It takes five houses to create a village?

Dogtown Village is a series of five infill houses in the Dogtown Neighborhood of St. Louis which is formally unknown as Franz Park. Gee, I thought a Village was bigger but then again I don’t name developments for a living.

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The city website doesn’t date their entry but these are only a year or two old. As you might guess from past posts, I have no issue with added density – it is much needed. I also don’t have any issue with raising prices in the neighborhood – as long as we don’t eliminate affordable housing. But, I have major issues with walking down the sidewalk and looking at driveways and garage doors. If I wanted to see that I’d move to the suburbs. Yes, these examples are more urban than a wide ranch house with front garage but I have higher expectations.

The Lustron House above, located at Forest & Glades, will be razed for four homes like the ones shown above if the developer, Western Continental LLC, gets their way. This house is in a Preservation Review District so the Cultural Resources Office & Preservation Board would have to approve of the demolition before a permit could be issued. While I love the Lustron houses I know they are certainly not the most urban of structures. But, I don’t think four garage doors facing the street is an improvement. I say let the metal house stay! [note: this parcel does not have a public alley]

The same developer, Western Continental LLC, wants to build three of the same type house on this site at Reber & Sublette in the Southwest Garden Neighborhood. The white alley building the rear of the property would be razed. The three proposed houses would face the long side of the parcel – Sublette. This does several things – snubs the houses facing Reber and introduces more garage doors to the public view.

Part of the idea of having alleys is to get garage doors off the street. Why we’d want to suburbanize our city is beyond me. But, in this case it gets worse. The developer is asking the city to vacate 5ft of the Reber right of way and 9ft of the Sublette right of way. The impact on Reber will not be significant but on Sublette it will be a disaster. To sandwich these houses onto this site the developer wants to move the public sidewalk to the curb – eliminating the tree lawn. Front garage doors, three wide driveways and no tree lawn. Yikes! Can’t we do better than this?

Don’t get excited, the above is not from St. Louis. This is Chicago where urban friendly infill is commonplace. Including basement, this new condo building has five floors and I believe 2-3 units. A garage is in back off the alley. Note the existing house in the left of the picture for a sense of scale.

Above is another Chicago infill project containing two units. As with most of these, space is so tight they finish the basement as living space. The important thing is these buildings add to the public life on the street – not take away from it like garage door projects do.

Much like our classic two-family flats, this two-unit Chicago condo building works well in an urban context.

As a general rule of thumb, if a property has an alley I don’t think the street facades should be allowed to have a garage door.

– Steve

Sprawl Alert: Home Depot proposed at Goodfellow & I-70

Last night the St. Louis Planning Commission voted to approve a zoning change on two large parcels located at Goodfellow & I-70 from a mix of A, F & J to H – basically to regional shopping & office. This is in prep for making it easier to redevelop the site. The only proposal received thus far is from Komen Properties for a big box Home Depot and typical out lot buildings. Geez, not another massive big box development…

Anyone that has lived in St. Louis for any length of time has seen the above building, part of a former Army ammunition plant. Though well known the building has been vacant for many years. This is the largest of the six existing buildings on the roughly 21 acre parcel. A 4 acre parcel to the South, also part of the proposed rezoning, will be discussed in a bit.

Map of
Goodfellow Blvd At Woodland Ave
St Louis, MO 63120

The view above is looking North at the vacant site.

The view above is along the Southern boundary of the large parcel. The proposed Home Depot would be located in the exact spot where this beautiful commercial building now sits.

The above picture is the back of those same buildings along the southern edge of the main parcel.

This view is looking East while on the smaller parcel. The fence in the left of the picture is the dividing line between the large & small parcels. The buildings on the left would all be razed for the Home Depot. The buildings on the right, currently in use, would presumably be part of a phase two.

More of the same commercial buildings are located on the smaller parcel which is just North of Stratford Avenue. So, you’ve got the picture?

So, where do I begin? While I consider myself more of an urbanist than a preservationist, I really like these buildings. I’m very fond of them and would hate to see them go. But, I am realistic to know this site needs to be developed as it should not continue to remain vacant (21 acre north parcel). But, the urbanist in me isn’t thrilled about another big box project with boring buildings, massive parking lots and nothing approaching any urban value.

The realist in me also thinks this project could end up like St. Louis Marketplace – largely vacant (I’m planning a future post on this failed sprawl project). We’ve got Alderman Villa pushing for a big box development with a Lowe’s at I-55 and Loughborough. I guess this is meant to balance “amenities” on the North & South?

This site is about halfway between a Home Depot in North County at Halls Ferry & I-270 and the sole city Home Depot on South Kingshighway. So, I can see some logic behind a building supply store to make it easier to renovate the surrounding homes. I’m more opposed to a bland big box development than a Home Depot. Some might think these are synonymous.

Above is a new Home Depot store on Halstead in Chicago – literally on Halstead. You see, big box stores can be integrated into an urban context. Like so many good things, it takes a willingness on the part of all involved to make urban things happen.

Vancouver’s Granville Island was recently named the #1 North American District, Downtown or Neighborhood by the Project for Public Spaces. Granville Island was a largely abandoned industrial site in the 1970s but visionary leaders saw the potential. My visits to Granville Island in both 2002 & 2003 were very enlightening. The area retains many original industrial buildings & character while attracting full time residents and tourists. The public market is a wonderful space. A major benefit Granville Island has is its waterfront location – but that is true for much of Vancouver.

A creative team could find a way to reuse the metal ammunition plant but, while I love this building, I can also see the need to raze it. But, the two story commercial buildings on the site have lots of potential for reuse. Apparently the Army has placed restrictions on the use of the property – no residential. This is due to environmental reasons. I’d like to know if the site can be cleaned sufficiently for a true mixed use development retaining some if not all the existing buildings while adding new residential buildings. Apartments over new storefronts and some attached townhouses would be great in the mix.

What is needed is a pro-urban planning approach – not just how can we build a suburban big box development in the city and face it with red brick to make us feel better about it.

– Steve

A. G. Edwards headquarters is an urban liability, not an asset

St. Louis Construction News & Review awarded a new building on the A.G. Edwards campus a Regional Excellence Award earlier this year, stating:

“The technical challenges in building this project were enormous, as is the project’s importance to St. Louis. A.G. Edwards is a major employer, its campus connects downtown to mid-town, and in pursuing this project, the company not only built on its commitment to St. Louis, it also upgraded the environment and infrastructure that will help its neighbors, such as Harris-Stowe State College.”

BULLSHIT!!! Let’s take a look at each of these claims to see the folly of the thinking:

• Technical challenges: I’m not really sure what the challenges were – the building looks as boring as the rest on campus. Certainly no more thought was put into connecting to the city on this building than prior A. G. Edwards buildings.

• Importance to St. Louis & being a major employer: The only importance A.G. Edwards has to St. Louis is the 1% employment tax and real estate taxes. Boasting of such a major company having their HQ within the city gives the boys at RCGA something to talk about.

• Connecting downtown to mid-town: Actually, quite the opposite is true. The massive A.G. Edwards campus is a growing virus in the middle of the city. Yes, they are “investing” millions of dollars in construction funds and they are employing many people. So what. Does that automatically create a connection just because they are between two points? Hardly. If fact, the design of the campus literally creates a disconnect between two areas we should be connecting. I’ll explain in much greater detail below why this campus creates a vacuum that has sucked the life out of this area.

• Commitment to St. Louis: This is the part where we are supposed to bow and thank them for not fleeing to Clayton or the hinterlands.

• Neighbors to benefit from upgraded environment & infrastructure: This is a prime example of the ‘spend millions and other development will be spurred’ fallacy.

I repeat, bullshit. All of it.
… Continue Reading

Good idea, wrong type

I love the loop but one thing that is missing is regular bike racks. I manged to find one rack West of Skinker – in front of Joe Edward’s Blueberry Hill:

Unfortunately, this rack is what we cyclists call the dish rack type. As you can see in the photo, the cyclist using the rack locked his/her bike to the end. This is because this type of rack does not provide good support for the bike when used as intended. Basically, this rack holds two bikes.

Below is an example of the right type of rack – an inverted U shape rack:

Chicago uses the inverted U rack throughout it’s commercial areas so that cyclists can almost always find a place to secure their transportation. The Loop really needs to address their lack of racks.

Planning ahead