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Preservation Board to Determine Fate of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Complex

December 11, 2005 Events/Meetings, History/Preservation, Politics/Policy, Religion, South City 38 Comments

staloy1.jpgLast month the St. Louis Preservation Board, appointed by the mayor, rubber stamped the demolition of the Doering Mansion on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. That same rubber stamp will likely be pulled from the political desk drawer to approve the razing of the St. Aloysius Gonzaga complex for 23 single family homes.

From the Suburban Journals on 9/28/2005:

Father Vince Bommarito, the priest of St. Ambrose Parish, said there was a conscious decision to not have the buildings of St. Aloysius remain intact.

“That church is actually older than St. Ambrose. People are committed to the brick and mortar. To turn that over to somebody else would be difficult for the people to handle in the long run,” Bommarito said.

St. Aloysius Parish was made part of St. Ambrose Parish when the archdiocese closed St. Aloysius at the end of June.

Huh? It would be difficult to see someone else reuse their old church so leveling the site is somehow better? The neighbor I spoke to is glad the area will be used for residential but likes the old buildings and trees. When I spoke to her today she was under the impression it was a done deal. With that pro-demo rubber stamp awaiting the preservation board it might be a done deal. But I’ve never let political pressure stop me from speaking my mind before.



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Miklasz asks “is it too late to put the old Busch back together again?”

December 11, 2005 Books, Downtown, Events/Meetings, Politics/Policy, St. Louis County 5 Comments

Local sports writer Bernie Miklasz had a great column in yesterday’s St. Louis Post Dispatch.

I don’t normally reprint full columns but the Post-Dispatch’s links expire in a couple of weeks. So, to keep a permanent record, here is his must-read column:

The old Busch Stadium is down. All that remains are scattered debris and a circular outline of where a ballpark used to stand. And that’s unfortunate. We should have stopped the wrecking ball, if for no other reason than to help the team’s owners.

I say this because I had no idea the new Busch stadium would create such financial hardship for team chairman Bill DeWitt and his partners. Actually, for years the media and fans were told the opposite: that the owners needed a new ballpark to increase revenue and payroll. And the new ballpark will open in 2006, so this should be a happy time, yes?

Well, one of DeWitt’s associates called me last week to talk on background and he politely made the point that the team can’t increase payroll for 2006 for a simple reason: The owners have reached into their own pockets to pick up much of the cost for building the new ballpark, and resources are limited.

Thursday I wrote a column criticizing the owners for holding the line on payroll, a position that may force general manager Walt Jocketty to search under sofa cushions and car seats for loose change if he wants to hire some new relief pitchers.

And just to make one point perfectly clear, I’m not asking the owners to go berserk and spend irresponsibly. I just would like to see Jocketty have some reasonable payroll flexibility to find what he needs to keep the 2006 roster up to standard, because the goal is to win the World Series.

Imagine what Jocketty could do with an extra $10 million in payroll. I’m not asking DeWitt to be George Steinbrenner, OK? But with the cost of baseball salaries on the rise this off-season, Jocketty could use some wiggle room on the payroll. It’s a reasonable request.

Anyway, back to the owners’ plight. DeWitt and associates are responsible for funding about 77 percent of the cost on the $388 million project, and they’ll be paying about $15 million annually for the next 22 years to retire the stadium bonds. But public money, including a $30 million tax break, is part of the deal. And fans contributed $40 million in the owners’ seat-license program.

To frame this in the proper context we have to go back to the beginning, to the sweet deal that Anheuser-Busch gave DeWitt and partners in selling the team in 1995.

For a sale price of $150 million, the new owners got one of baseball’s most storied franchises, Busch Stadium, four parking garages and land beneath two nearby hotels. In less than a year, the new owners sold the garages for $91 million and received an additional $9 million for the land. After this benevolence from the brewery, the new owners entered the baseball business with a terrific head start.

DeWitt and the partners have been good for baseball in St. Louis, and baseball in St. Louis has been good for them. The value of the franchise has increased every year, and the Cardinals were valued at $370 million by Forbes magazine before the 2005 season. With a new ballpark in play, the franchise value will undoubtedly jump again in 2006.

The owners are paying for a substantial part of the new Busch for a reason: They believed it was a positive and necessary investment that would pay off handsomely for them.

As team president Mark Lamping said of the new stadium two years ago, “We’re going to have premium seats and luxury boxes generating significantly more money.”

Right. And the owners and management said repeatedly that they needed the revenue boost from the stadium, and the new radio deal, in order to field the kind of team the fans have come to expect.

“We’d have a lot more money to put into the payroll,” DeWitt said of a new stadium back in 2002. “We’ve made some projections on payroll in a new ballpark and payroll here (at the old Busch), and it’s significantly different. It means a lot.”

These words pleased Jocketty, who at the time said: “The biggest challenge I have this off-season is trying to rebuild a pitching staff with very limited resources. And if we were in the new stadium right now, I guarantee you we’d be in a position to raise our payroll significantly to the point where we probably could re-sign all the guys we have as free agents.”

Uh, not so fast there, Walt …

Jocketty might be confused these days. Because in 2004 DeWitt said: “The new stadium will provide us with increased revenues and the ability to have a higher payroll. We should be in a more competitive position.”

Wasn’t the OLD Busch Stadium a money pit, and a drain on the owners’ finances? Oddly enough, while competing at the old Busch from 1996-2005, these owners consistently raised payroll.

But now that the new Busch is just about here – complete with higher ticket prices, more premium seats, and all the revenue-enhancing amenities – the payroll is staying the same.

I’m sorry to ask, but is it too late to put the old Busch back together again?

I don’t want to see DeWitt and his partners suffer through the incredible hardship of having to compete in a new ballpark.

Miklasz raises some very good points about the arguments used to get the new stadium — the old stadium was a money pit and we need to compete with other teams. Now that it is too late it is beginning to look like St. Louis may have been snookered.

I enjoy watching baseball games in person. I’m not a devoted fan but on the times I’ve gone to the game I had a great time and paid close attention to what was happening on the field. While we like a winning team I think St. Louis fans have proven they’ll support the Cardinals win or lose. Sure, they’ll bitch about players or management making bad decisions but they will still line up to buy tickets. Only now they’ll pay more for the right to watch a game and with salaries not increasing as expected, maybe we won’t be so competitive after all. But the team owners will have more money in their pockets and their investment will be worth substantially more. Seems par for the course…

On a somewhat related note, my State Representative, Jeanette Mott Oxford, and Fred Lindeke will be in court on Wednesday December 14th at 9am:

The attorney for Coalition Against Public Funding for Stadiums will be pleading our appeal related to the lawsuit involving the St. Louis County bonds toward building of the new Cardinals stadium.

If you can attend to show support for Mott Oxford and Lindeke go to the Wainwright Building, Division One.

I don’t always agree with the view of the economists at the St. Louis Federal reserve but I found an interesting article on public funding of stadiums from 2001:

Cities go to great lengths to lure a new team to town or to keep the home team home. They feel compelled to compete with other cities that offer new or updated facilities; otherwise, the home team might make good on its threat to leave. The weight of economic evidence, however, shows that taxpayers spend a lot of money and ultimately don’t get much back.

I highly recommend reading the full article. Please remember, just because you love baseball and the Cardinals doesn’t mean you must love the team’s owners or that we must give them what they ask for. As responsible citizens it is our duty to educate ourselves, question leadership and challenge assumptions.

– Steve

 

Assumptions And Perspectives May Vary

December 7, 2005 Downtown, History/Preservation, Midtown, Planning & Design, Politics/Policy 4 Comments

Following my post on Sunday entitled ‘Festivus vs. Rams’ I had a very good face-to-face conversation with a friend of mine that happened to have a different take than I did on the benefit of the dome on downtown. In short, he argued the early 1990s dome and convention center expansion was positive.

Again, he is a friend and I value his opinions. It was a good conversation, one that you can’t get from short blog posts and the subsequent comments. What I got from our conversation was a much different view on things than I have but also a better understanding of how someone might conclude this makes a positive contribution.

His view in favor of the dome went something like this:

Before the dome was built the area was a dump.

Tony’s restaurant was isolated.

The bus station wasn’t attractive.

Much of the area was just surface parking lots.

The dome & expansion cleaned up the area and gave it some physical form beyond random buildings and surface lots.

Without the possibility of football the city never would have done anything with the area.

The last bit is the key to our different perspective. I’ve been arguing what could have been instead of an expanded convention center & football stadium while others, like my friend, are of the belief that if we didn’t build what we have now we never would have done anything with the area. So at the very least the dome is positive in that it was something. Both perspectives are valid, neither is right or wrong.

Yes, had the convention center and dome site been left as-is the downtown area wouldn’t be the same, or as positive. And I’ll even go along with the idea the area could very well be sitting there the same (or worse) today had we not expanded the convention center and built the dome. If that were indeed the case then the loft district and other improvements in downtown would not be where they are today.

But, this is all assuming A) the convention center and dome were the only alternatives for the area and B) that nothing else would have gotten built in the last 15 years.

So bear with me oh great Rams fans. Step back to the mid to late 80’s when Bill Bidwell wanted his own stadium or he’d pull the football Cardinals from St. Louis (as it in fact did). What if we would have built a stadium on the Pruitt-Igoe site then? What if we had put the football Cardinals in Metro East along what was then a future MetroLink route?

Stay with me on this…

With a football stadium added to the region near downtown the current convention center & dome site in the early 90’s would still have been a mess with Tony’s the only ray of hope. But we wouldn’t have spent a few extra hundred million losing a team and then spending eight years trying to get one back. That time lost and effort spent was costly. Not that it would have actually happened but humor me and wonder if the convention/dome area had been remade into a vibrant part of downtown — keep street grid, new shops & retail, new residential buildings, more restaurants to compliment Tony’s.

What’s done is done. We have the dome and convention center already. It is better than the nearly vacant mess that was there because it adds people to the area. But, I still think, in hindsight, the area could have made a much greater contribution to downtown. The purpose of this exercise is not to beat up the people that made the decisions in the 50’s-70’s to raze buildings for parking or to make those that enjoy a Rams game to feel guilty about the area. No, the purpose is to learn what have we done in the past and why. What can we learn from this to help us in future decisions?

I want us to expand our thinking when it comes to new projects.

In many respects I believe we are still in a 1950’s “urban renewal” mode of thinking — that everything must be located downtown; that we must create neat & tidy districts of narrowly defined uses; that everything needs parking; and that a few big events or venues is better than blocks and blocks of smaller activities.

St. Louis, prior to the 50’s, had shopping, entertainment and workplaces spread throughout the city. These were connected both by streetcars and roads for cars. Downtown was the center of activity but it wasn’t where everything had to be.

The fact we placed the symphony hall on Grand rather than downtown in 1968 is a very good thing. But trying to build an arts and entertainment district around it and the Fox is a bad thing. We should have art, entertainment, sports, retail, restaurants, residences, and workplaces everywhere — not just in districts. But I’m getting off track, I’ll have to come back to this another time.

My main thought is when I post about a project not being the best or most urban it is on the assumption that we could have done better. I now know that some of you will have the assumption that as least we did something. Maybe I’m being too optimistic (or naive)? But just maybe some of you are not giving the region enough credit for being able to rebuilt the core into a world class city.

– Steve

 

CBD Traffic Study Presentation Available Online

December 7, 2005 Downtown, Parking, Politics/Policy, Transportation Comments Off on CBD Traffic Study Presentation Available Online

Yesterday’s CBD Traffic Study presentation is now available online (2.8mb PDF). The team is asking for feedback this week as they will be meeting next week to make final recommendations.

My thoughts from the meeting can be found here.

– Steve

 

Initial Thoughts on CBD Traffic Study

December 6, 2005 Downtown, Events/Meetings, Parking, Politics/Policy, Transportation 9 Comments

I attended the presentation today on the downtown traffic study. Here are my initial thoughts:

  • Boundary for study should have included Cole on the North rather than Lucas. Other boundaries includes Memorial on the East, Spruce on the South, and Tucker on the West.
  • Doug Shatto, President of the consulting firm Crawford, Bunte, Brammeier did an excellent job of explaining the tradeoffs between various methods such as one-way vs. two-way streets. I felt he understands what it takes to create a pedestrian & retail-friendly environment. What I didn’t get was a sense that he will fight for that. Instead I think he’ll do whatever the city tells him.
  • The steering committee is still undecided on many aspects of the project and they are looking for feedback before making a final decision most likely next week. I will review some of the things up for debate and a few others that should be.
  • Washington Avenue East of Tucker. While they say that on-street parking has not been ruled out I’m suspicious. They hinted at allowing parking except during peak hours. I pointed out after the meeting to Doug Shatto how KitchenK will not use their sidewalk cafe license until they have a row of parked cars to make sidewalk dining more hospitable to their patrons. I also pointed out that Copia is allowed to take a traffic lane for valet parking. If we can take a lane for a valet we can certainly take the balance of the lane for parking as the flow is already restricted. I still want to see on-street parking all the way from Tucker to at least Broadway.

    I asked at the end of the meeting about Cole street being abel to take some of the traffic off Washington Avenue. Shatto did indicate that if Washington Avenue was restricted from four lanes to two lanes through drivers would likely alter their route and use the nearly vacant Cole. Another factor that may reduce some traffic on Washington Avenue is people going around the block due to one-way streets. They are recommending changing 8th & 11th from one-way to two-way (more later).

  • Streets they deemed “appropriate” to change from one-way to two-way were 8th, 11th (North of Market only), and Walnut (from Tucker to either to 4th or Broadway).
  • Streets they deemed “inappropriate” to change from one-way to two-way were 9th, 10th and Pine.
  • Streets they deemed “inappropriate but viable” to change from one-way to two-way were 6th, 7th, and Locust.
  • One-way streets not even mentioned were Broadway or Chestnut.
  • The immediate plan (2006) is to change the controllers for the existing signals. This will allow them greater flexibility in controlling the signals via computer. This might include changing the timing for game days or setting the signals to flash after a certain time. I think changing the timing makes sense as this could help with special events. I’m not sure how I feel about the flashing signals after hours. Does this say we have so little going on that we don’t need normal timing? Or does it say that we change over to a pedestrian environment after hours?
  • They mentioned trying to change Missouri law to allow a left turn on red on one-way streets. Apparently this is allowed in 16 or so states but not Missouri. It is commonplace downtown to see drivers do this.
  • I think they did an excellent job of evaluating pedestrian concerns and will do a good job upgrading the system and reducing conflicts. One of the changes it to go to a simple two-phase system where pedestrians are permitted to cross with the flow of traffic. Currently some intersections are considered scrambled where pedestrians can cross any direction while cars wait. While this sounds good that also means that they are generally not allowed to cross with the flow. It seems more natural to have the simpler system.
  • Conversion of streets to two-way is a long term goal and may take a number of years, mostly due to lack of funding.
  • One part of the plan was looking at a 2004 Streetscape plan for downtown. This called for a wider median on Tucker. This would reduce the total number of lanes two three in each direction — including parking lanes. The drawings shown did not include parking although on-street parking could be included. While I agree that Tucker is way too wide I think not having on-street parking at times is a mistake.
  • The proposed Mississippi River bridge was considered as part of the plan but the future MetroLink loop through downtown was not considered. Hmmmm.
  • As Shutte said in the presentation different users have conflicting demands. The CEO wants his/her employees getting to/from work quickly while the retailer wants a great environment for customers to stroll and spend. It is a trade off and we must “strike a balance.” For the last 50 years or so the balance has been decidedly off balance with the emphasis toward moving cars quickly, people be damned. My first reaction is that we need to tilt the scale dramatically the other way and screw traffic flow as retribution for the last 50 years. But that will just cause other problems that will need to be solved in time. Currently the scale is out of balance big time in favor of cars and the proposed changes bring it much closer to the middle ground they just don’t go quite far enough to create a true balance. Just a little more guys!

    • – Steve

     

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