One of the more disturbing aspects of the whole McDonald’s fiasco is the idea that, as Ald. Jennifer Florida says, “They are just moving across the street.” Well, it is not that simple.
The current McDonald’s was built in 1974. I don’t know if it was built as we see it today or if they acquired more land over time and later did the lower-level drive-thru. Hard to say.
What can be said is that in the last 32 years we’ve become accustomed to seeing it there. The neighbors down Philips Place and Chippewa have all likely bought there since the McDonald’s was in place. Same for those buying new homes to the East of Grand in Pyramid’s Keystone Place development, they knew the McDonald’s existed on the other side of the street.
Everyone knows the old saying we have in real estate: Location, Location, Location.
Herein is the problem. Moving the location of the McDonald’s will lesson the impact of the fast food chain to those that knew it existed when they bought their homes and increase the impact of those that had no reason to expect they’d live drive-thru adjacent.
The Gravois Park residents are not being Nimby’s about this issue. A drive-thru fast food chain of any franchise has associated trash, noise, pollution, and bright parking lot lights regardless as to whether the building is in the middle of the site as in the suburbs or following a more urban model like Chicago or Toronto.
In fact, the only difference between the suburban & urban models is how the building relates to the public sidewalk. This is a critical difference and is highly important in an urban area. However, it does absolutely nothing to diminish the negative aspects of living drive-thru adjacent. We should all fully support the Gravois Park residents East of Grand in not allowing the McDonald’s to relocate to a site that has never held a drive-thru establishment. Period.
This leaves several options.
A non drive-thru McDonald’s at the location as part of a mixed-use project. This is not likely as their business model relies heavily on drive-thru traffic whereas places like Subway in the next block North can survive without a drive-thru window.
Close up and going away. I think the area would actually do better if we got rid of, not fast food, but auto-centric buildings such as drive-thru restaurants, the blockbuster building, etc.. But, I am realistic enough to know this franchise owner is not going to just walk away.
Construct a new quasi-urban McDonald’s on the current site. Ding, ding, ding; I think we have a winner!
But Jennifer Florida, with no architectural training, says it can’t be done. Dan Hogan of Pyramid Companies testified last week, and I am paraphrasing, they ‘cannot find a way to build a new McDonald’s on the existing site.’ If they attempted to design a new McDonald’s on the site and couldn’t figure out how to it demonstrates not that it is impossible but that Pyramid simply isn’t very bright. But, one look at their Sullivan Place senior housing project and we can see Pyramid isn’t too astute when it comes to site planning.
I’ll be the first to admit the existing McDonald’s, built in 1974, is awkward. While I really don’t want auto-centric projects in the middle of my city I will entertain, for purposes of discussion, a new facility at this same location. I think it could, if properly designed, serve to enhance the pedestrian experience as well as serve the needs of the franchise owner, employees and customers. I do not hold out any hopes of Pyramid’s development staff being able to make that happen.
The problem is that Pyramid’s folks can’t see beyond either what exists or how things are done in the ‘burbs. The Sullivan Place project is not much different than housing projects that were built 40+ years ago and are now being razed since they don’t fit into the city. The McDonald’s they proposed was the standard off the shelf suburban McDonald’s. So when they look at the current location with a drive-thru out of a lower level at the rear of the building they just can’t see beyond that. Most people have a hard time visualizing things when something is existing.
The existing McDonald’s site is a far better location for their restaurant than the site across Grand. First, the traffic signal at Grand & Chippewa helps facilitate traffic much better than what we’d face on the proposed site. Try for a moment to pretend the existing building does not exist. We bring out the curb to narrow the width of Grand at Chippewa which will actually give them more room to build (the street is wider than it needs to be at this point).
By placing a new McDonald’s abutting the sidewalks at Grand & Chippewa this leaves the balance of the site for parking and drive-thru. Ald. Florida and representatives of Pyramid have been going on about the 87 units of senior housing and 10,000sf of retail space on the current McDonald’s site. We are supposed to believe it is possible to get all of that on this site yet not a small 2,000+ McDonald’s, some parking and a drive-thru lane?
Rebuilding at the existing site can possibly be done with the slope if the required ADA parking is on-street with the balance of spaces on the slope. The alternative is to construct a retaining wall to create a more level, although not necessarily flat, site. The now closed Burger King location has a much taller retaining wall than would be necessary at the existing McDonald’s site. The Aldi’s store just North of the existing McDonald’s also required a retaining wall. Just because McDonald’s and/or the franchise owner is too cheap to construct a retaining wall does not mean we should now subject an entire neighborhood to decades of being drive-thru adjacent.
Add that to the fact that we, as taxpayers, paid nearly a million dollars to acquire and clear the Sears site for the Keystone Place development. To now place a McDonald’s on a portion of that land is clearly a form of subsidy. Ald. Florida says no other tax incentives will be used to help the McDonald’s. She also claims the redevelopment plan’s exclusion of drive-thrus is only applicable to projects seeking incentives such as tax abatement. Okay, Ms. Florida, if this is true why are you working to remove the drive-thru prohibition for this particular parcel? The answer is obvious, because you fully intend to give the McDonald’s some sort of financial incentives such as a TIF or tax abatement. Ald. Florida is getting quite the reputation for saying one thing but then taking action in the complete opposite direction. I do not personally think anything she says can be trusted. Her actions speak volumes.
This is bad politics and bad planning. Gravois Park residents are being set up to deal with the consequences while McDonald’s, the franchise owner and Pyramid all make a mint. Ald. Florida, presumably, will continue to receive maximum campaign contributions along the way.
Two things need to be stopped: the McDonald’s from relocating and Jennifer Florida from being a member of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen.
Ald. Florida was first elected in Spring of 2001. In the March primary she narrowly defeated Mike Daus (now State Rep.) by 21 votes (1530 vs. 1509). Typical of St. Louis, she was not challenged in the general election. In Spring of 2005 she was re-elected not by popular vote but by default — nobody ran against her. It is rare that an incumbent will be challenged in this town. I’ve yet to find a constituent of hers that is happy with her. Most, in fact, go into some story about how she did them wrong or just her rude attitude.
I ask that 15th Ward residents do the entire city a favor and recall Jennifer Florida.
[UPDATE 4/27/06 @ 1:45pm – I’ve been told that Dan Hogan works for McDonald’s and not Pyramid, my apologies for the error. I don’t think this changes much with respect to the inability of Pyramid to do any good site planning.]
– Steve
