  My first two and a half months home from the hospital I couldn’t yet drive so, like many, the wheelchair was my only means of independence.

In 2007 Director of Streets Todd Waelterman and City Attorney Patti Hageman either weren’t sure if the sidewalks were fixed or thought they were.  I showed they were not.   Yesterday I drove over to see the couple of blocks along Delmar to see if the sidewalks between the housing and the market were corrected.  Sadly, the situation is exactly like I found it in December 2007.

Heading West from the market at Jefferson toward the housing the first block is fine.  But when you reach Beaumont you cease to have a sidewalk.  The city claims the sidewalk is the responsibility of the adjacent property owner but in recent rulings around the country the courts are determining that cities cannot push of this basic service onto the owners of abutting properties.  The owner of the building in the background, 2719 Delmar LLC, owns the entire length of this city block.

Going the other direction from the housing to the market one immediately finds a curb without a curb cut.  I know that if I approached the above low curb just right I could get on that sidewalk.  But a resident of these apartments would know the sidewalk doesn’t go through. What about taking the other side of Delmar to avoid being in the street?  The city can debate the sidewalk issue but access from the road to the sidewalk is 100% their responsibility.

On the South side of Delmar the sidewalk is not perfect but it is mostly passable.  But here the curb height makes the sidewalk condition a mute point.

The obstacles are few but they are enough to cause wheelchair users to use the roadway.  The apartment complex is owned by the St. Louis Housing Authority.  Not all of the units are accessible but some are.  Occupants of these units have two basic needs — food and access to transportation. Much of the public transportation is on Jefferson where the market is located so this route along Delmar is a critical path.

I am fortunate to live an a step-free building downtown but for many wheelchair dependent public housing units like these are their only choice.  Routes to food and transportation isn’t a luxury but a must.  Enough to for someone to risk their life.

Two years ago I emailed several with the city about the sidewalk conditions on Delmar.  I’m will again do the same so that hopefully two years from now residents of these apartments will have a safe route to the store and to transportation.

And finally, I’ve emailed with Elizabeth Bansen’s father and two of her siblings.  They miss “Lisi.”  I’ve promised them I will work to ensure that residents of these apartments will have safe sidewalks to access Delmar & Jefferson.

– Steve Patterson