Why Not Bury Part of Highway 40?

Bringing in guys from Boston’s Big Dig might have been a mistake as myself and others are thinking how can we bury part of our highway. I’m going to be brief:

The suburban areas were largely built after the highway so in those cases neighborhoods were not severed like older areas of the city.

We have an opportunity to reconnect older neighborhoods that were cut off from each other when the highway was constructed.

The highway currently is recessed below grade between Taylor & Boyle and will be after reconstruction.

Forest Park Southeast is about to lose nearby park space to BJC.

The solution is to bury/create a lid over I-64/Hwy 40 for the short distance between Taylor and Boyle. The resulting land on top of the highway should be new park space to offset the 12 acres that BJC is taking from Forest Park. Playground equipment, tennis courts and racquetball courts displaced from the small piece of Forest Park should get rebuilt here, at BJC’s expense. Regardless of the highway situation, BJC should not be allowed to remove the existing facilities until the replacement facilities are constructed and operational.

MoDot has a detailed drawing of their proposed reconstruction here. Looks like they are planning additional ramps at Tower Grove.

Sure it will cost more but I think the city deserves to get more than just a faster exit out of the city. Give us back our city in the process!

– Steve

Surviving I-64 Reconstruction

Yesterday I attended a luncheon organized by the Downtown St. Louis Partnership. Not one of my favorite organizations but the topic and speakers looked interesting so I forked over the $35 fee.

The topic was I-64 Reconstruction: Getting Prepared. Guests were Marc Cutler, a Senior VP with Cambridge Systematics and Rick Dimino, President of Boston’s Artery Business Committee. Both were brought in to help advise our region on how to get us through the reconstruction of I-64. Their experience: The Big Dig.

They are part of a team looking at ways to address traffic during the construction process. This includes looking at traffic along the construction route, north-south crossings over the construction zone, and other arterial roads that will handle much of the normal traffic.

Other topics briefly discussed were ways the public deals with construction. This was basically three shifts in behavior: time shifting, mode shifting or destination shifting.

With time shifting the idea would be adjust work schedules so that not everyone is commuting at the same times of the day. With mode shifting the idea is to get commuters out of the car and into transit or cycling. Destination shifting is something we’ll hopefully minimize as we don’t want people avoiding destinations. However, minimizing trips can be a good thing.

Working to keep bus service going will be a major challenge as 17 bus lines either use the highway or cross the highway. As the speakers pointed out, the last thing you want to do during a major highway reconstruction project is reduce transit service.

I spoke with Rick Dimino following the meeting and he indicated he was surprised that we were not including transit along I-64 as part of the reconstruction. He also acknowledged how at the end of Boston’s Big Dig they are going to be able to weave the city back together after being severed by their 1950’s highway. A goal that will not be accomplished by our project.

I really enjoyed talking with Dimino as I think he really gets urbanity. He said early designs for the original Boston highway avoided the center of town. Had the original designs been followed the highway would have been built elsewhere and they never would have had The Big Dig project.

The consultant team is expected to have detailed findings by May 16th and a technical report in June.

I’m still not convinced we need to rebuild I-64. I like the idea of looking at how our existing streets can be better utilized by traffic and how mass transit can play a bigger role in our future. While I am very supportive of the route chosen for the Cross-County MetroLink that is set to open later this year, I do think setting aside a right-of-way along I-64 from the new line out West would be very wise. Sadly, we are going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and not give ourselves that option.

– Steve

Pyramid’s Claims to be “Leader in Urban Redevelopment”

John Steffen’s Pyramid Companies is trying to remake its tarnished public image. Their website is newly updated with a vision statement:

The Pyramid Companies were founded in 1992 to realize owner John Steffen’s vision to rebuild urban areas with high quality historic renovations and the construction of new homes. Today, Pyramid is the acknowledged leader of urban redevelopment in the City of St. Louis with over $500 million in projects completed or in various stages of development.

“Acknowledged leader?” Under who’s terms? Perhaps if you look solely at the total cost of the projects they are the biggest, most likely with the most tax-payer contributions. Biggest does not mean the best. What about criteria that includes urban form factor? How about neighborhoods that have long-term prospects of remaining sustainable in 50 years?

With most of Pyramid’s bigger projects located downtown in existing structures it has been nearly impossible for them to screw up the urban form. But their new construction, throughout the city, has been highly questionable.

The mission statement talks about “John Steffen’s vision to rebuild urban areas.” I think his vision is a bit cloudy. One look at Pyramid’s new Sullivan Place project, at right, and it is easy to doubt any vision other than a money making suburban one. Steffen certainly can’t think Sullivan Place represents a wonderful urban vision!

Over the years they’ve built numerous projects of questionable urbanity. Early projects included very suburban looking houses along Delmar with front-facing garages. Moving on they started and then abandoned Keystone Place. What was built there had attached garages and long driveways, a small step up from front garages. Sure, a detached garage option was listed in sales literature but customers were never shown a display from which to chose.

Next up was King Louis Square, an apartment complex trying hard to be urban but falling short on several levels such as building form and the actual architecture with its PVC molding carelessly applied to the facade. Just up the street they built Old Frenchtown, another uninspired apartment complex. Now we have La Saison, a new single family home project between King Louis Square & Old Frenchtown. In La Saison many of the homes are set far apart and nearly all are set way back from the street as if they were in suburbia. Poor detailing on the houses does not bode well for their long-term value. Pyramid had a great opportunity to create a wonderful mixed-used neighborhood where these recent projects stand yet their suburban “vision” resulted in the housing types all being segregated from each other. This land, cleared once in the 1950’s for public housing, was cleared again in the 1990’s. We should have demanded better. Although, we should have gotten better from a major developer and the city.

A true urban vision would have resulted in a greater variety of housing types, all mixed. We would have seen rental buildings next to single family homes next to attached townhouses. Granny flats over some garages could have helped create affordable rental units convenient to transportation and jobs. Commercial activity on Park in Lafayette Square should have been continued East toward Tucker. Apartments/condos over storefronts would have helped create streets people might actually walk down. As it is, this redeveloped area is clean but lifeless. Is this Steffen’s vision?

Back to propping up Pyramid’s image.

A recent St. Louis Business Journal article on Pyramid was little more than a press release. Everyone got into the act:

“We have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that John will be able to complete St. Louis Centre and the other projects he has embarked on, based on the fact that over the past five years, everything that he has said he would do in the downtown area, he has done and done on schedule,” Geisman said.

The key phrase is “in the downtown area.” Other quotes in the same article used the same ‘downtown’ qualifier. Pyramid’s downtown track record might be good but outside downtown the track record is poor, and getting worse.

– Steve

Ald. Florida Introduces BB39 to Amend Redevelopment Plan

Ald. Florida today introduced Board Bill #39 to amend the Gravois/Meramec/Grand redevelopment plan to allow drive-thru establishments for a single parcel — the one owned currently by Pyramid and proposed for the new McDonald’s.

Funny, Ald. Florida is the same person that said the redevelopment plan only applies if a developer is seeking tax incentives. By her own argument, the no drive-thru clause cannot be enforced on property owners if they are not seeking tax breaks. By her logic then we must believe it is the intention of hers to seek tax breaks such as a TIF or property tax abatement since she is attempting to amend the redevelopment ordinance.

It should also be noted, the LCRA board’s idea of public notice is an agenda in the lobby of 1015 Locust. No agenda online. No use of the City Journal, a publication created solely for the purpose of meeting public notice requirements. The LCRA is the board that voted on April 4th to allow the change.

The bill has had its first reading and has been assigned to the Housing, Urban Design and Zoning committee (HUDZ). The aldermen on the committee will, no doubt, rubber stamp this legislation without batting an eye if the public remains silent. I urge everyone reading this post to contact every single member of the HUDZ committee.

Here is the list:

Fred Wessels, Jr. Chair, 13th Ward
Craig Schmid, Vice-Chair, 20th Ward
Freeman Bosley, Sr., 3rd Ward
Jeffrey Boyd, 22nd Ward
Gregory Carter, 27th Ward
Stephen Conway, 8th Ward
Dionne Flowers, 2nd Ward
April Ford-Griffin, 5th Ward
Kathleen Hanrahan, 23rd Ward
Bernice Jones King, 21st Ward
Lyda Krewson, 28th Ward
Michael McMillan, 19th Ward and candidate for License Collector
Kenneth Ortman, 9th Ward (Ald. Ortman “prefers not to be contacted via email.” Hmm. So call him at 314-622-3287
Lewis Reed, 6th Ward
Matt Villa, 11th Ward
Phillis Young, 7th Ward

The main points:

Look for a committee meeting next week with a hearing around the same time. No date has been set but this committee often meets at 10am on Wednesdays.

– Steve

Letters of Support from Mayor Slay, Sen. Coleman and Rep. Daus

Lost among the litter that is the McDonald’s on Grand controversy is the attempt to pass off three letters as support for the McDonald’s drive-thru. In February and again this month during public hearings on the conditional use variance for a drive-thru three letters were being passed off as supporting the project. They were in support of the senior housing on the current McDonald’s site. In fact, the word “McDonald’s” was not mentioned in any of the three.

The letters, from Mayor Slay, State Sen. Maida Coleman and State Rep. Mike Daus were all written in October 2005 as Pyramid was seeking support from the Missouri Housing Development Commission, aka MHDC.

But, you don’t have to take my work for it. You can read the letters yourself:

Sen. Coleman

Rep. Daus

Mayor Slay

Clearly city’s staff failed to actually read the letters when they stated they had letters of support for the project. The only other option would be that they read the letters but knowingly passed them off as letters of support on the chance that nobody would request copies under Missouri’s Sunshine Law.

Without these letters of “support” the only people on record supporting the drive-thru for McDonald’s, Jennifer Florida and the folks from Pyramid Construction.