Dates Set for Protest & Appeal on McDonald’s Drive-Thru

Citizens opposed to the proposed Suburban McDonald’s will meet on the sidewalk at 3708 S. Grand at 12:30pm on Saturday April 15, 2006. The media is expected around 1pm. Organizers will have signs but feel free to make your own. A petition will most likely be available as well.

The protest is a lead-in to the appeal of the conditional use variance for the drive-thru. The appeal of the variance will be heard at 1:30pm on Wednesday April 19, 2006 in Room 208 of City Hall.

It is important to have a large crowd at both events. We need to send a strong message to Ald. Florida, Pyramid Construction, McDonald’s, Ald. President Shrewsbury, and Mayor Slay that we will not tolerate prior redevelopment ordinances being trampled by a few with enough cash to get what they want.

On a side note, Ald. Florida’s measure to restrict efforts to recall Aldermen failed at the polls on Tuesday. If I were her I’d be worried, very worried.

Mark your calendars: Saturday 4/15 @ 12:30pm and Wednesday 4/19 @ 1:30pm.

– Steve

A Tale of Two Cities (aka Wards)

While discussing plans for a hotel in the red hot east Loop area a friend asked why Alderwoman Jennifer Florida couldn’t be more like Alderwoman Lyda Krewson. Good question. If you’ve read my prior posts on Florida you know I’m not a fan but I came to her defense. Lyda Krewson is working with Loop visionary & developer Joe Edwards. Or more correctly, Krewson is assisting Edwards create a vibrant urban street, Delmar.

Florida, given a Joe Edwards-type visionary, might just come off looking as good as Krewson does. Sadly, Florida is stuck with John Steffen’s Pyramid Companies. So instead of getting hip bowling alleys or boutique hotels like the Delmar Loop, Grand gets a relocated McDonald’s drive through surrounded by a sea of parking.

The mistake Florida made is to accept what they offer and assume that is the best we can get. Pyramid’s best just flat out isn’t good enough. It a company doesn’t get what an urban street in a city should look like then they shouldn’t be operating in the area. I’m sure some municipality in St. Charles County would love to have this McDonald’s.

Pyramid’s developers must look at this section of Grand and just see parcels of land. An Edward’s type developer that understands the urban model can look at the same part of Grand and see how many residential streets feed into the area, how it intersects with Gravois and Chippewa, that the region’s most popular bus line serves the area. This type developer can see the benefit of a good long-range plan to build up the street to an urban model, the way it was before the city let just anything be built.

It is make or break time. Florida is pushing hard for her lack of vision developer Pyramid. If they prevail it will be a sad day for St. Louis. It will mean we are not willing to become a strong urban city but one that will accept anything and everything just to say we’ve had so much development in our ward & city.

Pyramid’s proposal sickens me. Reminds me of the in-fill housing they built in the city with front facing garages a number of years ago (Delmar west of Vandeventer).

People won’t literally move away because of the McDonald’s but I think we will continue to lose urbanists to other cities if we keep following this path. Similarly, we will not attract the population that seeks an urban city. Cities that are following a more urban model such as Portland and Madison, WI will continue to gain while we are stagnant.

– Steve

Citizen’s Distributing Flyers On Pyramid/McDonald’s Issue in 15th Ward

St. Louis Citizens in opposition to the proposed suburban-style McDonald’s on South Grand are using today’s election as an opportunity to reach active voters in the 15th Ward. The 15th Ward is that of Alderwoman Jennifer Florida who is Volunteers concerned about the future of Grand are distributing a flyer to people at two polling places in the ward:

Mann School, 4047 Juniata (map)

Fanning School Gym, 3417 Grace (enter from Giles, map)

If you can volunteer to help pass out flyers please go to one of the above locations. Polls are open until 7pm. Please help convince our elected officials and greedy developers that we want and demand better development along South Grand.

– Steve

ULI Announces Winner of Hines Competition

Earlier today the Urban Land Institute completed the 2006 Urban Design Competition with presentations and selection of the grand prize winner. The event was held at Dubough Hall on the main campus of St. Louis University. I reviewed the finalists earlier this month (read review).

The four finalist teams drew numbers to determine the order in which they’d. It was Harvard (#4110), Harvard (#1015), UC-Berkeley and Columbia. Each team was given 25 minutes for presentation with another 20 minutes of questions from the jury. While a team was presenting the other teams that had not yet gone were not permitted in the room. This makes sense so that a later team does not benefit from seeing the types of questions the jury might ask.

Among the audience members were Marjorie Melton of the Board of Public Service and Planning and Urban Design Director Rollin Stanley.

Each team submitted additional boards today with greater detail on their phase one planning & financials. Nothing in the presentations altered my views. I saw the two Harvard proposals as quite strong, the Berkeley as my overall favorite and the Columbia proposal as a sad reincarnation of 1960’s urban renewal thinking.

All of the teams did an excellent and highly professional job of verbally communicating their ideas. Some individuals were stronger than others but that was to be expected.

The jury took a few minutes to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of all four:

Harvard (4110 — Aurora):

Pro: A bold & confident plan that stresses streets can be positive, good clarity of plan.

Con: Lacks good integration between streets and greenway space. Jury not convinced of connection.

Harvard (1015 — Bridging Innovation at Grand Crossing):

Pro: Took program literally and viewed greenway as an economic driver to bring people to area. Clever approach by “pinching” at Grand (focusing users on area). Entertainment & retail along Grand a good idea.

Con: Cortex area with green roofs not so compelling in terms of site plan, wanted to see more green in the Cortex area. Boardwalk area in NE quadrant may not work and unsure about viability of high rise along Grand at MetroLink.

Columbia:

Pro: Extremely bold moves with walkway system. Very close to one requirement of competition — leaving the bridge design intact.

Con: Economic development required to pay for the infrastructure may not be possible in this location.

Berkeley:

Pro: Does more to establish a neighborhood with a strong grid, magnet school, integration of green with “fingers” in the development.

Con: MetroLink not as fully engaged as it could be. Boardwalk creates barrier.

The three non-winning finalists teams each get $10,000.

The winning team, Harvard #1015 Bridging Innovation at Grand Crossing, won $50,000. While this was not my favorite I think is a very strong proposal. I saw nothing in their concepts that I would argue against. I had argued in January for just such a proposal to create a strong element out of Grand. They did an excellent job of recognizing the TOD (transit oriented development) potential of the site and worked to maximize the existing MetroLink stop. And maximizing transit is exactly what St. Louis needs to do — and quickly.

Congratulations to team members Thomas Hussey, Christina Cambruzzi, Oliver Corlette, Patrick Curran and Tyler Meyr. Congrats as well to faculty advisor Rick Peiser. The additional boards detailing the phase one for each team will be uploaded to the ULI Competition website next week.

– Steve

CNU’s Norquist uses St. Aloysius in Presentation on Urbanism

This evening, at the APA Workshop in Kirkwood, CNU President and CEO John Norquist used a picture of St. Aloysius as a good example of how a building can terminate a vista. He had pulled the image from my site resulting from a Google search.

By a stroke of luck Norquist sat next to me on the bus trip from Kirkwood to New Town at St. Charles. On the bus ride out and back we had a chance to talk about New Urbanism, St. Louis, Milwaukee (where he served as Mayor), parking, highway construction and, one of my favorite topics, the Apple Macintosh.

Speaking with Norquist on the bus and as we walked around New Town I found him to be someone private and reserved. As we hit it off he would make observations to me about things he saw. For example, across from the sales center was a building along an alley that lacked windows on the alley side, a no-no in New Urban terms. He seemed pleased to find something to tease planner Andres Duany about. New Town’s Tim Busse acknowledged they have made a few mistakes but have quickly learned from. Norquist was clearly impressed by what he saw. I will have a full review of New Town in April.

Norquist’s opening presentation to the workshop was very inspiring, funny and spot-on. He changed from a tall but quiet man to a very outspoken speaker. He took shots at our current foreign policy as well as clearly showing the distinctions between the old sprawl patterns of old vs. the new patterns of urbanism.

Norquist related a story of a street in Milwaukee where a developer built a horrible little strip center set back from the street just after he was elected Mayor. He knew the developer and asked him why he built the building so far back from the street. The developers answer? It was what his city’s code required. From that moment he set out to change his city’s zoning to allow for urbanism.

I was so impressed by his presentation that I bought his book, The Wealth of Cities: Revitalizing the Centers of American Life. After his presentation I informed Norquist that St. Aloysius will be razed, he was shocked and miffed. “Tell them I used it in my presentation.”

– Steve