Readers Not Keen On Aventura Apartments

Overall readers in the poll last week indicated are general disliking of the new Aventura Apartments in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood, just south of I-64.

Here are the results:

Q: The Aventura apartments south of BJC/Cortex are… (pick up to two answers)

1. architecturally out of place 63 [36.84%]
2. not ideal, but could’ve been worse 27 [15.79%]
3. better than the old gasometer 20 [11.7%]
4. not my taste, but right for others 19 [11.11%]
5. attractive to their target audience 17 [9.94%]
6. TIE
   1. quality housing with needed density 11 [6.43%]
   2. Other: 11 [6.43%]
      1. yuk! total let down in otherwise awesome neighborhood
      2. ugly suburban crap. will be trashed in
      3. doesn’t interact with the street
      4. Cheap and suburban. Horrible design and little effort from the developers.
      5. Could not have been much worse
      6. good density, poor quality. what will they look like in 30 years?
      7. Crappy Suburan type desig
      8. Predictable design, but it works OK.
      9. Sad ongoing trend of what our beautiful city is morphing into
      10. The density is appropriate, the design is not
      11. whatever
7. unsure/no opinion 3 [1.75%]

All 11 of the other comments are correct! My main issue isn’t so much the aesthetics, but the building’s lack of relationship to the public sidewalks and each other. It’s isolationist, a gated enclave.

This project won’t age well, the plastic shutters that can’t cover the windows will fall off, the surrounding sidewalks will remain lifeless and therefore unsafe. This project sucks the life out of the area. Hopefully I’ll live long enough to see it razed and replaced with an appropriate development(s).

— Steve Patterson

Central West End (CWE) MetroLink Station Poorly Connected To Taylor Ave

Our busiest MetroLink light rail station is the Central West End (CWE) station, but it’s also one of the worst when it comes to connecting to a public street. If you head up the stairs/elevator at the west end of the platform you’ll get to a plaza where Euclid Ave used to be, now part of the Washington University Medical School/BJC campus that’s decimated the street grid. Head east and the grid remains mostly intact, but getting to it isn’t easy.

The connection is narrow & winding, designed to get MetroBus rides to/from light rail. It isn’t designed for pedestrians to reach Taylor Ave. Why might someone want to go to Taylor Ave?  For one, various hospital related buildings are within a few blocks. The CWE is to the north, but one can use the former Euclid Ave to connect with Euclid Ave. To the south, however, is the Forest Park Southeast (FPSE neighborhood) and The Grove, accessed via Taylor Ave.

Expensive investments in mass transit infrastructure, such as light rail, needs to be designed to maximize use and thus, return on investment. If you didn’t see the train occasionally or the crossing gates, you’d never know a station as been just off Taylor Ave for more than two decades.

— Steve Patterson

Poll: Thoughts On The Aventura Apartments South Of BJC/Cortex

For the poll this week I want to know what readers think of the Aventura apartments.  The site, 4431 Chouteau, previously had a gasometer.

The poll is in the right sidebar, mobile users need to switch to the desktop layout.

— Steve Patterson

Writing About Improved Pedestrian Access For A Decade, Before Becoming Disabled

In the nearly ten years I’ve written this blog I’ve consistently argued for improved pedestrian access, even before I became disabled in February 2008. Newer readers may have forgotten my early advocacy for walkability, here are some reminders:

• October 2004: Kirkwood Station Plaza, another great idea with questionable execution
• December 2004: Gravois Plaza Less Pedestrian-Friendly than previous center
• January 2005: Loughborough Commons will be Common indeed!
• February 2005: McDonalds May Move Across Grand to Former Sears Site
• June 2007: St. Louis Restripes Bad Crosswalk, Enforcement Needed

The above posts were all before my stroke! I’m particularly proud of pushing for pedestrian access at Loughborough Commons, it’s a better than planned project because of my pushiness.

Loughborough Commons would’ve been better had the city, developer, and engineers planned for pedestrian access & internal circulation from the start. They didn’t, but by pushing throughout construction I helped the project be just a little accommodating to pedestrians.  In one post I even said something like “I hope I don’t become disabled” when arguing why it was important for new development to welcome pedestrians in edition to motorists.

Yes, I’ve posted about crosswalks & pedestrian access since becoming disabled — but they’ve been a regular topic since that first day I started writing: October 31, 2004.

— Steve Patterson

Parking Garage Attempts To Look Like Multiple Buildings

Parking, specifically parking garages, have been a regular topic here over the last decade, recently a musical garage in Chicago and two St. Louis apartment projects. While on my honeymoon last month we spotted another garage I want to share with you today, this one in Cheyenne Wyoming. We spent a few hours of our week-long Colorado honeymoon in neighboring Wyoming, having lunch in Cheyenne and dessert in Laramie.

Before the garage let me set show you what we saw on our Sunday visit.

Cheyenne has two municipal garages, each occupying a full city block. Cheyenne, the state capital of Wyoming, also has a large state garage. We drove past one municipal garage a few times, I only discovered the other two once home and researching this post.

I’m torn on this garage. On one hand the execution offends my sense of aesthetics, on the other is blends in better than the other two garages, admittedly I’ve only seen them on Google Streetview.

Is skinning a large structure to appear like multiple structures dishonest?  Absolutely! I could get over that if the execution had active space at the sidewalk level, with space for a Walgreend/CVS, Subway, etc. The ides is right, not look like a massive singular block with horizontal lines. Details do matter though.

— Steve Patterson