Singler Gets 25th Ward Endorsement

At the end of a painfully long meeting, Angie Singler received the Democratic ward endorsement in the 25th for the March 3rd Democratic primary.  This race has four candidates.  Incumbent Dorothy Kirner is not running for re-election.

Singler received the most votes with Shane Cohn coming in 2nd, Travis Reems 3rd and Debbie Kotraba in 4th. Kotraba wasn’t even present at the meeting.

My congrats to Angie for her many months of hard work already put into this race.

Board of Aldermen Has Lots of Dead Weight

I know from my reader survey that nearly 10% of you are 18-24 years old.  I also know from the Board of Aldermen Seniority List (PDF) that Phyllis Young and Fred Wessels have been Aldermen your entire lives.  All through your period in diapers, kindergarten, grade school, those awkward teen years, and college.  Both are up for re-election next Spring.  The filing deadline for candidates is 5pm Friday.

Others are not far behind.  In my view the majority of them need to step aside at this or the 2011 election cycle (depending upon if they are from odd or even numbered ward).  They are dead weight holding the city back, keeping an entire generation from participating.  It really is very selfish of them.

In 2009/10 I’ll be working on a ballot initiative to get term limits for city offices.  I know many of you say “just vote them out.”  That is fine assuming they have a challenger.  I’ve also heard people say without institutional memory the lobbyists take over.  I hate to tell you this, but these aldermen have been buddies with the same lobbyists for decades now.  Decades!  If these selfish folks won’t step aside on their own we need a mechanism to do it for them.

The other high priority is reducing the number of Aldermen from the current 28.  Some say half – 14.  I’m thinking even less, like 9 or 10.

Downtown Bookended by Delayed (Dead?) Mega-projects

Acres and acres sit idle on the edges of downtown awaiting promised new development.  On the South edge we have Ballpark Village and just North of America’s Center and the Edward Jones Dome we have the Bottleworks District.  Both have made news over the past few
years, lately for not going anywhere.

Above:  blocks sit vacant awaiting the proposed Bottleworks District
The latter was in the news again this week for a settlement on one of the blocks the city took from its rightful owner:

A St. Louis jury awarded $2.8 million on Friday to the former owner of two acres just north of the Edwards Jones Dome downtown in a fight over eminent domain.

The city’s Land Clearance for Redevelopment Agency condemned the two-acre tract after the owner refused sell it in 2005 for $523,000.

The property, a city block bordered by Sixth, Seventh, Carr and Biddle Streets, was included in the “Bottle District” redevelopment plan for a $226 million entertainment destination including a restaurant, concert venue and bowling alley. It has not yet come through.

Today the entire site remains covered in gravel with much of the intact street grid blocked by Jersey barriers.

The surrounding blocks could have been developed without taking this one block from the owner.  But assembling larger and larger tracts for larger and larger projects is what proponents say must be done to get development.  Judging from the broken sidewalks and vacant blocks of land  think perhaps it is high time we questioned this practice.

Granted creating the ideal urban building on a single narrow parcel surrounded by vacant blocks is going to be an island for a long time.  Development does have to be large enough to build both excitement and a sustainable level of visitors.

An alternative to the single developer mega-project is to create a zoning overlay district that outlines the urban design qualities that future buildings must have.  This allows different property owners to participate in the redevelopment.  It also allows the business owner to build their own structure without being tied up in an increasingly complicated and difficult process of financing the mega-project.

This city was built one building at a time — each fitting into the grid.  I think we need to return to such a scale to finish filling in the gaps in our urban fabric.

Syndicate/Trust Opens, Developer Hints at Coming Retail

Friday night was an event that at one time looked like it would never happen, a renovated Syndicate/Trust building had gala grand opening with a ribbon cutting by the Mayor. The reason it looked like it might not happen is that a previous owner of it and the former Century building wanted to raze both structures (the entire block) for surface parking. The city refused to issue demolition permits and this owner even got a court ruling to allow the demolitions. The city intervened and purchased both buildings to save them from the wrecking ball.

Of course the city did an about face and advocated the demolition of the Century half of the block in favor of yet another parking garage. No RFP (request for proposals) was issued by the city on the Century, it was just one of those done deals completed behind closed doors. Thankfully due to various lawsuits and flack over the Century an RFP was issued by the city for the Syndicate. Craig Heller’s LoftWorks partnered with Sherman & Associates (of Minneapolis) had the winning proposal over the now closed Pyramid Companies and perhaps others. Thankfully Pyramid didn’t get this project to or it would likely still be full of pigeons rather than downtown residents.

The Mayor in his remarks talked about how the city stepped in to keep both the Syndicate & Century from being razed — he starts to say “how we saved these buildings” — buildings plural. But then he remembered the deal to go ahead and raze the historic Century even though a vacant site was available for the garage. just to the North of the Old Post Office.

Here is a short video with remarks from Mayor Slay & Craig Heller:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUYB9z2tK4Q[/youtube]

Did he say a chocolate cafe? Yes he did! And a fast food place, a sports themed full service restaurant, a hair salon, an “acoustic music venue” and a wine bar. Wine without food? Oh no there goes downtown, where is Craig Schmid to the rescue? And finally he mentioned the inclusion of a “local bookstore” at the space across the street. Seriously, a bookstore? That is huge! All eyes will be on him as they make the official announcement about future tenants. I’m downright giddy about the addition of a locally owned bookstore to our downtown. As long as we can keep the city from giving major tax breaks to then get a Borders to move in and put the local place out of business.

Mayor Slay is correct that Craig Heller has been a downtown pioneer. When we had no grocery store he took a personal risk and helped open City Grocers. Heller was also one of the key drivers behind the push to get car sharing in the St Louis area. His firm, LoftWorks, is a sponsor of one if not two of the downtown WeCars.

Heller assured me this retail will all be in place and open before ballpark village opens.  Congrats to Craig & George and welcome to the new residents, restaurateurs, and retailers.

Do We Even Want to Keep the Rams, Can We Afford To

I’ve never been to a football game of any sort. That is saying quite a bit considering I did my undergrad work at the University of Oklahoma where football is seemingly important to everyone. Upon finishing at OU I moved to St Louis in 1990 just in time to catch the city trying to win an expansion team and finally getting the Rams from LA a few years later. I’ve never been to one of the few home games because frankly the sport bores me greatly. Baseball is an interesting game to watch in person, football is not.

Still I recognize the many fans the sport has. I also recognize what major sports can do for a region. Although we must accept the long standing history the baseball Cardinals have in St Louis. The Rams, I’m afraid, do not have the same strong ties to St Louis or the taxpayers, er, the fans.

Out of desperation in the early 1990s we gave the Rams a sweet deal to lure them to St Louis — that over the 30 year lease on the then new dome we’d make sure it stayed in the top 10% in the NFL, reviewed every 10 years. If we don’t keep up, the Rams are free to graze in other pastures.  As the Post-Dispatch reminded us recently, the last review point, at the 20 year marker, is in 2015 — just seven years away.   The P-D also had a rundown of some new stadiums coming online.  They are, in a word, expensive.  Try a billion dollars.

Last time the city, county and state all found a way to fund the dome (even without a team).  But the billion dollar question is this — at what point does keeping the Rams in St Louis get too expensive?  At what point does the cost far outweigh any real or perceived benefit the community gets in return for the investment of public dollars.  A billion dollars can do a lot for a region if leveraged properly.  I’d personally put the billion into a low cost per mile streetcar system and run it through an area prime for new construction with new zoning with some hefty density requirements.  I think  dollar for dollar return would be far greater and longer lasting than with a new football stadium.

The second question I have is this — assuming we think the Rams are worth keeping and that building a new billion dollar stadium is just par for the course —  where should it be built and what do we do with the old dome?  Baseball fits nicely into an urban context but football fans have the tailgate tradition that requires acres of surface parking.  For this reason I don’t think football belongs in a downtown setting, especially given the few times per year they play home games.   Locating a new dome on the East side of the river could be a nice gesture toward the idea that we are all part of the St Louis region.  There is also plenty of land available, transit access and by then a new bridge across the river for fans that can afford tickets and gasoline.

Another option is to place the new dome near downtown — in the old Pruitt-Igoe site.  Tie in a downtown streetcar circulator system running to the new dome and we might just get new development along the line.  The area around the new dome wouldn’t become village probably but the zoning of the area we set the stage for what it would become.  The village might end up being on the way to the dome.

Other options include far flung suburban locations along an interstate highway. Ug, boring.

And finally we have the issue of the abandoned dome.  Do we keep it around as addition space for the convention center?  No, get rid of the big thing so we ca repair that part of downtown — restoring streets lined with buildings oriented to the street.  Currently the convention center and dome acts as a large barrier between downtown and the residential areas to the North.  We need to do what we can to reconnect the city to downtown.

To recap the questions are as follows:  Is it worth a billion dollars to the region to keep the Rams in town?  If yes, where should a new dome be built?  And lastly what do we do with the old dome?