Repairs underway at Citygarden

Cities are very good about finding money for capital projects. Money for operations and ongoing maintenance, however, is often scarce.

But when a leak was discovered under a portion of the splash fountain at the new Citygarden downtown there was no cause for panic to find the funds for repairs.

Citygarden was generously built by the Gateway Foundation.  But they didn’t just build it and hand the keys to the city, they are responsible for maintenance on the two downtown blocks.  The fountain repair is probably covered under warranty but it is nice to know this garden will not fall into disrepair like so much of our public infrastructure.   At the end of Summer crews were busy replacing quite a bit of the grass that got worn out due to the huge crowds of people that visited the new spot.

I say new but the use of these two blocks as public park space goes back to 1993 when we had two blocks of… grass.  Yawn.

Watching Citygarden change from Summer into Fall have been a pleasure.

Any infrastructure we have (highways, bridges, transit, etc) we need a plan to pay for the operations and maintenance once built. Some of our existing MetroLink light rail stations are looking a bit shabby — rusty railings and such.  Maybe each station needs a corporate sponsor to help with maintenance?

Kiener Plaza & the Morton May Amphitheater, just East of Citygarden, are in disrepair as is much of the Gateway Mall.  When any project is new it has decent maintenance.  But a decade or so later, and two or three administrations later, existing infrastructure takes a back seat to ribbon cuttings on the next big thing.  We don’t have enough generous foundations in town to build and maintain our infrastructure.  We must figure out how to do it ourselves.  Part of the solution is in building less infrastructure.

The Cross County MetroLink extension cost far more than originally planned  — miles of tunnels rather than at-grade service will drive up the capital budget. But in 20 years those miles of tunnels and flyover structures will require far more maintenance than the simpler original designs.

This is not to say we should never again build expensive infrastructure.  I think we need a system of streetcars to pull together city neighborhoods and the inner-ring suburbs.  Property taxes along the routes should help fund long-term operations and repairs.   So build what we need just have a means to fund it through its lifespan.  In the meantime I’m going to keep enjoying the well-maintained Citygarden.

– Steve Patterson

Grand and Chippewa a few years later

My first post about the McDonald’s at Grand & Chippewa was on February 1, 2005, nearly 5 years ago.    I was alerting everyone about the plan to build a new McDonald’s drive-thru across Grand at Winnebego (map link).

In 2006 the battle began.  The vacant site on Grand where the McDonald’s was proposed had been a Sears site decades ago. It stood vacant.  Neighbors of new nearby homes (and many others) objected to the drive-thru which did not conform to the original blighting plan for the redevelopment.

Many meetings were attended, protests were made.  The Summer of 2006 was a busy time fighting for an urban South Grand.

By September 2006 McDonald’s had won the approvals they needed to build their new location.  In November 2006 I declared the drive-thru project dead, delays took their toll and the local franchise owner closed the old McDonald’s rather than rebuilding on the new or old site.

Not long afterward the now defunct Pyramid Construction began building senior apartments once planned for the old McDonald’s site on the former Sears site.

On January 30, 2008 I posted about a title loan operation wanting to open up shop in the long boarded up McDonalds’s building.  I attended the hearing on the title loan outfit on Thursday January 31, 2008.  I didn’t get a chance to blog about the meeting, the following afternoon I had a stroke.  It was 3 months before I returned home.

During the Spring 2009 campaigns I heard a comment from someone the only thing I contributed to the 25th Ward (just South) was the boarded McDonald’s.  Thanks, I appreciated that.  Since then someone bought the unfinished senior building and finished the project.   And just recently the boarded McDonald’s got a fresh start:

Pho Mama (Mama Pho) Vietnamese Restaurant, a new restaurant in the Dutchtown West Neighborhood Association (DWNA) area is set to open on Monday, November 2, 2009! Pho Mamma is located at the corner of S. Grand and Chippewa. Their phone is 314-802-8348 and they will be open 7 days a week from 9am to 10pm.  (Source)

The old building is not the most urban but it also isn’t new.  Often small local start-up businesses cannot afford the rents on new construction. The site may eventually become more urban.  I stopped by the area yesterday to photograph both places.

Far more tasteful in appearance than the McDonald’s.

Today the former vacant site contains senior housing with street-level retail spaces facing Grand.   I’d say S. Grand is better off without a new McDonald’s drive-thru.  It would have been a tiny building on a large site with too much parking and a duel drive-thru lane.  If only we can get the traffic calmed in this part of Grand as well as a zoning overlay to require new construction to conform to the established urban standard.

Many people were involved in putting a stop to the auto-centric McDonald’s.  We should all be proud of the outcome, I know I am.  We should also go patronize Pho Mama.

– Steve Patterson

Much of St. Louis region going (mostly) smoke-free by January 2011

November 3rd voters in St. Louis County approved a clean air bill covering their county (65% yes).  Prior to their vote the Board of Aldermen in the City of St. Louis passed a bill doing basically the same thing in the city, which is separate from St. County.

Both will go smoke-free on January 2, 2011. Contrary to reports, the citizen vote in the County is not triggering the city bill – in fact the County bill is delaying the effective date in the city by one day.  The city’s bill called for an effective date of January 1, 2011 unless the County ordinance began sooner.  From section 15 of the city’s bill:

This Ordinance shall be effective on such date that the Saint Louis County enacts Smoke Free Air legislation, or on January 1, 2011, whichever date is later.

Since the county effective date is 1/2/2011 it is one day later in the city.  The city’s language was poorly worded but the 2nd actually makes more sense anyway because you don’t want to try to change the policy on the night everyone is celebrating New Year’s.  I’d have made it effective on 12/31/2010 but such measures usually start at the start of a year, not the end.

The City’s law exempts small bars for five long years from the effective date.  So they will go smoke-free on January 2, 2016.  Here is the exemption language:

Bars in existence on the effective date of this ordinance in which only persons aged twenty one (21) years old or older are permitted to enter the premises, the square footage of the entire floor area of the level of the building on which the bar establishment is located is two thousand (2000) square feet or less. The square footage shall not include kitchen areas, storage areas and bathrooms. The bar shall prominently displays outside of the premises at each entrance and above the bar the following sign in lettering that is black bold Arial font at (ninety-eight) 98 point size: “WARNING : SMOKING ALLOWED HERE”. This exemption for bars shall expire five (5) years after the effective date of this ordinance.

A bar is defined in the ordinance as:

“Bar” means an establishment that is devoted to the serving of alcoholic beverages for consumption by guests on the premises and in which the serving of food is only incidental to the consumption of those beverages, including but not limited to, taverns, nightclubs, cocktail lounges, and cabarets.

My concern is that as most places goe smoke-free all the smokers are going to crowd into the small bars that permit smoking this exemption.  If that happens the non-smoking patrons of those places may shift to non-smoking bars to avoid the increase in smoke.  If this does happen that means these small bars will be increasingly dependent upon smokers. Instead of adjusting their business model to prepare for the coming smoke-free deadline they will be worse off than today.

Note that a new bar opened after January 2, 2011 it will be smoke-free regardless of the size.  Other exemptions include:

2. Not more than twenty percent (20%) of hotel and motel rooms rented to guests and designated as smoking rooms. All smoking rooms on the same floor must be contiguous and smoke from these rooms must not infiltrate into areas where smoking is prohibited under the provisions of this Ordinance. The status of rooms as smoking or nonsmoking may not be changed, except to add additional nonsmoking rooms.
3. Private clubs that have no employees, except when being used for a function to which the general public is invited; provided that smoke from such clubs does not infiltrate into areas
where smoking is prohibited under the provisions of this Ordinance. This exemption shall not apply to any organization that is established for the purpose of avoiding compliance with this Ordinance.
4. Outdoor areas of places of employment.
5. Tobacco retail stores as defined by this Ordinance.
6. Casino gaming areas as defined by this Ordinance.

I’m not overly bothered by these exemptions — except that last one.  Employees of casinos are not immune from the dangers of 2nd hand smoke.  Interestingly, the issue of casino workers exposed to smoke may get resolved in the courts.

Wynn Las Vegas is the second major resort operator to be hit with a lawsuit recently over secondhand smoke dangers. (Source)

One suit involved a pregnant casino employee.  A woman should not have to quit her job to protect her baby’s health (unless her job is something like a race car driver, stunt woman, etc).  Next steps will be to remove the casino exemption, pass similar measure in other Missouri Counties in the St. Louis area.  Ideally the state will finally pass a state-wide measure.

We’ve got a little more than 13 months until places must go smoke-free.  Hopefully some will make the transition sooner rather than waiting until the deadline. By going smoke-free before the deadline establishments can probably get some extra PR for doing so.  Along those lines, establishments that go smoke-free prior to the deadline may want to consider advertising that fact here.  Come January 3rd 2011 nearly every place will be smoke-free so by doing so early and advertising it they stand a better chance of not getting lost in the crowd of places.

On the other hand one restaurant owner told me before Tuesday he wanted to go smoke-free but wanted the law to require it.  He will continue as a smoking establishment until the deadline — he doesn’t want to offend his regulars.  He is glad it will become law so he is finally able to go smoke-free.  I can respect that.  I told him I’d visit him in 2011, but not before.

– Steve Patterson

Readers want change at the St. Louis Board of Aldermen

The poll last week received responses from a little more than 6% of the visitors to the site (174/2,848).  Of those that responded the message is very clear: the status quo is not good enough.

Q: St. Louis City has 28 wards. Many think the number should be reduced. How many is right?

• 8-10: 37 (21%)
• 14-16: 37 (21%)
• Keep the existing 28 wards: 19 (11%)
• Mix of ward, city-wide: 18 (10%)
• 11-13: 18 (10%)
• 5-7: 16 (9%)
• No wards, all city-wide: 11 (6%)
• 20-22: 8 (5%)
• 17-19: 8 (5%)
• Increase to more than 28: 2 (1%)
• 23-25 0 (0%)
• 26-27 0 (0%)
• 2-4 0 (0%)

Only 12% picked keeping the number of wards the same (11%) or higher (1%).  The other 88% of respondents all think 28 wards are too many for the City of St. Louis.  Ten percent, including me, voted for a mix of ward & city-wide representation.  The two biggest groups think a significant reduction in the number of wards with 8-10 and 14-16 each receiving 21% of the votes.

The question I have is this: will the current city “leaders” continue to ignore/fight the need for change or will guide the process to change the city’s charter on their own terms? My bet is they will go with the former, putting their collective heads in the sand and hope the call for change.  They’ll pull their heads out of the sand long enough to object to a coming citizen drive to change the charter.  “We weren’t consulted” they’ll cry out months from now.  Today the choice is theirs to make: show leadership or get out of the way as citizens set about reforming our city’s dated charter.

– Steve Patterson

Open Letter to the new Downtown Partnership President Maggie Campbell

This post is to welcome Maggie Campbell to St. Louis.  Campbell started work yesterday as the new President and CEO of the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis.  The following is from a September 30th St. Louis Business Journal article:

Campbell has been president of the Arlington (Texas) Downtown Management Association since 2006.

She will succeed Jim Cloar on Nov. 2 and become the first woman to hold the post, according to Shuntaé Shields Ryan, a Partnership spokeswoman.

Cloar announced his retirement plans in February after eight years at the helm.

Prior to her current position, Campbell served as president and CEO of the Old Pasadena Management District in Pasadena, Calif., and as executive director of the Dallas West End Association, a nonprofit organization that represents 24 blocks in the downtown Dallas historic entertainment district.

So now that everyone knows who I’m talking about I’m going to address the balance to her:

I’ve been a downtown resident for two years now. Even before I moved downtown I saw the potential.  I remember going on tours of future lofts in the mid-1990s.  Those never materialized but many others did.  Over my 19 years in St. Louis I’ve seen far to many great buildings razed.  I’ve seen some bad ones razed, but we still have too many of those.

I wanted to bring you up to speed on a variety of issues, giving you a different perspective that you probably won’t hear from the suits.

Busch Stadium:

• Seems to work well in downtown.
• Fans hang out before and after the game.
• Openness of the stadium is nice.
• Not paid for yet so I don’t expect changes for a long time.
• Two parking garages left over from previous Busch Stadium are horrible at the sidewalk level.  Retrofit of street-level retail not feasible.  Both garages need to go.

Ballpark Village:

• Good potential, good location.
• Cordish/Cardinals should create form-based standards and parcel out the land so that it can be built in stages by various entities.

Edward Jones Dome:

• Horrible structure that divides downtown from the near North side of town.
• Keep the Rams in the St. Louis region, just not downtown and probably not in the City of St. Louis.
• We should not invest more in the dome to meet the 2015 lease requirements.

Taxi stand at America’s Center:

• We have taxi cabs parking and driving on the public sidewalk where we have visitors to our city.
• Solution: move taxi stand to curb lane of Washington Ave.

Street Vendors:

• St. Louis’ current law is highly restrictive — too few licenses are issued.
• The area where licenses are issued is too small.
• Vendors are a great & cheap way to add life to sidewalks.

Parking (Bicycles):

• A handful of blocks on Washington Ave have some poorly placed bike racks.
• The rest of downtown mostly lacks bike parking.

Parking (On-Street):

• Every block needs to be evaluated to see where additional spaces can be added.
• Disabled parking needs to be added at metered spaces throughout downtown.

Parking (Garages):

• We have an excess number of garages although the suits will tell you we need more.

Bottle District:

• Not really a district, just vacant land North of the dome.
• Needs to be connected to adjacent areas.

Streets & intersections:

• 3-4 years ago a study was prepared that indicated some of our one-way streets could return to two-way traffic.  I say make all two-way.
• Pedestrian signals downtown are lacking.
• We need to change the name of Convention Plaza back to Delmar.

Downtown guides:

• This may be happening already but get some of then off the bikes and on foot instead.  They are more approachable on foot.
• The ones on bikes please make sure they actually secure their helmets.
• Make sure all shirts and jackets no longer say “CID” on the back because most don’t know that means Community Improvement District.

Arch Connection:

• The suits want to put the highway into an expensive 3-block long tunnel.
• They call the tunnel a lid so it sounds less expensive than it will be.
• A group of citizens has proposed a 2 mile long boulevard to replace the highway from Cass Ave to the Poplar Street Bridge.
• Connecting 2 miles is better than 3 blocks.

St. Louis Centre/skywalks:

• The failed downtown indoor mall.
• Walkways over the sidewalks on all sides.

Union Station:

• Not well connected to surrounding blocks.
• Needs residential closer.

22nd Street Interchange:

• Left over from a planned highway that is officially dead.
• Paul McKee plans to develop the area.
• Needs the restoration of the street grid.
• Possibly abandon highway connection here and build new interchange at Jefferson Ave.

Valet Parking:

• A few years ago numerous restaurants had out of control valet service.
• City needs a good way to permit and manage the valets so they conduct their business in a limited zone, leaving the rest of the street for the public.

Gateway Mall:

• Very long history, most of it not so good.
• Downtown has too much open space and not enough urban space.  Leave the mall but build out other areas to reduce total open space.
• Citygarden is amazing.  But many more blocks are awaiting a transformation.
• 1st priority is to extend the wide “hall” along the North side of Market St.

I’m sure I’ll think of other things but this is a good starter list.  Readers will no doubt leave additional items in the comments.  Many will disagree with me as well.  This shows you that citizens care about downtown and that not everyone agrees.  When the suits tell you something be sure to ask citizens what they think.  Your members do not represent the typical resident or downtown user.

We’ve already met virtually but I look forward to meeting you in person.  Welcome to St. Louis.

– Steve Patterson